Free Web NovelChapter 46: Chapter 46: The Birth Of The Twins
Garrick was there in seconds. He took the reins. The kings lifted me down together, arms under my shoulders and knees, carrying me through the bailey while the pack watched in silence. Lila’s voice called from the steps. "Mama!"
The chambers felt too small when we reached them. The midwife was already waiting, her sleeves rolled, and water steaming in the basin.
"Put her over here on the bed and bring some fresh towels, hurry." The midwife commanded the maids.
I became unconscious and barely made it to the furs before the next contraction tore through me. I gripped Darius’s hand hard enough to feel his bones shift. Kane knelt behind me, supporting my back.
"Breathe Elena, we’re all here with you, take it easy." Rylan stayed at my side, voice low and steady, telling me to breathe the way he had when Lila was being born.
The birth took hours. The twins fought their way into the world the same way their fathers fought on the pass.
The first child, a boy, came out screaming with a full head of dark hair and ice-blue eyes like Darius. I held him against my chest while the next contraction built, sweat stinging my eyes.
The second was a girl who followed minutes later. She was significantly smaller but fierce, with Rylan’s reckless grin already on her tiny face even as she howled.
The midwife cleaned them quickly and handed them back. I lay there shaking, my body spent, but the bond wrapped around all of us like a second skin.
Darius pressed his forehead to mine. Kane’s scarred hand rested on my shoulder. Rylan touched the girl’s cheek with a gentleness I had never seen from him before and was smiling all over.
Lila toddled in a few minutes later, eyes wide. She stopped at the edge of the furs and stared at the two small bundles.
Then she climbed up, careful for once, and patted the boy’s head. "Baby," she whispered. She looked at the girl next and said "Mine" with absolute certainty. The kings laughed, low and tired, and the sound filled the room.
The pack celebrated outside. Bonfires lit the bailey. Drums rolled across the stone. Garrick kept order but let them cheer. New heirs. Two more wolves for the North. I heard it through the window while I lay there with the twins at my breast and Lila curled against my side, thumb in her mouth, already half asleep.
The kings refused to leave. Darius took the first watch by the door. Kane fed me broth and bread he had warmed himself. Rylan changed the linens and brought fresh water. They hovered like the overprotective bastards they were, but I let them.
My body hurt in ways I had never known, but the pain felt earned. The twins began to nurse strong. Lila kept patting their heads and calling them "baby wolf" like she had already decided their place in the world.
By the next morning I could sit up without help. The midwife checked me and nodded once, satisfied.
I sent for Garrick and gave orders from the bed. Double the eastern patrols. Reinforce the lower wall. The pack needed to see their queen still ruling even with three children now. The kings tried to argue. I stared them down until they backed off.
The bond felt different with the twins here. Wider. Deeper. Like the curse had finally met something it could not break.
Outside, the snow kept falling. Somewhere beyond the ridges the east would lick its wounds and decide whether to come back.
Niskanen still waited in Shadowpine with her secrets and her blood on her hands. But right now the chambers held everything that mattered. Lila asleep between her brothers and sister. The kings close enough to touch. The keep solid around us.
I looked at the three small faces and felt the weight settle into something I could carry.
The North was still ours.
And we were just getting started.
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Months passed in the quiet way winter gives way to mud and then to green shoots pushing through the last crust of snow.
The twins turned three months old and the keep learned their names the way it had learned mine.
Thorne, the boy, already watched the world with Darius’s ice-blue stare, fists clenched like he was ready to fight sleep itself.
Elara, the girl, had Rylan’s reckless grin even when she was only nursing, kicking her legs like she could run before she could roll.
Lila, was a couple of months over two years now, ruled them both with the absolute certainty of a child who had never known anything but safety. She tottered between their cradles, patting their heads and declaring "Mine" in that clear voice that still stopped every adult in the room.
I had my body back. The deep ache in my hips had faded to a dull memory. The mark on my chest was nothing but a pale line now.
I walked the walls without bracing a hand on my lower back and trained with the women again, blade work sharp and fast. The pack saw me moving the same way I had before the twins came, and that mattered more than any speech. freewebnøvel.coɱ
Garrick kept the daily machine running smooth. Disputes settled quick. Stores stayed full. The eastern ridges stayed quiet after the pass fight, as if Caius’s brothers had taken the lesson and crawled back into whatever hole they came from.
But some debts refused to stay buried.
Niskanen’s name sat in my gut like a stone I could not cough up. She had poisoned my sister with a cup meant for illness and a blade meant for framing. She had lived comfortable in Shadowpine all this time, breathing the same air my sister never got to breathe again.
Every time Lila laughed or Thorne gripped my finger or Elara smiled up at me with milk on her chin, the stone pressed harder. Justice for the dead had waited long enough.
I started the planning in the small hours when the keep slept. One night I slipped from the furs after the twins finished nursing and the kings breathed steady beside me. I lit a single lamp in the war room and spread the old maps across the table.
Shadowpine lay south, three weeks’ hard ride through passes that would still carry snow in the high places. I traced the route with a blunt finger, marking the places scouts could slip in unseen.
Niskanen lived in the old gamma quarters near the longhouse, the same halls where my sister had died. I knew the layout better than I wanted to.
Darius found me there before dawn. He did not ask why I had left the bed. He simply poured two cups of water and sat across from me, eyes on the map. "You’re going after her."
"Not alone," I said. "But yes. She doesn’t get to die old and warm in her bed."
Kane and Rylan joined us before the lamp burned low. They listened while I laid it out. Small team. No banners. We ride light, hit fast, and leave her body where the pack can see what happens to those who spill Voss blood for coin.
Lila would stay with Garrick and the women who had become her aunts in all but name. The twins would nurse from a wet nurse for the weeks we were gone.
The thought twisted something in my chest, but I kept my voice even. They had to see the queen first, not the mother.
Rylan traced the southern pass with his thumb. "We take the old smuggler trail. Less eyes. We can be inside their walls before they know we crossed the border."
Kane tapped the longhouse. "She sleeps in the third room off the main hall. Same place she always did. I remember the layout from the tribute runs years ago."
Darius watched me the whole time, ice-blue stare steady. "The pack will hold without us. Garrick has earned that much. But you ride with us every step. No arguments."
I nodded once. The bond between the four of us felt different now, wider and deeper with three children sleeping down the hall, but the steel core had never changed.
We would kill for each other. We would ride for each other. And we would finish what Niskanen started the night she handed my sister that cup.
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The next weeks blurred into preparation that no one outside the four of us knew about.
I sent two trusted scouts south under the excuse of checking trade routes. They came back thin and hollow-eyed with fresh drawings of the Shadowpine walls and confirmation that Niskanen still lived in the same quarters, still walked the same paths, still smiled at the pack like her hands had never been red.
One scout brought back a small pouch of the same poison she had used on Lila. I kept it in my belt like a reminder.
