The kitchen empties. Brenna, Merric, Conner, Willow, me.
“That was well-handled,” Brenna says.
“It was a bandage. It won’t hold.”
“It’ll hold long enough.” She picks up a file on the table in front of her. “The hearing preparation is almost done. Conner’s testimony is solid. We have detailed ledgers. Arden’s intelligence connects the Forresters to the broader network. When we present, the councils won’t be able to ignore it.”
Conner shifts Mia on his hip. She still doesn’t talk much. A word here. A word there. Conner’s name. Willow’s name. Mine.
“Bri.” She says it now, looking at me from Conner’s hip. Her hand stretches out. Just reaching. Wanting contact.
I give her my finger. She wraps her hand around it, holds on.
My stomach does the lurching thing again. My throat tightens.
Poor kid. To go through so much…
I let Mia hold my finger, and I look at Conner, and I think about what Martin’s wife said —our children grew up in a facility, Forrester— and I think about the man who reaches to me who put them there.
And then I think about the morning in the forest when he woke me with his hand on my stomach, his thumb stroking idle circles. The touch was gentle, and I let it be gentle.
His thumb on my stomach. His hand. The same place my wolf keeps curling toward.
A thought forms, and I crush it before it finishes.
No. It’s not possible.
My wolf disagrees. My wolf is certain.
Mia’s grip tightens on my finger. I look down at her. She’s looking up at me, and for a second — just a second — the dark eyes are focused with an intensity that goes beyond a three-year-old’s attention span. She’s reading me. Whatever her telepathy does, however it works, she’s picking up something from my head right now, and her grip tightens in response.
I extract my finger gently. Stand up straight and cross my arms.
“I’m going to run the south ridge again,” I tell the room. Nobody questions it. Briar runs when she needs to think. Everyone knows that.
I make it to the tree line before the next lurch hits. Stronger. A wave rolling through my belly that sends me to one knee in the leaves. I feel it again, that fierce, focused turn toward my center that I’ve been feeling all day.
I wait for it to pass. It doesn’t pass. It settles. Not gone. Changed. From a sharp lurch to a low, persistent hum that sits in my belly and won’t be ignored.
The heat is over. This isn’t the heat. This is something else.
I go to Greta.
She’s alone in the kitchen as always, the meeting’s debris cleared, a pot on the stove. She looks up when I come in and reads my face.
“Sit.”
I sit. My hands are on my knees. The hum in my belly hasn’t stopped.
“Something’s wrong,” I say. “Not the heat — that’s passed. Something else. My wolf keeps turning inward. Toward my stomach. And there’s a—” I don’t have the right word. “A heaviness. Low. Like something settling in.”
Greta dries her hands on a cloth and crosses to me. She puts one cool, dry hand on my forehead. Then she moves her hand to my stomach. Presses gently. Her eyes close. She stays like that for a long time. Her lips move, counting something I can’t hear.
She opens her eyes. “The seed takes root.”
I blink at her. “What?”
“You’re growing a baby, honey.”