Free Web NovelChapter 43: Chapter 43: Queen Rule, Lila And The Pack Activities
Garrick ran the daily business like he had been born to it.
One afternoon I sat in council while he handled a dispute between two families over a shared well on the lower slope. The older man wanted exclusive rights. The younger one argued the water fed both households and the nursery stock.
Garrick listened without interrupting, then laid out the split in three quiet sentences: half for each, with the nursery taking priority during dry spells. Both men nodded.
The rest of the pack watched from the benches and no one muttered behind their hands. Garrick had earned that silence. He moved through the keep with steady orders and no wasted words, and the walls felt stronger for it.
That same evening Lila discovered the kitchens. She slipped away from the nursery woman while I was resting and toddled straight into the heat and clatter. I found her perched on a low stool, flour on her cheeks, helping the cooks roll dough with her small fists.
One of the older women laughed and handed her a scrap of bread still warm from the oven. Lila took a bite, then held the rest up to me like an offering. "Mama eat," she said, proud and serious. I took the bread and ate it while the twins gave a slow, heavy roll that made me brace a hand on the table. The ache in my back eased for a moment under the warmth of the ovens and the smell of yeast and smoke.
Darius found us there. He didn’t scold. He simply lifted Lila onto his shoulders and offered me his arm for the walk back to the chambers. Kane and Rylan waited in the hall, their presence solid as the stone around us. We ate together that night, the four of us and Lila between us, and the bond felt wider somehow, like the children had carved more room inside it.
The twins pressed harder against my ribs when Rylan laid his palm over the highest curve of my belly. He smiled, small and tired, and didn’t pull away.
The next morning Garrick brought the supply tallies to council without being asked. The root cellar was holding. The eastern wall repairs were finished ahead of schedule.
A new patrol route had been set that kept the inner ridge covered without stretching the men thin. I listened while the twins shifted low and heavy, a sharp twinge running through my lower back that made me shift on the bench.
Darius noticed and rested his hand on my knee under the table, thumb tracing small circles against the ache. I kept my voice steady and approved the new route. Garrick nodded once and left to make it happen. freёwebnovel.com
Lila turned one and a half and the keep celebrated in its own quiet way. Women brought small gifts to the nursery, soft fur boots and a carved rattle that chimed when she shook it.
She ran through the great hall that afternoon with the rattle in one hand and the wolf in the other, laughing so loud the sound bounced off the rafters. I watched from the steps, belly resting on my thighs, and felt the twins drop lower, a new pressure that told me the due date was closer than I wanted to admit.
Kane stood behind me, one hand on my shoulder. Rylan leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, amber eyes tracking every step Lila took. Darius stayed at my side, silent but close enough that I could lean against him when the twinge sharpened.
The pack kept training in the yard every afternoon. The women drilled with blades and shields while the older pups worked on their stances. I observed from a bench wrapped in furs, Lila on my lap demanding to hold my wooden practice blade until I let her.
She waved it in clumsy arcs and grinned up at me like she had already won the fight. Garrick moved among the groups, correcting grips and praising effort in the same even tone. The keep was running smoother than it had in months. The new beta had taken the weight and made it look easy.
That night the chambers felt warmer with all of us inside. Lila fell asleep early, exhausted from her day of running and ruling her small corner of the world. She lay between us on the furs, one hand curled around Rylan’s finger and the other resting on my belly.
The twins gave a slow, heavy kick that made her stir and smile in her sleep. Darius watched them both with something soft in his eyes. Kane sharpened a knife by the fire, the scrape steady and familiar. Rylan kept his palm on my belly long after the movement stopped, thumb tracing the curve like he could feel the lives inside waiting to meet us.
The bond hummed between the four of us, low and fierce and wider than it had been before the children came.
The curse still tested us, but the mark on my chest had faded to a pale line that only burned on the coldest nights. We were over eight months in and almost due, the keep solid under Garrick’s hand, the pack stronger for every law we had pushed through.
The eastern wolves were still out there, circling, but they had not stepped closer yet.
I closed my eyes and let the weight of the twins settle against my spine. Lila’s small breaths puffed warm against my side. The kings stayed close, their presence as steady as the stone walls around us. The snow kept falling outside, thick and silent, but inside the keep we kept building. One day, one law, one step at a time.
The due date pressed closer with every slow roll under my skin. The bond felt ready for whatever came next.
We would meet it together.
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Two days later the outer scout burst through the gates on a lathered horse, cloak flapping like a broken wing.
I was in the nursery with Lila when the horns sounded, trying to coax her into a nap she clearly didn’t want. She had both hands fisted in my tunic and was demanding another story when Garrick’s boots hammered up the stairs. He didn’t knock.
"They’re here," he said. "Not on the ridge this time. At the eastern pass. Three riders. No colors, no banners. They stopped two hundred yards short of the outer markers and asked for the cursed kings and their human queen by name. They want a meeting. Tomorrow at dawn. Neutral ground by the split rock."
Lila went still against me, sensing the shift in the room. I set her down on the furs and stood, one hand braced on the crib rail because the twins dropped lower at the words and the pressure made my knees protest. Eight and a half months now. My belly felt like a stone I carried everywhere, and the ache in my lower back never quite left. But my voice stayed flat.
"Did they gave a reason?" freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Garrick shook his head. "Only that they’ve watched us long enough. They said the North has something they need and they’re tired of asking from a distance, so they’ve come to take it with force."
Darius appeared in the doorway before Garrick finished speaking. Kane and Rylan were right behind him, cloaks still dusted with snow from the morning patrol.
The bond snapped tight between us, a live wire that made the mark on my chest burn for the first time in weeks. No one spoke for a long moment. Lila crawled to Rylan and grabbed his leg, looking up at all of us like she knew something big had changed.
My hips and belly felt heavy with the dropping weight of the twins, but I walked the walls with Darius anyway.
Kane checked the horses and the guard rotations twice over. Rylan stayed with Lila in the nursery, his axe leaning against the wall while he told her stories about southern hunts and big game that made her clap.
The keep felt tighter, every corridor narrower, every voice lower. Women nodded at me as I passed, their eyes steady. Men checked their blades in doorways and didn’t look away when I met their gaze. Garrick moved through it all like a shadow, quiet orders, quick adjustments, the new beta proving his worth in the way the pack straightened when he spoke.
By evening the snow had stopped and the sky cleared to a hard, star-filled black. I sat on the edge of the bed while Kane rubbed the ache from my lower back with slow, steady pressure.
Darius laid out the route on the table by lamplight, marking the split rock and the open field beyond it. Rylan paced once, then stopped by the window and stared out at the ridges we would face at dawn.
"They’re cursed," he said without turning. "Same pull we feel. I can almost smell it on the wind."
