MasukAnd 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
"Together," I repeated, liking the sound of that. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised. "No matter what happens, I'm right here." I kissed him because I didn't have words for what I was feeling. All I knew was that despite everything we'd been through, despite all the chaos and pain and loss, we'
"Yeah," I said. "I mean, Tristan and I. At his place." A knowing smile crossed Orion's face. "You've been staying there a lot lately." "I have," I admitted. There was no point in hiding it. "It just feels right, you know?" "I'm glad," he said simply. "You deserve to be happy, little sister." My
He lowered his head, taking his time, and I watched his eyes darken even more as he got closer. When his lips finally touched mine it was soft and gentle, almost tentative, like he was asking permission even though we both knew I'd give him anything. I melted into him, my hands coming up to rest on
When we finished, she fell asleep almost immediately, exhausted from the constant need her body was putting her through. I lay beside her and tried to figure out what to do. We couldn't keep going like this. She was exhausted, I was exhausted, and we'd barely been functional at work for the past fe







