Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
“Sweetie, you’ve got to have this baby now,” Mom said, but her voice was far away.
I shook my head. “No, I have to wait for my alphas. I have to hold on,” I bit, curling back into a fetal position, sweat and tears mixing on the bed linen.
My white dress was soaked, clinging to my body as I fought Adrenna’s will. The magic was at a stalemate, half stuck in me, half in her. But I wasn’t letting go, and neither was she.
And then my alphas were there, close enough, and Brax’s shadows were pushing inside me, caressing my body, helping me grip the magic.
I cried out and yanked the magic. She released for a second, the surprise in my extra strength catching her off guard enough for me to take a breather.
My alphas burst in the room and they came to me, kissing and touching until I was pulling enough magic in that Adrenna finally released her claws from the barrier.
“I have to push!” I screamed out as the pressure came to an intense peak in my body.
I kept my eyes closed as the others organized themselves around me.
Brax leaned behind me, pulling me up on him, Derik at one leg, Kai at the other, both of them holding my hands as Brax pressed the wet cloth to my head.
Mom came over and had me sip some herbs. The pain lessened slightly, but it wasn’t the pain that had me crushing my alphas’ hands, arching off Brax, it was the pressure.
I pushed, I couldn’t help it, screaming as the pain that came with it tore through my body.
“Take deep breaths, Lorelai. Fall back on the magic and your shadows, they’re going to help,” Galen said.
“I’m trying!” I snapped, and he nodded, eyeing my alphas, who looked between one another with that look that I knew meant I was missing something.
“Spitfire, you’ve got to calm down. Your heart is racing,” Brax whispered against my ear, his shadows caressing inside my body, rolling over the ache and pressure.
I closed my eyes and leaned against him, waiting for the next push. “I can’t help it,”
I breathed.
“You have to, beautiful. Stress the little guy out and he’s going to think he needs to shift.
“That extra magic you’re taking on is making him stronger than your body,” Derik explained in a patronizing way that I knew was because I was a little testy, but the pain was unbearable.
I shook all over, the pressure coming back, and I pushed again. And again.
I tried to keep my heart as steady as I could, but it was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.
I couldn’t breathe; my chest was tight. My alphas’ strength was feeding mine, but it was waning, my body was too, and I was pretty sure I was going to die.
I had pushed all of my energy through my veins and I was running on empty.
So many cold cloths, herbs, and minutes later and my body still hadn’t done what it needed to.
“I can’t,” I whimpered, and Kai clutched my hand tighter.
“You’re a fucking winter born, Little Human. Maybe a human couldn’t do this, but you’re not human, are you?”
He eyed me, challenging me with that smirk that made me addicted to him. I narrowed my eyes on him, but I felt the spark of life he pushed through me and used it to get through the next contraction.
Galen monitored me, but he was starting to whisper with my mother, frowns on their faces.
I was about to call them out on it, determined to push until my body broke just to get this baby out, but then I felt her.
Adrenna’s claws latched into the border magic and yanked. I cried out and lurched forward, the control slipping. I fumbled for it and grabbed it before it left my body, yanking it back.
“She’s back,” I breathed, my hands clenching in my alphas’.
“She knows you’re close, that means she thinks you’re weak, Spitfire. Show her that you’re not,” Brax said against me, and I clenched my eyes shut, yanking hard on the magic, pulling it back to me as she fought me.
The urge to push consumed me, but I was pulling the magic at the same time.
“Push, Lorelai, you need to keep going,” Galen urged, and I did, I pushed like my life depended on it, because it did.
I screamed as the pressure filled my body and mind, my shadows and existence stretched so damn thin between the birth and the mental fight I was having with magic.
“You’re not going to win!” I screamed, hauling as much magic with me as I could as a feral urge tore my body apart and I was pushing, burning, pushing, aching, and crying, my son falling from my body.
Derik caught him just as the tension in my head grew so tight, it snapped. I pinged back onto Brax as Adrenna was launched back from the border.
A purple pulse expelled from my body, rolling through everyone and over everything. My eyes shot open, facing my alphas.
“The border broke. It’s gone,” I whispered just as our son started crying.
I held my arms out for him, and Derik handed him over. He was slippery, but I laid him down on my chest and he went quiet, suckling at it, his little eyes scrunched shut.
I smiled. The stress of the magic, the border, the witches, the vampires, everything that had been taking over my life disappeared. His smile took it all and turned it into nothing.
So little and innocent; he was perfect.
“He’s beautiful,” Derik whispered, and I nodded, touching his little nose, playing with his fingers as he snuggled into me.
Kai leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “Like his mom,” he said, winking before kissing my forehead.
Warmth filled me, and I nodded to Galen, who came forward with Mom. She placed a warm knitted blanket on him.
“This is from the women from our village. They each knitted a square for him,” she said, and I smiled, looking at all the squares that made up our village and the Grasslands.
“I need to check you, Lorelai, make sure he didn’t do any other damage on the way out,” Galen said, his eyes softer than I had seen them as they looked at my baby.
I nodded, and Brax helped me sit up against him. He kissed my cheek, his finger running across the baby’s cheek too. As soon as it did, our son’s eyes flicked open.
I gasped, my grasp tightening. They were white.
“Brax,” I whispered, and he froze, seeing what I was seeing.
“What’s wrong?” Derik asked.
“His eyes. They’re white.”
“Winter born,” Galen said, coming to see them. He nodded. “As I recall, Brax’s were the same when he was sent to me all those years ago.”
He smirked, and I looked over my shoulder to Brax. He was looking at our son like he was going to bite him, but instead, the baby grabbed Brax’s finger, his reflexes holding it.
I had settled in with the idea that I wouldn’t know who our son belonged to biologically, that it didn’t matter, and I think so had my alphas, but it was obvious now.
Maybe it wasn’t just the link that had given us the option, maybe it was our shadows. I wasn’t sure, but I did know I was happy.
“He’s mine?” Brax asked, his voice tight with emotion.
I nodded. “I think so,” I said, wincing as pain curled inside my stomach again. I sucked in a breath as our son started crying.
“Lorelai?” Galen asked, and I swallowed hard as more pain climbed through me.
“I’ll take him,” Kai said, and I handed the baby over, squirming and crying as my own tears pierced me.
I clutched Brax’s hand and Derik’s, my body aching, my thighs shaking.
“It hurts.” I grimaced, the pressure in my stomach making me panic.
“Maybe she’s turning?” Derik asked Galen, but he was frowning as he moved between my legs.
“No, we would sense it. And her eyes would turn first,” he murmured.
I tried to hold back the scream as the pressure built. I pushed against it.
“We’re not done here,” Galen whispered, and I sucked in a breath as everyone froze.
“Ryleigh, more blankets,” Mom urged, and she nodded, rushing from the room.
“What? No. I am done,” I said, reaching inside me, checking my shadows. I found them still settled around my stomach with magic.
“I still have magic.” I frowned.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
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