LOGINAnd then it was just us. Our family. I picked up Arianna while Tristan got Adrian, and we carried them upstairs to their nursery. The room had been redecorated twice as they'd grown—first to accommodate their crawling, then again when they started pulling up on furniture. Now it was a mix of cribs
Chapter 214 Athena I looked at Adrian in my arms, then at Arianna in Tristan's. They'd grown so much—both walking now (well, Arianna walked, Adrian preferred to crawl at high speed). Both babbling constantly in their own twin language that we couldn't quite decipher. Both showing more personality
Chapter 213 Athena The backyard was full of chaos—the beautiful, loud, messy kind of chaos that came from having a joint first birthday party for twins. I stood on the back porch, watching the scene unfold before me with a smile that felt permanently fixed on my face. Colorful balloons bobbed
Chapter 212 "Mama's sorry," I soothed, bouncing her gently. "But we need to figure this out before you touch any more plants, okay?" "Can I see?" Lily asked, pushing past the adults to get closer to the plant. "Wow, it's so pretty! And it smells good too." She was right. The plant was giving off
Chapter 211 Athena "The plant," I said, knowing I wasn't making sense but unable to form coherent thoughts. "The dying plant in the living room. She touched it. Tristan, she touched it and it came back to life." Silence. All three men just stared at me. "What?" Orion finally asked. "The plant
Chapter 210 Athena Six months. Six months since Adrian and Arianna had come home from the NICU, and I still sometimes woke up in the middle of the night to check that they were breathing. The monitors helped, their steady beeping had become the soundtrack of our lives, but the fear never comple
The clinical way he says it makes me feel sick, like we're talking about cutting up a piece of meat instead of killing someone I love. But I know Derek is trying to help, trying to make sure we do this right. We only get one chance, and if we mess it up, Tristan dies for nothing. Tristan lies down
But maybe I can change that. "Listen to me," I say, but I'm not talking to the people in the room. I'm talking to the power itself, trying to reach it through the chaos in my mind. "You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to take. I'm not going to hurt you." The power pauses for just a moment
Through the haze of the power's control, I can hear voices around me. Panicked voices getting louder and more desperate by the second. "His pulse is getting weaker," Derek says, and there's terror in his voice that I've never heard before. Derek who's always so calm and collected, who always knows
Behind him were Orion and Sarah, both of them grinning like they'd been planning this for weeks instead of hours. Derek stood off to the side with his arms crossed but even he looked pleased. "Surprise," Tristan said, and his voice was soft and full of something I couldn't quite name. I felt tears







