All I have to look forward to is the night when the boys eventually come curl around me, and we can catch a few hours of sleep all huddled together as if we are our own little pack. Usually one of the guys falls asleep with his hand on my stomach, which is something new that started happening once they found out that I was pregnant.
Sometimes it feels like the only thing that’s changed.
It’s almost as if they take unspoken turns of who holds their hand there against me and against the baby. It’s a feeling of reassurance that let me sleep without tossing and turning with worry.
It also makes the baby calmer too. I have no basis for comparison about what pregnancy is supposed to feel like, certainly not a shifter pregnancy, but seeing as though I can’t possibly be that far along, it seems odd to me that I would already be feeling the little butterfly-fluttering movements of something inside me.
At first I thought it was just my imagination. But then I began to notice that the feeling subsided every time one of the boys had their hand on my stomach, so I knew that I haven’t been imagining it.
The baby reacts to their touch. More so even than mine.
I try to pay attention to whether or not the movements are different depending on which of the boys’ hands is holding me. I thought maybe that would give me a clue as to which boy the baby belonged to. But it doesn’t seem to matter. The baby quiets and sleeps no matter which of their hands holds it.
It’s these moments I hold on to, even when the rest of the world feels as if it’s ready to overwhelm me. These are also the moments that are always cut too short. No matter how much time Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb spend with me, it’s never enough. I’m always left wanting more. Needing more.
“Time to get dressed for a family celebration,” Lydia smiles, as if that’s any answer to my question. It’s always riddles with her.
I look at her with a perplexed stare, trying not to let my growing annoyance show. It’s not her fault that my mood shifts as quickly as the sunlight outside. One moment, all is aglow. The next, clouds have swooped in to cast all in shadow.
“What are we celebrating?” I ask, after a moment of silence. I can’t imagine anything worth celebrating right now. All I can think of is how we’re all trying to make it through the next few months without dying.
Which seems to be inevitable, at this point. Someone will have to die.
We won’t be allowed to continue on as we are. That much has been made clear.
It’s these dark thoughts, the same thoughts that have been running over and over in my mind these days, that makes what she says next somehow surprising.
“Your pregnancy, of course!” she says, beaming.
I pause.
“What?”
I look down at my swollen stomach as if seeing it for the first time.
Lydia sits down gently on the side of the bed, one hand reaching out to me with a soft touch.
“I blame myself,” she says. “I should have done this earlier. I can only imagine what you’re going through, especially after …”
She trails off. Especially after we all thought I was made barren—poisoned and robbed by Remus just days after my wedding. Just days before the turning that never fully happened.
“Sabrina,” she continues, her voice heavy with emotion as her eyes drop down to rest on my stomach, “it’s a miracle that you’re pregnant with a pup from the boys’ bloodline. It’s a miracle that the poison didn’t take and didn’t make you barren. The fact that you were already pregnant and didn’t even know it, and that the poison that Remus gave you didn’t kill you or that precious child inside of you … is nothing short of a miracle. And that needs to be celebrated.”
Her eyes lift back up to mine, tears shining in the corners.
For the first time, I realize what this means to her.
It doesn’t matter which son bore the child within me. Not, at least, to her.
She’s going to be a grandmother … a gift she thought was stolen from her as well.
“I didn’t think you guys believed in miracles,” I say without meaning for it to sound as blunt as it probably comes out.
But it doesn’t faze Lydia. She only laughs.
“We do sometimes,” she says. “And you should, too. Especially now. Your body itself is a miracle right. Never before to my knowledge has a turned wolf been able to survive for multiple moons without completing their first transformation. Not only have you survived that, and still have yet to complete your first shift, but you have also survived being poisoned, being pregnant, and being in battle whist dealing with it all.”
“Yeah,” I chuckle. “No wonder I’m so fucking tired all the time.”