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
There was a knock on the door a moment later. "Tristan?" Athena's voice came through, softer now. "Can I come in?" "I want to be alone," I said, my voice coming out harsher than I intended. "Please," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, I was just joking around." "I said I want to b
Derek was sitting on the front porch steps, leaning back on his hands with his face turned up to the sun, he looked relaxed in a way I didn't often see him, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with his sunglasses pushed up on his head. "Hey," he said when he heard us approaching. "Hope I'm not interr
This was our time, our chance at happiness, and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure we got it. Starting tomorrow I'd increase security at both houses, would make sure the property was as safe as we could make it, would do whatever it took to protect my family. But tonight, right
"You're both incredibly lucky," he said, looking between Sarah and me. "And incredibly tough, most people wouldn't have been able to hold their own the way you two did." "We had good teachers," Sarah said, glancing at Orion. "And we weren't alone," I added. "Kiara and the others came when we neede







