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
After leaving Mara's house, Tristan drove in silence for a few minutes before speaking. "We can't go back to my place," he said quietly. "Not yet." I looked over at him. "What do you mean?" "The kitchen window is broken, there's damage from the fight, blood on the floor," he explained, his jaw ti
"Just some rest," I said. "Will you stay with me?" "Of course," he said without hesitation. He helped me out of my shoes and I lay back against the pillows while he stretched out beside me, his hand immediately finding its place on my stomach. "We're safe here," he said quietly. "You can actually
Chapter 143 Athena He turned to look at Sarah and me, his eyes assessing us both professionally, and I saw him take in the cut on Sarah's arm that was still bleeding through the bandage Kiara had wrapped, the bruises forming on her face, and then his eyes moved to me, taking in my neck, my face, t
"I know, baby, I know," he murmured, holding me close. "But we're going to make sure everything is okay right now." Orion had finally released Sarah long enough to come over to me, and when I looked at him, I saw that my big brother had tears in his eyes. "Hey, little sister," he said, his voice g







