“Do it again,” Helena says. “Harder this time.”
Lorenzo breathes again, two stronger puffs, then rubs the baby’s back more firmly. For one terrible moment, nothing happens.
The baby coughs. Once, twice. And then he cries…a thin, reedy wail that’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard in my life.
The whole room breaks at once. Ryker kisses my hair, his massive shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Marcus drops the flashlight, the beam skittering across the ceiling. Rex laughs through tears, his green eyes bright with emotion. Alaric just holds me and shakes, his bond pulsing with love and relief so intense it’s almost painful.
Lorenzo places the baby on my chest, his hands trembling. “We have a son,” he says quietly, his voice raw. “A perfect, beautiful son.”
I sob, cradling the tiny, warm body against my skin. He’sso small with a shock of dark hair and perfect little features. His cries have already quieted to small, hiccupping sounds as he nestles against me, instinctively seeking comfort.
Then I feel the warmth of a sudden rush of liquid between my legs. I shift, trying to see what’s happening, and feel a wave of dizziness wash over me.
“Something’s happening,” I say, scared.
“Is Anya okay?” says my mother’s voice while I’m in a haze of trying to stay awake.
My mom appeared in the doorway, soaking from the rain and breathless. Her face changes, fear flashing across her features.
Lorenzo looks down, his face paling. “She’s bleeding a lot.”
There’s a moment of silence, then Helena’s voice, sharp with urgency. “She’s hemorrhaging. Elevate her legs. Apply direct pressure to the source. Find the pressure points on her abdomen—two inches below her navel, and another two inches to each side. An alpha can use the bond to help slow the bleeding.”
Everything starts to feel far away. The voices around me fade, replaced by a rushing sound in my ears. I’m so tired, suddenly. So very, very tired.
“I’m tired,” I whisper to Ryker, my eyes already closing. “Just for a minute...”
“Absolutely not,” he snarls, his voice breaking, tapping my face as he holds the baby. “You have a baby to meet. You do not get to leave me. Do you hear me, Anya? You do not get to leave me.”
His face blurs above me, tears streaming down his cheeks. The sight of it is shocking enough to cut through the fog creeping over my mind.
Marcus is pressing on my abdomen exactly where Helena directed, his face set in lines of fiercedetermination. Alaric is at my side, his hand on my chest, pouring bond-warmth into me—a technique I’ve only heard about, never experienced. It’s like liquid sunlight spreading through my veins, warm and golden and impossibly strong. I can actually feel some of the pain leaving my body, flowing into his through the bond connecting us.
Ryker keeps the baby on my chest, though I can barely feel him now. “The baby’s presence will help,” he explains. “It triggers the right hormones.”
The bleeding slows. It takes maybe three minutes, though it feels like three hours, as each of my alphas works to keep me conscious and alive.
I stay awake through sheer force of will, watching their faces as they move around me. Lorenzo is at my head, his hand gripping mine, Alaric pouring warmth into me through the bond, Marcus applying pressure to my abdomen, and Ryker holding our son against my chest. Rex is on the phone, frantically looking for a helicopter to take me to the hospital.
And slowly, painfully, the bleeding stops.
“She’s stable,” Lorenzo says, his voice shaking with relief. “The bleeding’s slowing.”
“She needs rest,” Helena says through the phone. “And she needs to be at a hospital the moment the storm clears. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
The storm rages for another six hours. My mother makes tea on the gas stove in the kitchen, the only working appliance in the house. Marcus hasn’t let go of my hand, his massive palm warm around my smaller one. Lorenzo is sitting against the wall, our tiny son cradled against his bare chest, skin to skin, because the baby is still small and needs warmth, and I need rest.
Rex is quietly watching and observing me for any sudden changes. And Alaric is curled against my back, monitoring me through the bond every second, ready to pour more of that impossible warmth into me if I start to fade again.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the wind starts to die down. Ryker steps out onto the porch, returning with the first good news we’ve had in hours.
“The worst is over,” he says, his voice rough with exhaustion. “I can see stars between the clouds.”
The helicopter arrives at dawn, its rotors cutting through the morning silence.
I’m carried out of the mansion on a stretcher, our son nestled on my chest. My five alphas surround me, Marcus and Rex carrying the stretcher, Ryker and Alaric walking alongside, Lorenzo just behind with an armful of blankets and supplies.
The sun is rising over the wreckage of Wolf Isle, painting the devastation in shades of gold and pink. Palm trees are down everywhere, their massive trunks sprawled across the lawn. Debris litters the beach—pieces of dock, fishing boats, even part of a roof. The mansion itself is damaged but standing, windows broken, shutters torn away, but the structure intact.
