Chapter 452

[ 900 words ]

Talia’s POV

“Elian,” I said, watching as Nolan fluffed the pillows, keeping me propped up in bed. “For the boy. I told Leslie weeks ago, and I haven’t changed my mind since.”

“Elian’s good,” Nolan said, turning the name over in his mouth. “And the girl?”

“Nyla,” I replied.

He repeated the name softly to himself. “Nyla. Elian and Nyla.” He nodded slowly. “I like them both.”

“Good, because I settled on them in a garden at Silverfang weeks ago, and I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.”

I couldn’t reach Solon or Leslie through the link with my wolf removed, so I wrote them two long letters instead, and Hattie promised to send them out first thing in the morning. I told them the coven had found a way to help. I didn’t include the details. Some things shouldn’t go on paper.

“You should go home,” I told Nolan while sealing the letters. “Bloodmoon can’t run by itself for two months.”

“It doesn’t have to. I’ve already arranged it,” he said, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Solon and Leslie are covering everything between them until we’re back.”

“Leslie is about to have a baby,” I pointed out.

“Leslie said, and I’m quoting, that she doesn’t need both hands to hold a baby nor hold a pen,” Nolan replied.

I laughed until my chest hurt.

“She’s going to complain about it every single day,” I warned him.

“She’s already started,” he said with a sigh. “She sent a list of things she expects in

return when we get back.”

“What’s on it?” I asked.

“I’m not telling you because you’ll agree to all of them,” he replied, grinning.

The two months after that were slow.

I stayed at the coven with Nolan next to me, and one witch or another came into our room every day, checking me, asking questions, and writing things down. Nolan made the herb tonic himself, morning and night, and stood over me until I’d finished every drop, just as he’d promised Leslie he would. He never once let me talk him out of the second cup.

Each week, my wolf faded a little. As the pups grew, they took more and more of her. I tried not to let Nolan see it, but fear crept in at night. What would happen if she didn’t return? I kept pushing that fear down, but it stayed in the back of my mind.

By the end of the second month, I had to work to find her at all. When I did, I could barely hear her.

‘I need to rest now,’ my wolf told me one evening.

‘No. What’s wrong? Do I need to take another dose of the tonic?’

‘I am not leaving you. I am only going to sleep for a while,’ she replied. Her voice

sounded very far away. ‘I will come back when the pups are born.’

‘Stay a bit longer.’

‘I can’t…’

I swallowed down my fear and said, ‘Okay. Go rest.’

She didn’t answer me again.

I stayed up most of the night, still hoping I could feel her, just like when you keep poking at a tooth that’s gone. I knew this would happen for two months, but it hurt more than I thought it would.

The next morning at my checkup, Hattie pressed her hands to my stomach for only

a few seconds before announcing, “The pups will be born any time now.”

“Are you sure?” Nolan asked.

“Yes, any moment now,” Hattie said.

“How can you tell?”

“Because I’ve done this more times

than you’ve been alive,” she said, already writing it down in my chart “They’ve moved down in the right position. Talia, you should have noticed you’re breathing easier than you were last week.”

Now that she mentioned it, I had. “You were right. I just hadn’t paid attention to it.

“I want you in the hospital room from now on. No more wandering around the house.”

“That’s fine.”

“It is not fine,” Nolan said, his face going pale. “Talia, everything for them is at Bloodmoon.”

“That’s fine. We can use them when we get back,” I said, shrugging.

“I picked out everything so they could have the best chances for proper development at birth. We need to get our warriors to deliver them here,” he insisted.

“Nolan,” I said, taking his hand. “They’ll be a week old. We’ll go home as soon as I can travel, and they’ll spend the rest of their lives in that nursery you spent a month building.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he stopped arguing.

That afternoon, I sat by the window with Solon and Leslie’s letters, which I’d been rereading whenever I had an hour to myself. Leslie had written four pages about her daughter and one line about the pack. Solon had done it the other way around, and then, at the bottom, in different ink, he wrote that he thought about me every day and that he was ready for me to come home safe.

I read them both twice. Between the two of them, there wasn’t a single line that was actually about pack business. I sat there with the pages in my lap, feeling more looked after than I had in months.

I got about halfway through Solon’s again when the pain went through my middle.

It wasn’t like anything I’d had before. The pain doubled me over the arm of the chair,

and the letters hit the floor.

Nolan crossed the room in an instant before I could straighten up.

“What is it, Talia?” he asked, rubbing my back.

I caught my breath and looked up at him.

“Nolan… I’m going into labor.”