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NicolaiThere's a version of me that other Alphas know.There’s the version of me that delivers threats with the cadence of pleasantries. The version who never needs to raise his voice to end an argument because it’s understood, by anyone who’s listening, that I’ve already won. The version who is always the calmest person in the room, because showing fear is a death sentence.This week alone I handled two such situations that required the Woolf family's particular brand of resolution. The first involved a shipping partner who had developed the impression that our arrangement included a renegotiation option I had not offered. Dimitri handled the preliminary conversation. I appeared at the end of it to reinforce our stance on the matter. The partner revised his position immediately and permanently."Did you have to say it like that?" Dimitri asked after."Like what?" I raised my eyebrow, feigning ignorance. "Like you were commenting on the weather." He grumbled. “Would it kill you to l
Skye The event I now affectionately refer to as the 3 AM moment occurs on a Tuesday.Benji has been crying for forty minutes. Not the hungry cry. Not the tired cry. Not any of the classifiable cries—just the cry that means the world is overwhelming and I have feelings about this and I need you to know.I have tried everything I know.I'm sitting on the floor of the nursery with my back against the side of the crib, Benji on my chest still crying, because the floor felt necessary and also because I got down here and standing up again felt like too much effort.I am beginning to cry too, which I will not admit is primarily the six-weeks-postpartum hormones that Dr. Chernov warned me about and which I was confident would not significantly affect me because I am a practical person. It is primarily the hormones.It is also 3 AM and Benji has been crying for forty minutes and I can't fix it and there's a specific quality to 3 AM that makes everything feel permanent and final in ways that d
SkyeIt’s been six weeks since Benji was born. At least I think it has. I’m pretty sure. To be honest, time has stopped making sense.But regardless of time or my inability to keep it, here are the things I’ve learned so far:I can spend forty-five minutes on a single feeding—trying to get Benji to latch, repositioning, trying again, succeeding, losing it, trying again—and then look up and discover it's 4 AM and I haven't eaten since yesterday's lunch and somehow the entire day has both lasted forever and not happened at all.Well, that’s not entirely true. Nicolai would never let me go a whole day without eating. But the principle stands. I’ve definitely lost all concept of time or schedule.I mentioned this to Dr. Chernov at the two-week appointment. He just looked at me like I was stating the obvious and said, "Yes. That's newborns." Very helpful.Here is what nobody tells you about loving a baby: It's not soft. It's not the warm, gauzy feeling implied by the imagery. It's sharp. I
Jaxon Eventually, the room quiets of all the chaos that ensues after a delivery. The doctor leaves to return to his bed, most likely. The nurses come and go quietly as they bustle about cleaning up the aftermath. And Skye sleeps. Nicolai steps out—gives me time, which is its own kind of grace I didn't expect from him and probably don't deserve. But I notice it. File it away with everything else I'm learning about who this man actually is.But more importantly, I sit with my son.We have the kind of conversation you can only have when the other party can't talk back yet. When there's no risk of being misunderstood or contradicted or asked to follow through on something specific."I'm going to be better."He doesn't react. Just breathes, small and steady, against my chest."That's not a promise I'm making to get something from your mother. I know it doesn't work that way anymore. I know I don't get credit for intentions." I look at his perfect, sleeping face. "You're not going to grow
JaxonBenjamin Marco, my son, weighs seven pounds and has his mother's eyes and my mouth and has been in the world for approximately eleven minutes when I understand, with complete and devastating clarity, everything I threw away. Everything I could never fully comprehend until this very moment. I watched him be born. Was present for every moment of the final hour—Skye's hand crushing mine, her voice breaking on a sound I'd never heard her make, the particular courage of a woman doing something enormous and doing it without complaint, without fear, just doing it because there was no version of not doing it.I thought I understood what this would mean. I didn't.Nothing prepares you for the specific quality of silence that exists in that gap between your child being physically here and actually crying. The way time does something strange in that space—stretches, or stops, or simply ceases to be the thing you thought it was. Three seconds. Four. The longest unit of time I've ever exper
SkyeThe dynamic between Jaxon and Nicolai settles into something functional. Not by design. By necessity—mine, specifically, which is the only currency that matters in this room right now.Jaxon is on my left. Nicolai is on my right. They take their places wordlessly and seem to accept the other’s role in this drama without complaint. I’ve never been more grateful because I have no brainpower to spare on Alpha posturing. To be honest, I did not expect Jaxon to be good at this. I don't know why I didn't expect it—he's an Alpha, he was trained for crisis, and somewhere under everything he did wrong he has always been capable of showing up when the situation is clear enough. And birth is nothing if not clear.He talks me through contractions. Not telling me to breathe—he doesn't do that. He says my name. Says I've got you and you're doing it and almost through. Grounding things. Consistent things. A handrail in the dark. I grab onto it.And then the contraction peaks and I can't hold o
Skye "You knew," I murmur to Diana. "You knew what it was like to love someone you couldn't have while trapped with someone who didn't truly love you back."Diana nods, her eyes bright with unshed tears."I knew. I lived it for years. Thomas was never cold the way Jaxon was to you but a part of him
SkyeDiana and I are sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through some pack supply requests, when I notice some things I've missed before. Probably because I didn’t want to notice, if I'm being honest. But now that we’re sharing space, there is no avoiding the intimacy that exists between my aunt
NicolaiOne of my informants—a wolf who works in the Greenwood River Pack's administrative office—calls with an update I didn't ask for but apparently thought I needed."The Alpha’s daughter, the woman you’re having us watch, you know she’s pregnant, right?" he says. "Like visibly pregnant. Maybe fo
NicolaiI'm reviewing shipping manifests in my office when my Beta strolls in. Dimitri doesn't knock. Just walks in and closes the door behind him with an expression I can't quite read."She's gone," he says without explanation. Gone? What does he mean gone?I look up sharply. "What?""The ex-Mrs. V







