Sophia ran to Gavin’s cabin, her feet gripping brick and cobblestone, dirt and pebbles, muscle memory leading her to her brother’s home. The night chill didn’t touch her, motion creating a kind of wind that seemed, paradoxically, to be caused by her and to be pushing her forward as well. Why should it make sense? Nothing else did.

Lilah’s pregnancy had turned her heart into a spinning top. From the moment Gavin and Lilah had announced it, some part of Sophia had ached with agony, a yearning emerging inside her that had no form, no name, no shape. She found herself scoffing at the notion of children in public, praising her single, carefree life yet privately weeping, at a loss to explain what she lacked.

Watching Lilah’s belly grow all these months made her feel like a voyeur, a degenerate trying to take pieces of people by glimpse. As new life formed inside her sister-in-law, the swirl of emerging emotion in Sophia felt like the trimesters of human pregnancy.

First you are nauseated.

Then you are aroused.

And, finally, you will go through anything to meet your baby.

Except those weren’t her babies. They were Lilah and Gavin’s, and while she would be the best auntie those children could imagine (far better than Jess or Molly, Sophia knew), she was certain, with a finality that scared her, that she needed her own child.

Madness. The idea was madness, she thought to herself as her breasts bobbed with each step, her human form entirely inadequate for running but better than arriving as a bear with paws. The glow of Gavin’s front door light illuminated the way as leaves from trees scratched her face, tearing strands of hair from her scalp. Bursting through the door, she was greeted by the sight of her brother, eyes the size of saucers, and Lilah, squatting over an antique Persian rug, mouth open, her long, toneless grunt the sound of thousands of women throughout space and time giving birth, too.

“Get the doctor!” Gavin roared, standing up and being yanked—hard—by Lilah’s death grip on his arm. His body stretched then receded, like touching a pill bug’s stomach. Gavin curled into himself, then began panting with Lilah, breathing with her, his jaw red from Zach’s earlier punch.

“He’s not scheduled to arrive for another hour!” Edward came up from behind Sophia, then looked back on the path. “Perhaps Dr. Sam…”

“She’s a biochemist! Not a medical doctor!” Gavin shouted.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Lilah said in a weak voice. “Gavin, I can’t do this. I’m splitting in half. I’m splitting. Jess…” She moaned a sound like a wounded animal, one that made Sophia’s heart stop. Women complained during birth, and she knew full well that during transition, birthing mothers lose their confidence as their bodies take over, the pain and pressure at the peak as the baby crowns too much for many women to bear.

But Lilah’s voice was filled with a different kind of pain.

This was no normal birth.

A man’s panting breath caught her ears, and she turned to see Zach in the doorway, pushing past Edward, then Molly’s face behind him, peering in.

“You are doing it, Lilah,” Gavin said, soothing her, his fingers touching her back, her shoulders, her neck, tapping and touching as if he didn’t know what to do but needed to do something.

A strange popping sound, then a trickle of blood came from under Lilah, the stain turning the rug a terrifying shade of brown.

Lilah made a whooping sound and held her breath, her enormous belly roiling.

“Sophia! You’re a nurse! You’ve delivered babies, yes?” Edward asked in a tone that made Sophia want to run away, because if calm Edward was that panicked, this must be bad.

She shook her head. “I’ve seen them born. Held some after. I don’t know how to midwife a baby, much less twins!” Kneeling, Sophia looked under Lilah.

The sac of waters partly outside her body made it very clear that the babies would be born in minutes.

There was no time for decisions.

“Too fast,” Lilah said. “The pain, oh God, it hurts. It hurts wrong. It hurts wrong.”

Zach caught Sophia’s eye, his head shaking slightly as if to ask what Lilah meant.

I don’t know, she mouthed.

He turned away, hand on his chin, looking around the cabin as if he’d lost something.

Sam rushed into the room carrying a small medical kit, eyes assessing Lilah. Without a single whiff of fear, the woman went into motion, dropping to the floor and peering at Lilah’s underside as she squatted.

“It’s imminent. Time for the serum,” she said to Gavin, who nodded wildly and looked at Sophia with such a desperate, terrified expression that she felt her soul implode.

“Serum?” Zach snapped, giving Sophia an accusing look that made her want to cry and scream at the same time.

“A serum to make sure Lilah survives, you idiot! I already told you this. Not one that turns her into a shifter!” she shot back, pure adrenaline shoving her manners to the edges of the world. In truth, she was unraveling, feeling some deep suspicion in Zach toward her, the tether between them severed back at Asher’s office.

How? Why? Without his heartbeat, she couldn’t find her own center.

Zach backed off, brow still tight with worry as Sam injected Lilah in the hip, the laboring woman barely noticing.

“Sophia!” Sam said. “You’ll have to do. You know more than anyone about birth.”

“I’ll do my best,” she announced, shaking off her thoughts. She ran to the bathroom to scrub her hands and then took the surgical gloves Sam offered, the two women catching each other’s gaze in an unspoken sisterhood.

One of our own needs help.

“Jess,” Lilah moaned. “She’s supposed to be here! I need her unnnnnnhhhhh…” Lilah’s guttural birthing tones made Sophia feel better. That was more normal.

“Jess and Derry should be here soon,” Gavin said to her with assurance. “I called them when you had cramping this morning, darling. Just in case. But Asher had already spoken to them yesterday. They’ll be here any minute, my love.”

Lilah closed her eyes in relief, then winced as another powerful contraction took over.

Zach started to speak to Sam, touching her shoulder gently. “I—”

“Keep your tone low, to help with the muscles. Good job, Lilah. You’re doing a wonderful job for your babies. They will be here soon. So soon. Not much more left, sweetie,” Sophia heard herself say, borrowing words from memories of midwife-attended births she’d witnessed back in England. Why hadn’t she paid more attention?

And how much of those purely human births even applied to this situation?

“Where in the bloody hell is the doctor?” snapped Asher, who stood in the door suddenly, gaze averted, unable to look at Lilah. Sophia noticed how pale he was—almost gray—with eyes that looked at her from under the haunted caves of his brow, his skin tight on his face, his jaw set with pure mourning.

My God, she thought to herself. He thinks Lilah and the babies are dying.

“Sam, I think I can help,” Zach said, trying to get Sam’s attention, making Sophia inexplicably angry in the heat of the moment. This would all be so much easier if she could be angry. Furious. Rageful. Instead, she was helpless, all her emotions outside her body on leashes that snapped, one by one, as she lost control.

“Lilah!” A woman’s voice outside, a wisp of sound on the wind, made Edward and Molly go outside as Lilah let out a deep groan, Gavin rubbing her back, whispering something to her, Lilah shaking her head back and forth, hair wet with exertion.

A teakettle whistled like a factory at shift change.

“The boiling water!” Gavin bellowed, looking to the kitchen.

“Got it,” Zach snapped, leaping over a sofa as if it were nothing, lifting the kettle off the burner and yanking open drawers, pulling items out with a precision that made Sophia frown to herself.

Scuffling motions at the door split Sophia’s attention between Zach, Lilah, and the entrance to the cabin.

And then Jess and Derry appeared, Jess’s long blonde hair a wild mess, her face so calm it was almost blank. Sophia almost wept to see them. Her sister-in-law, her brother. Thank God Asher had called them in time.

“How close is she?” Jess asked, looking at Sam.

“The contractions are almost inseparable,” she answered.

“So close,” Jess muttered.

Just as Jessica bent down to touch Lilah’s brow and get her attention, Zach knelt next to her, holding a tall, deep bowl inside a few layers of kitchen towels, a set of tongs, a giant slotted spoon, and scissors in the piping hot water.

“What are you doing?” Gavin said, incredulous.

“I was a paramedic before I got my doctorate in biochemistry. Spent years on emergency calls. I’ve delivered twelve babies who came too fast for the hospital. I’m the best option you’ve got here,” Zach announced, his tone firm with authority.

Lilah’s entire body tensed as she held her breath, her cheeks turning impossibly purple before she groaned, her body shaking.

Gavin looked over his wife’s head and caught Sophia’s attention, his eyes bleak but sharp. His eyebrows lifted, the question clear.

“Trust him,” she said, finding her words echoed from behind her, Molly and Edward speaking the same thought.

“My God,” Asher said from behind, his voice faint with anguish.

As Gavin nodded, Zach and Jess took control, Jess gloving up and reaching down to touch Lilah, supporting the baby gently as it eased closer.

And then Lilah let out a soundless vibration, a giant clench of her entire torso, and the baby emerged into Jess’s gloved hand, completely encased by the amniotic sac.

“Jessica!” Derry bellowed, his voice laden with shock.

“Someone get a towel! A blanket! Anything!” Jess called out.

Molly grabbed a throw blanket off a nearby chair. “You have to break the waters! The baby can’t breathe,” she cried out.

“No!” Everyone in the room, Zach included, all shouted. He looked around, amazed, and Sophia wondered how he knew.

“This is how wolves are born,” Sophia said softly. “I’ve seen it.”

“Born in the caul,” Zach murmured. “It can happen to humans. And for a short time, the baby survives via the umbilical cord.”

“But Lilah isn’t a full shifter!” Asher called out from the doorway. Sophia knew exactly why the man didn’t come into the room. “We need to treat this as a human birth.”

Looking at the opaque sac in Jess’s arms, the fibrous bubble in the chenille throw under the baby, Sophia took a moment to watch, transfixed.

And then the sac simply burst on its own, spraying Jess, who didn’t seem to care.

The room stilled like the eye of a storm.

The baby looked up at Jess, eyes wide, blinking slowly. It did not cry. It simply watched, moving slowly, as if still in water, an old soul come to life.

“Hi, little nephew,” Jess said in a tender, magical voice filled with awe. Sophia’s throat swelled with emotion. Her nephew, too.

Gavin’s son.

Lilah leaned forward on all fours, her head dipped down, Gavin’s eyes darting between his wife and his child.

“Gavin! Your baby is here! Come meet him,” Jess called.

“Him?” Gavin choked. “A son?”

Lilah took shallow breaths, blinking rapidly, head twisted back to look at the bundle in Jess’ arms. “Please,” she begged, “give me my baby.” Jess moved with great tenderness toward her sister, bringing the baby to her as Lilah moved to a sitting position, her back resting against Gavin, who turned himself into a human wall for her. As Jess handed their baby to them, the room filled with love, as if Sophia could breathe it like oxygen.

But only for a few breaths.

A lingering shudder went through Lilah as her belly shimmered, the second baby inside. Sophia knew in theory that twin births often took a pause between babies.

After the craziness of the last—she looked at a wall clock for the time.

Four minutes.

Only four minutes?

It felt like a lifetime.

* * *

Zach’s entire body hummed.

Using the tongs he’d found in Gavin’s kitchen, he carefully removed the scissors from the still-steaming water, placing them on what he hoped was a reasonably clean kitchen towel, one he’d discovered in a drawer, neatly folded.

He froze.

Cutting the umbilical cord was important, but he needed a clamp as well. His paramedic training had been useful for emergencies that involved transport, the patient handed off to better-trained nurses and doctors.

He’d never been in a position of giving ongoing care to a patient. The next few steps blurred. He knew the cord could remain attached for quite some time, so there was no rush. But after cutting the cord, then what?

For a few moments, no more than a handful of deep breaths, the entire room had been filled with the glow of new life, of connection, as if every person and object became one. He took it all in, accepting the power that came with the inexplicable vibration, and then he felt it dissipate as the second baby’s birth became more urgent.

Pulse beating in his ears—sadly, only his, not Sophia’s—he took a moment to ground himself. Chaos reigned in the room, all the women in tears, the men wearing masks of protective worry, the air reeking of birth mingled with the scent of the unknown.

Zach inhaled it, found the breath grounding, but the scent itself carried information, emotion, a path forward. Odors didn’t have meaning in his human life other than at their most basic level. Good food roasting triggered his salivary glands. The scent of an aroused woman made him hard. Industrial smells could be a sign of warning, of malfunction. And lab scents were to be avoided in general.

As he willed his panic centers to remain at rest, the control centers in his mind took over, scanning the room for information, his nose an unlikely source. Combined with that strange change in depth perception, he felt a synergy within, a knowledge that was less about information and more about instinct.

Power.

Not physical power, though. Zach had that in spades. Something so much deeper, a primal understanding of layers to the room, dimensions no one else inhabited.

The scent turned from simple information to foreboding, a darker danger emerging. He looked at Jess, who suddenly, sharply, caught Molly’s eye.

Their eyes narrowed.

They knew.

They knew, just like Zach knew, his body crawling toward Lilah just as her scent changed, dropping sharply, the baby remaining in her belly in danger.

“Lilah!” Jess cried out, her hands on her sister’s shoulders as she paled. “The second baby.”

Gavin took their son from Lilah, whose grip on him was starting to go limp, her eyes unfocused. Jess’s hands went to her sister’s belly, her body jolting as if she could tell from touch alone that the babe was in distress. Zach looked at her and felt—instantly just felt—that Jess had some power to heal, to see, to divine a deeper level of existence.

And that even she was in panic mode.

“It’s transverse! Sideways! We have to get her out,” Jess shouted, looking at Lilah with heartbreaking urgency, touching her sister’s face, trying to get Lilah to concentrate.

“Her? It’s a girl?” Gavin choked, looking at Zach. “Do something!” he demanded.

Zach felt the baby’s pulsing cord inside Lilah as it slowed, the silence between the beats growing longer. Molly came up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder, then touched Jess.

“We can do this, but it will take all three of us. Jess has healing powers. I have the sight. But we need you, Zach. I can see it.” Her fingers dug into his shoulder. “I can feel it. But you are the one who must act.”

“I’m just a paramedic! I don’t know how to turn a baby without—” Killing it, he almost said, horrified by the mixture of his own vision forward of all the ways this could go wrong, of the gravid responsibility of this tiny life in his hands, of his own ignorance and fear.

And of his captivity.

“You know,” Molly urged. “You know.”

He realized his mistake instantly; the world transformed, like slamming the wrong door shut and opening the right one. Of course.

For the entire emergency, he had been thinking like a human.

Time to just be whatever he was now and to let that guide him to save the baby.

“Lilah’s energy is fading,” Molly whispered in his ear. No one else turned. His body went numb, then roared to life with a pulse that felt like a gallop. “Save them both. Now. You have the power. We have the power. But we can’t without you.”

Closing his eyes, he set his hands on Lilah’s belly, aligned opposite Jess’s, their hands like a compass pointing in four directions. A magnetic pull brought his palms deeper into Lilah’s flesh, her thin skin giving him access to the baby as if he reached through her and cradled the babe in his hands. In an instant, he felt the new life’s soul, as if it were an object he could hold.

Come to us, he thought. It is safe here. You are safe. You are loved.

Every person in the room stared at him in that second, and while he felt their energy and knew they heard his words, he focused on the little girl inside Lilah, who—he swore—smiled.

And began to turn toward home.