“Push!” the doctor said, his eyes fixed between the legs of the six-foot-tall woman who was lying splay-legged on the bed. He was nervous for several reasons. The woman whom he was currently helping to deliver was, even as she strained to give birth, stunningly beautiful. Six feet tall, with long auburn- and black-streaked hair, even sweaty, Kimberly Waldwyck was a head-turner.

But, the doctor thought as he focused on the dilated opening to her womb, she was the Alpha Female to Clan Lockwood, so she was more than just his employer. She was his clan leader, the second-most important woman in his life after his mate. He owed her everything, including his status. It had been hard enough delivering Kim’s nephew, a Lycan baby from a then-human mother, but he’d never dealt with Lycan twins. And these were hardly normal babies.

Another reason he was nervous was the giant of a man who stood at the side of the bed, looking down at his mate with total devotion and tossing the doctor warning glances every time Kim grunted in pain. At over six and a half feet tall and nearly four hundred pounds, Edward Stormstout was larger than any man in Clan Lockwood . . . but then again, the giant man wasn’t Lycan but instead, an Aklark, a bear.

This fact made the doctor both excited and nervous. In all of his research, he’d never heard of a bear-Lycan hybrid, and the entire eight and a half months of the pregnancy, he felt like he’d been making it up as he went along. He’d already been in contact with doctors in other clans all over North America, making Kimberly Waldwyck’s twins the most famous clan children in generations even before they were born.

“How’re you doing, babe?” Edward asked his mate, his voice tight as he watched her struggle. It had gone remarkably fast, and maybe it was because Kim was a full-blooded Alpha, but it still didn’t make him worry less. They didn’t even know if it would have been possible for them to have children at first. Their meeting was one of political convenience during a crisis and not the love that they grew into. And he’d seen her in combat more than once. But that didn’t mean that he liked seeing her in pain.

“Just . . . a little . . . more,” Kim said through gritted teeth as she bore down one more time. She grunted, bearing down with all of her might, and in a gush of fluid, a small head crested between her legs. The doctor took the tiny baby in his hands, drawing the infant girl out and handing it to the woman next to him, a now five-foot-eleven woman who had black streaks in her hair as well, although her eyes were blue. Kim gasped and looked at her sister. “Valerie.”

Melanie Waldwyck grinned and held her niece, still and warm, while the doctor turned back to Kim, grinning. “Okay, the hard part’s done. Now one more!”

“One more.” Kim grunted before bearing down again. The second was even easier, and fewer than two minutes later, Andrew joined his sister in the world. The doctor passed him to his Alpha Male and clan leader, Kim’s brother Keith, before tending to Kim, making sure the umbilical cords were trimmed and that the new mother was doing well.

“That was easy,” the doctor said with a small chuckle as he helped Kim adjust with her two babies. “Relatively speaking.”

“Remind me of that the next time you complain about your transformation pain,” Kim said with a tired chuckle, already enamored with her children. She kissed Andrew on the forehead before handing him to his father, who still looked stunned. “Say hello, Daddy.”

Despite his huge body, despite his ability to pick up small cars even in his human form, and despite all of his intelligence, Edward Stormstout was a man of deep feeling, and in holding his son for the first time, his palm bigger than his son’s torso, tears of joy trickled down his face. “Hello, Andrew . . .”

You did great, Keith told his sister over their link, unable to speak as he held Melanie and swallowed back his own tears. Thank you for letting us be here.

Told you I was going to do this at the manor, not at the clinic, Kim replied, adjusting herself to introduce her daughter to her breast. I only wish Akiko could be here too.

She’s here, Melanie said over the shared link, smiling. That mother-daughter link we have is pretty strong at this point.

“Well,” the doctor said, sensing the mental communication going on between the four family members, “Kimberly, I think you need some rest, even if it was easier than what we feared. So while I cannot stop you four from talking, obviously, I can insist that we get as many people out of here as possible. So, Lord Lockwood, Lady Thornblood . . . out, out!”

Keith and Melanie chuckled and left, leaving Kim and Edward alone in the bedroom. Kim looked at her mate, her heart still swelling with love and pride. “We did it.”

Edward nodded, kissing his wife softly. “You were amazing, my love. How do you feel?”

“Sleepy,” Kim said with a chuckle, holding her children. “I was thinking that maybe Mel could come in and assist me with a nap while you and Keith go discuss male things. I can feel it over our link, even if you don’t say anything.”

Edward blushed slightly, smiling sheepishly. “Am I that obvious?”

Kimberly shook her head, smiling back. “No. You’ve been the perfect First Mate and support for me. But I can sense it still. Go talk with Keith. I’m not upset.”

Edward kissed his wife again, and there was a soft knock on the door as Melanie opened it and stuck her head in. “Hey . . . you rang, Lady Lockwood?”

Kimberly laughed lightly and nodded. Edward gave Melanie a hug before he left, Melanie squeezing him tightly. “You’ll be a great father, Ed,” she said, using the shortened name that only she could use with him. “Girl time for now though.”

“Thanks, Mel,” Edward said, picking her up before leaving. In the main hall, he found Keith, who was sipping a rich red wine and sitting back in one of the big leather chairs. He was talking with a shorter Lycan, a man Edward barely knew, one of Kim and Keith’s assistants in running Clan Lockwood.

Keith laughed, draining the rest of his wine. “I was just sitting here admiring the decorations. I’ve spent so much time the past few months dealing with Thornblood matters that I’ve barely gotten up here. It feels like I’m a bit of a visitor now.”

“You’ll always be at home here,” Edward said, chuckling. “Besides, Kim chased me out of the bedroom. I’m sure she gave you a hint.”

“She’s polite enough to not have let me in on all of her thoughts, but yeah, she figured you and I could do some male bonding. You up for a walk in the woods?”

Edward thought, then grinned. “Hell yeah. Get me outdoors again. That’s been the best part of being up here for the birth until today, really, getting to smell trees again. Not enough trees in the city.”

“I’ll agree with that,” Keith said as the two of them left the manor house and started toward the woods, stopping to look at the gravestones of Keith’s parents. Keith looked at the still freshly carved marker for his mother, smiling wistfully. “Valerie . . . Mom would have liked that.”

“Kim insisted. We just couldn’t go with Barwulf for Andrew, so we chose a name from my side of the family. Andrew is the name of my grandfather, the one who started to forge the bond with the Kenai,” Edward said. They reached the head of the first trail that led into the woods and started up, both of them just wearing light jackets despite the near-freezing late fall temperatures. They were shifters after all, and naturally a bit hairy as well. Cold meant little to them.

“It’s a good name,” Keith said, rolling his neck. It popped three times, and he chuckled. “So are you giving him an Aklark name as well?”

“Kim and I haven’t decided on that yet,” Edward said as they left the trail and started through the unkempt woods, their boots crunching on pine needles and crusted snow. “I’m sort of leaning toward getting him a name but not making it a big deal. He’s going to have enough on his hands, and he’s not in line for Aklark leadership.”

Keith hummed, the two of them falling silent as they crested the first hill and headed deeper into the wilds. “He and Valerie will be in line for Lockwood leadership.”

“Kimberly will have her hands full with that,” Edward said, making Keith look over questioningly. “What? I’m no Alpha.”

“You’re my brother and mate to my sister, the clan Alpha,” Keith replied, his voice serious but still kind. “Talk with me.”

Edward stopped next to a fallen tree, the result of a windstorm that had finally toppled the ancient maple, the trunk cracking as it impacted with a boulder sticking up out of the raw earth, cracking it in half and making a drunken lean-to. He leaned against the tree, which suddenly shifted and tipped off the rock, sending him stumbling until he caught the massive chunk of fallen tree and lifted it, throwing it safely down the slope as he grunted in frustration. “Shit!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Keith said, still surprised at the strength his brother could show. “Hey, it’s just a tree. We’ve got a hundred thousand of them at least.”

Edward sighed, nodding. “Yeah . . . Keith, it’s been harder than I thought.”

Keith nodded in understanding. “Didn’t think it would be easy. You’ve shown as much guts in the months since the war stopped as you did when you helped me save Melanie from those monsters that had her. It’s not easy, is it?”

“Nope,” Edward said, sighing. “It’s not the city living either. I actually kind of like being able to find shoes my size all the time, things like that. That’s nice.”

Keith chuckled and squatted down, smelling the air. “It does have its benefits. There’s even a difference between the Lockwood Towers and Thornblood Hall. I sort of miss being able to walk out and get Wagyu steak.”

“Oh, listen to you!” Edward said with a snort. “You want fresh steak, Keith? I do believe you can walk out of your house and go find a cow within a couple of miles and get it totally fresh.”

Keith laughed, shrugging. “Well, I miss the fireplace too. Thornblood Manor’s fireplace is nowhere near as comfortable as what I had in the tower, never mind the manor.”

Edward nodded, thinking about the warm fireplace in his quarters in the tower. “You know, it’s been hard, Keith. Standing in for you at times, trying to help Kim as she plays both Alpha Female and semi-Male . . . I’m trying, man.”

“And you keep thinking you’re fucking up,” Keith said. Edward nodded, making Keith laugh. “Yeah, I felt the same way. When my father stepped down, the plan was for us to have a few years to do a handover, where he could serve like Mom did for a while, as an advisor. Then he died suddenly, and I was an Alpha without the advisor that I thought I’d have. Sure, we had Mom, but Kim and I struggled for a while.”

“But you were raised from birth to be an Alpha,” Edward said wonderingly. “Shouldn’t it have been easy?”

“Easy? Being the Alpha is never easy,” Keith said, chuckling. “And right now, I’m feeling right back in the beginning, dealing with the Thornbloods. Akiko’s been helpful, but helping Melanie adjust to being a Lycan now, an Alpha herself, as well as my being a new father . . . yeah, there’s a reason we get taken care of by so many others. You know that. You got thrown into the deep end, whether I’m around or not. No, I remember the first business deal that I had to do for the clan after my father died. I was so nervous. Kim was with me too, and we were both so fried that even our link was shut down from the nerves.”

“What was the deal?” Edward asked, and Keith laughed.

“Nothing that big, looking back. We were buying into a software firm, something that Kim had been researching and had done the legwork on over and over again. I mean, this is Kim, right? She’s always been a tech geek, and she knew that this company was solid, with real reward for their product. Nowadays, it’d be a two-hour meeting, with half of that being me signing papers. Then, though, oh my God, we spent eight hours in there with those guys, in two different languages, trying to get this thing hacked through, and in the end, I know we overpaid them while still pissing them off. Took us until . . . well, actually, until right before I met Melanie to recoup our initial investment in them.”

Edward chuckled. “Well, at least you made money.”

Keith nodded. “We’ve got enough money. Kim’s got enough business knowledge that I don’t worry about that. You’ve done a good job with what Kim needs you for. And I have full confidence that you’ll be a great father too. Besides, you’ve got assistance.”

“What?” Edward asked, curious. “You guys are hours away, and you know my link is strongest with Kim. I can barely link with the rest of the family unless I’m in the room with them.”

“Don’t need to link,” Keith said. “You saw the man I was talking with when you came down, right?”

“Yeah . . . I forget his name though. I’ve been a bit of a homebody.”

Keith chuckled. “Yeah, well, get to know him. He’s Magnus Fiachan, and technically, he’s my executive assistant. Kim and I usually kept him in just the business side of things since we didn’t want to overload him, but I’ve been having him send me more clan business as well. The man’s got experience and skill.”

“You say man. Is he man or Lycan?”

“Lycan,” Keith said. “His mother was human. He has a sad story, but now’s not the time for that. Anyway, if you need some help, give him a call. He’s got a lot of tricks and connections. He’s a good man to have on your side.”

“I’ll keep his name in mind,” Edward replied, standing up. “Because I’m causing hell to the food budget.”

Keith laughed, dusting off his pants. “Yeah, well, come on. Let’s see if we can maybe find a deer or something to bring home.”