Mag-log inGrace pov I'd just finished my first real shower since Willow was born—Pete's wife had brought me a change of clothes the day before, and something about finally washing away the last twenty-four hours of sweat and exhaustion had felt like the first genuinely normal thing I'd done in days. I was sitting up in bed, hair still damp, Willow sleeping in the bassinet beside me, when my phone lit up with an unfamiliar number. I almost didn't answer. Almost let it ring through to voicemail the way I had with every unfamiliar number over the past eight months, some deep instinctive caution refusing to fully relax even now. But something made me pick up, some tired, worn-down curiosity outweighing the caution for once. I wished immediately that I hadn't. "You have no idea what you've done to me." Marissa's voice came through sharp and furious before I'd even managed a full hello, no greeting, no preamble, just pure unfiltered rage pouring through the line. "Do you understand what my life l
Damon pov I'd barely settled back into the chair beside Evelyn's bed, Willow finally drifting into a deeper sleep against my shoulder, when my phone rang again. I almost let it go to voicemail, bracing myself for another round with my father, but the screen showed a different name entirely. *Mom.* I answered immediately, some old instinct still wired to worry about her even after everything. "Mom?" "Damon." Her voice came through thick, unsteady, and it took me a moment to realize she was crying. I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard my mother cry—not during any of the years of quietly enduring my father's companions, not through any of the slights I'd watched her absorb without complaint at every pack function. She'd always been so carefully composed, so practiced at keeping whatever she felt locked down beneath a calm surface. Hearing it crack now sent a fresh spike of alarm through me. "What happened," I asked, standing carefully so I wouldn't jostle Willow, moving towa
Damon pov I'd just gotten Willow settled back to sleep against my shoulder, her small weight finally heavy and even with rest, when the door opened without a knock. My father stood in the doorway, and behind him, unmistakably, two enforcers I recognized from the pack's inner guard—men I'd trained alongside years ago, now standing rigid and uncomfortable in the entrance of a hospital maternity room like they didn't fully understand why they'd been brought here either. Evelyn went rigid in the bed instantly, her hand moving toward Willow on pure instinct even though I was the one holding her. "Dad." I stood slowly, keeping my voice level, keeping Willow cradled protectively against my chest. "What is this." "This is me doing what you refused to." He stepped fully into the room, his eyes sweeping over Evelyn with a cold, assessing look that made something in my chest flare hot with anger. "You're coming home. Both of you, and the child. Today." "I told you on the phone this wasn't
Damon pov I'd been sitting beside Evelyn's bed for nearly an hour, Willow finally settled into the small hospital bassinet beside the bed, when my phone buzzed against my thigh. I almost ignored it. Everything about this room—the quiet, the exhausted peace that had settled over Evelyn as she drifted in and out of sleep, the soft, even sound of Willow's breathing—felt too fragile to interrupt with pack business. But the buzzing continued, insistent, and I finally pulled the phone from my pocket, glancing at the screen. *Dad.* I stepped as quietly as I could toward the small window at the far side of the room before answering, not wanting to risk waking either of them. "What," I said, keeping my voice low. "Where are you." My father's voice came through clipped, sharp with an authority I'd spent my entire life deferring to without question. "Callum tells me you drove north with half the guard and didn't bother explaining why." "I found Evelyn." I kept my eyes on the window, on th
Damon pov I don't think I breathed for the first several seconds after I heard her cry. I'd witnessed birth before—pack life didn't shelter you from much, and I'd stood nearby during a handful of deliveries over the years, dutiful and detached the way an alpha-in-training was expected to be. Nothing about those experiences had prepared me for this. For the way my whole chest seemed to crack open at the sound of my own daughter's first furious wail, for the way my knees actually went weak enough that I had to brace a hand against the wall to keep myself upright. *My pup.* The words settled into me with a weight I hadn't fully anticipated, standing there in the corner of that hospital room, watching Evelyn cradle something so small and impossibly real against her chest. Eight months of searching, of dead ends and desperate texts and slow, grinding guilt, and here she was—finally, actually here, breathing and crying and alive in a world I'd nearly failed to be part of. I wanted to c
Evelyn pov Nothing had prepared me for this. I'd read the books, sat through the birthing classes alone in the back row, listened to Pete's wife share careful, well-meaning advice over the phone in the weeks leading up to this. None of it had prepared me for the sheer, consuming reality of it—hour after hour of contractions building on top of each other, the exhaustion settling so deep into my bones that I'd stopped being able to track how long I'd actually been in this room, stopped being able to focus on anything beyond the next brutal wave of pain and the doctor's steady voice telling me I was doing well, almost there, just a little longer. I didn't feel like I was doing well. I felt like I was being torn apart from the inside, and somewhere beneath the physical agony, a colder, sharper fear had settled in—the bond. I could feel it, open wider than it had been in months, some desperate, uncontrollable current running between Damon and me that I no longer had the strength to smot







