The words shattered the dining room like a bomb.
For one crystallized moment, everyone froze. Weston half-risen from his chair, Celeste's mouth forming a perfect O of shock, Alex already reaching for his phone. And Kieran...
Kieran looked like I'd driven a knife through his chest.
Then chaos erupted.
“My water…” I managed. “It’s—”
“I’ve got you.” Weston lunged for me, his hands shaking as they gripped my shoulders.
Celeste sprang up with a gasp made for the stage. “Oh, sweetheart, let me help. Let me—”
“No.” A contraction clenched hard, yet clarity cut through it. “Dr. Sarah Holland,” I said. “Call Dr. Holland. No one else.”
My tone held. Even Celeste blinked.
Kieran moved first. “Alex,” he snapped. The Beta was already dialing. “Bring my fastest car to the front. Now.”
“We have a car,” Weston shot back, proprietary fury rising to meet the emergency.
“It won't handle these roads at the speed we need. No time for pride,” Kieran said without looking at him. He rounded the table. “Harper—”
He reached for me but Weston stepped into him, palm braced on my shoulder, shoulders squared. The air went iron and ozone as two Alphas faced off over a woman who could barely stand. Wolves along the walls stilled.
“Don’t touch her,” Weston warned, voice low enough to vibrate glass. “She’s mine.”
"And she's going into labor on my territory." Kieran's eyes flashed gold. "That makes her my responsibility."
Another contraction ripped through me, stealing my breath. I couldn't help the whimper that escaped, my fingers digging into Weston’s shirt.
“Both of you,” I hissed through my teeth, “save it for after we keep two packs from going to war because their Alphas were idiots at dinner.”
The words hit. Kieran stopped. Weston’s jaw flexed.
Celeste found a seam and pushed.
“Alpha,” she said to Kieran, pivoting toward him with anxious efficiency, “has anyone delivered here before? Do you have a clinic on-site? A fully stocked infirmary for emergencies like this?”
She stacked questions, eyes wide with usefulness as she inserted herself between them. For the first and only time in my life, I felt something like gratitude toward my sister.
Weston used the opening. He scooped me up, the lift careful and practiced, his grip possessive but gentled by fear. I locked my hands around his neck because walking had become hypothetical.
“Don’t drop me,” I said, breathless around a laugh that wasn’t a laugh.
“I wouldn’t if the floor were lava,” he said, and then we were moving.
Past the table, through doors that banged, down a corridor that stretched forever. Kieran’s car idled in the courtyard, paint like oil under lanterns, doors flung wide.
“Back seat,” Alex said, already there. “Legs up. Breathe through the rise; don’t fight it.”
“I know,” I panted. “I read a book.”
Another contraction chose that moment to hit. I screamed, unable to contain it, and Weston practically dove into the backseat with me.
"Drive!" he barked at Alex. "Now!"
Kieran stopped at the threshold of the courtyard, lifted two fingers to Alex with “Go” and the car lunged.
"Breathe, Harper," Weston coached, his hand crushing mine. "Just breathe."
"I'm trying," I panted. "Goddess, I forgot how much this hurts—"
I cut myself off, but Weston was too panicked to notice the slip. Alex’s eyes sharpened in the mirror, catching what Weston missed.
“Talk to me,” Weston murmured when I squeezed too hard. “Keep talking.”
“I told you this dress was bad luck,” I said. “I should’ve worn black.”
“Wear whatever you want for the next ten years,” he said, raw. “Just breathe.”
“How far apart are the contractions?” Celeste asked, earnest for once and too loud. “Four minutes? Three?”
“Closer,” I managed. “Ask again in one minute and I’ll bite your head off.”
Alex huffed a short laugh. “Hospital in five.”
“Make it three,” Weston said, and Alex obliged—engine rising, tires eating the road while probably violating several traffic laws.
The pines blurred to streaks and the emergency bay’s glass doors rushed to meet us. Dr. Holland already waited with a wheelchair.
“Room four,” she told a nurse, then to me, “Let’s go, Harper.”
Celeste materialized at the desk with a smile polished to glitter. “I’m her sister. I’ll come in—”
“No,” I said. Pain bent me; I rode it and surfaced. “She stays out. My plan is on file.”
“It is,” Dr. Holland said, dry. “Multiple times. In bold. With underlines.”
"I'm coming with her," Weston declared.
"Of course," Dr. Holland agreed, already wheeling me inside. "Father's presence can be beneficial."
The next hours blurred into pain and breathing and Weston pacing like a caged animal. He threatened at least three nurses when my screams got too loud, demanding they "fix it" or he'd "tear this place apart."
"I've delivered hundreds of babies," Dr. Holland observed drily during a brief respite. "Never seen a father quite this... intense. Often this concerned?”
“Never,” I said, finding a shred of humor beneath the earthquake of my body.
A snarl cracked through the door. “Move,” Weston barked at someone. “If she needs anything… Anything— I will—”
“Noted,” Dr. Holland said under her breath, then raised her voice. “Mr. Hayes, if you threaten my staff for doing their jobs, I’ll have you escorted outside.”
The door eased open. "She's everything," Weston snarled, surprising us both with his vehemence. "Her and this baby—they're everything."
“Push,” Dr. Holland told me. “Now.”
I did. The world narrowed to breath and burning and the kind of strength that feels like breaking. Time stopped belonging to clocks. It lived entirely in effort and heat and the thrum of a tiny, relentless heart.
“Again,” Dr. Holland said. “Almost there.”
I thought of Kieran’s eyes like weather I couldn’t outrun and the promise I’d made to a child who hadn’t yet breathed.
“Harper,” Dr. Holland said, triumph threading her tone. “One more.”
I found one more.
The room broke open and a cry answered mine—thin, then furious, then gloriously alive. The sound cut through me and stitched me together in the same breath.
“She’s here,” someone said. “We have her.”
“Strong,” Dr. Holland said like a benediction. “Perfect tone.”
Outside, Weston’s voice came rough and wrecked. “Is she—?”
“She’s perfect,” Dr. Holland replied, and relief made my ribs ache.
He burst in, wild the way a man is when remade in an instant. Tears tracked clean lines through grit on his face. Dr. Holland didn’t shoo him; she handed him a scrub cap with the same unimpressed expression she used on everyone.
“Wash properly or you don’t touch either of them,” she said. “Rule.”
He obeyed. When he turned back, they placed our tiny daughter in his arms. I watched the change happen in real time. Weston looked at a six-pound miracle and forgot the words.
“Harper,” he whispered, eyes flicking between the baby’s wrinkled face and mine. His voice broke cleanly. “She’s perfect… You’re perfect. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt either of you.”
And I believed him. It didn’t make him a saint. It didn’t erase anything.
It made him a father.
He brought her to me. Weight settled against my chest—warmth, breath, the damp silk of new hair under my chin. A tiny fist opened and closed like it was catching the air itself, claiming it.
“Ava…” I said, though we’d had the name for months.
Her cry softened. She rooted, found what she needed, and the world narrowed again to something simple and holy. Tears came—the good ones, the kind that wash instead of burn. Joy surged into every hollow grief had carved.
Alive. Breathing. Safe.
My baby girl. My daughter.
"Harper?" Weston asked, then did something unexpected. He kissed my forehead, gentle and reverent. "Thank you… For her. For being so strong. For everything."
I stared up at him. This man who'd let me die in another life, who'd blamed me for this very child's death, who'd chosen my sister over me every single time.
Now he looked at me like I'd hung the moon.
The game had changed indeed. But as I held my breathing, living, perfect daughter, I realized the stakes had changed too.
I had so much more to lose now. And so much more to protect.