All Chapters of The Omega's Crown: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Selene's POVHe came to me in the fourth month with a floor plan.Not a rough sketch — an actual drafted floor plan, precise measurements, the kind of document Kael produced when he had been thinking about something for a very long time and had finally decided to make the thinking visible.He set it on the writing table between us.I looked at it.The nursery was the room adjacent to the Luna chambers — the small sitting room that had been used, intermittently, for whatever didn't have a better home. A coat rack, two chairs, a table that had been serving as overflow for Council correspondence since October.He had dimensioned every inch of it."You drew this yourself," I said."Kade helped with the measurements.""When?""Three weeks ago."I looked at the plan. There was a window marked with a specific cardinal direction — east-facing, catching the morning light. There was a door marked with a swing direction calculated for quiet operation, the hinge side noted. There were furniture p

Selene's POVDiana arrived on a Thursday in the fifth month.She had written three weeks in advance, which I had asked for when I had proposed the visit. The letter had been careful — not performing carefulness, actually careful, the way the letter I had written to her had been careful. She had said: I'd like to come. If you'll have me. Two days, supervised, whatever conditions you set. I understand if the answer is no.The answer had not been no.It had been conditions. Two days. Kael in the Keep. Riven's replacement Kade with full information. My mother consulted and was willing.My mother had been the difficult part."She's Cedric's daughter," she had said, when I had brought the proposal to the east wing kitchen."Yes.""She tried to have you killed.""Yes.""She paid for a compulsion artifact.""Yes."My mother had been quiet for a long time."She's also the girl her mother made her," she said finally. "And I know something about what Seraphine Cole made of the people who trusted

Selene's POVThe gathering happened in the seventh month.I had been told about it by the head pack mother, Helga, who had come to the Luna chambers three weeks before with a formal request that was not actually a request — it was the pack's way of saying this is happening, we are telling you, please allow it. Which I did, because I had learned to understand the difference between the Keep's hierarchy and the pack's customs, and the pack's customs were two hundred years older and did not require my approval to be valid.Twenty-three pack mothers came.They came at the ninth hour on a Tuesday with a blanket that had been started nine months ago — I had found out about it only recently, that the senior pack mothers had begun the blanket the week after the coronation feast, before we had announced the pregnancy, because they had seen what they had seen and had started knitting — and a small hand-worked cap in Ashvale silver that had taken three of them four weeks to complete.Helga set t

Selene's POVIt began at dawn.Not dramatically. Not the way the birth scenes in the library records described — no sudden onset, no crisis. Just the particular quality of the morning light through the east window and the specific feeling of imminent arrival, the window closing the way it had been building to close all night.I woke up.I lay still for thirty seconds, cataloguing.Then I said: "Kael."He was awake before the second syllable. He had been sleeping lightly for three weeks — the specific light sleep of a man who had decided he was not going to miss the moment by being fully asleep."Yes," he said."It's time."He sat up.He looked at me."How far apart?" he said."Not close yet. Early. I'd estimate four to six hours before they intensify.""I'll get Cassa.""Get Helga first."He was already out of the bed. He had been ready for two weeks — the specific readiness of a man who had read every text and memorized every contingency and could not do anything about the fact that

Selene's POVShe weighed less than I had expected.Not because she was small — Cassa said she was well within the range for wolf-born infants and the True Alpha line ran slightly larger than average anyway — but because I had been carrying her for nine months and nine months of carrying had given me a specific understanding of her weight from the inside, and from the outside she was impossibly lighter.She fit in my arms.Not in the way things fit because they are the right size for the space. In the way things fit because they have always been going to fit in exactly this space and the space has been waiting without knowing it was waiting.I held her.Kael was beside me. He had not touched her yet. He was standing at my left shoulder with his hands at his sides and the expression of a man who had not yet been given permission by himself to do the thing he most wanted to do, which was hold his daughter.I looked at him."Hold her," I said.He looked at me."Take her," I said.He did.