Chapter 6: The Alpha's Protection
The scent of jasmine was a lie now. It drifted through Irene’s open window on the cool night air, the same breeze that had carried the copper stench of blood just days before. Now, it was just a sweet, cloying reminder. Judy lay awake in the master suite, Gavin a solid line of heat at her back, his arm slung possessively over her hip, his hand splayed against the slight, firm curve of her stomach. She was watching the moon trace a path across the ceiling when the first scream tore through the mansion’s silence.
It wasn’t a sound of fear. It was raw, guttural, a blade of pure terror.
Gavin was moving before the echo died, a dark shape already at the door, his body between the scream and Judy. She scrambled after him, her heart a frantic bird in her throat, the heavy onyx ward cold against her skin.
The hallway was a tunnel of shadows. Irene’s door was ajar. The screams had dissolved into choked, desperate sobs.
Gavin hit the doorframe, filling it, his silhouette tense. Judy slid past him.
The room was a disaster of moonlight and memory. Irene was a thrashing knot in the center of her enormous bed, the ivory lace canopy trembling. Her sheets were tangled, soaked through with sweat. Her eyes were wide open, but she wasn’t seeing the room. She was seeing the garden.
“No, no, no, no—” The word was a ragged punch of air. Her hands clawed at her own throat, then flew to her stomach, protecting an invisible wound. “He’s—the knife—Judy—!”
“Irene.” Judy’s voice was soft but firm. She didn’t approach like one might approach a wild animal. She walked directly into the girl’s line of sight, her pregnant belly leading. “Irene, look at me.”
The girl’s wild, glowing gold eyes snapped to her. They were full of a horror that had nothing to do with the present. “I was too slow,” she gasped, tears cutting tracks through the sweat on her cheeks. “In the dream… I was frozen. My teeth… they wouldn’t… and he… he…”
She mimed the downward plunge of a blade, a sharp, vicious jerk. A fresh, silent scream contorted her face.
Judy sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped. She reached out, ignoring the instinctive flinch, and took one of Irene’s cold, trembling hands. She placed it flat against her own stomach, over the small, hard swell of the baby.
“Feel that?” Judy said.
Irene tried to pull away, her fingers twitching. “I’m all… blood.”
“I don’t care. Feel.”
Beneath Judy’s skin, the baby shifted. A gentle, rolling pressure. A tiny foot or elbow connecting from the inside.
Irene’s breath hitched. The panic in her eyes fractured, replaced by a bewildered focus. Her hand stilled. “It’s… moving.”
“It is,” Judy said, holding the girl’s gaze. “Because you weren’t too slow. You were exactly fast enough. Look at me. I’m here. The baby’s here. You did that.”
A ragged sob broke from Irene’s chest. The rigid terror in her limbs loosened, collapsing in on itself. She crumpled forward, her forehead coming to rest against Judy’s shoulder, her hand still pressed to the gentle movement beneath. Her tears were hot and silent now, soaking into Judy’s thin nightshirt.
Judy wrapped her arms around the girl, one hand cradling the back of her head. She rocked her slightly, humming a tuneless, steadying note. Over Irene’s shuddering form, she looked at Gavin.
He hadn’t moved from the doorway. He was a statue carved from shadow and moonlight, his arms crossed over his bare chest. His eyes, glowing faintly in the dark, were fixed on his daughter. The expression on his face was one Judy had never seen before: a storm of helpless, ferocious love. The Alpha, who could command a thousand wolves, who could erase a threat with a phone call, was powerless against the ghosts in his child’s mind.
“The dream… it feels more real than here,” Irene mumbled into Judy’s shoulder, her voice thick.
“I know,” Judy whispered, because she did. She knew how the past could curdle, could become a film that played behind your eyes, more vivid than the room you were sitting in. “But this is real. My shoulder is real. Your dad, filling up the entire doorway like a grumpy mountain, is real.”
A wet, hiccuping sound that was almost a laugh escaped Irene.
Gavin’s mouth twitched. The glow in his eyes dimmed, just a fraction. He unfolded himself and moved into the room. He didn’t go to the bed. He walked to the window and closed it, shutting out the treacherous jasmine-scented air. Then he leaned against the wall opposite the bed, sliding down to sit on the floor, his back against the silk wallpaper. A silent sentinel. Giving them space, but refusing to leave.
“He’s really gone?” Irene asked, her voice small.
“Yes,” Gavin’s voice came from the shadows, low and absolute. “He is ash on the northern ridge. The wind has taken him.”
The finality of it was brutal. It seemed to settle something in Irene. She pulled back, wiping her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smudge. She looked from Judy to her father and back again. “I can still feel… the crack of his bones. In my teeth.”
“That’s memory,” Gavin said. “Not guilt. Remember the difference.”
“How?” The word was a plea.
Judy answered. “You remember the feeling of my hand on yours, right now. The sound of your dad’s voice. The moon on that ugly vase over there.” She nodded to a hideous ceramic monstrosity on a shelf. “You anchor yourself in the now. The past doesn’t get to be more powerful than your present.”
Irene was quiet for a long moment, her breathing gradually slowing to match the slow, calm rhythm of Judy’s. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Don’t be,” Judy and Gavin said in unison. They glanced at each other across the dark room. A thread of understanding pulled taut between them.
“Can you sleep?” Judy asked, brushing damp hair from Irene’s forehead.
Irene shook her head, a quick, ashamed movement. “What if I dream it again?”
Gavin pushed himself up from the floor. He walked to the enormous armoire across the room, opened it, and pulled out a thick wool blanket. It smelled of cedar and pack—his scent. He didn’t bring it to the bed. He walked back to his spot on the floor, spread the blanket out, and lay down on it, crossing his arms behind his head. He looked up at the ceiling, a king on a bed of hardwood.
“Then I’ll be here when you do,” he stated, as if announcing a simple fact of the universe. “And we’ll go through it again. As many times as it takes.”
Irene stared at her father, this powerful man lying on her bedroom floor to guard her from nightmares. Her throat worked. She laid back down, pulling the sweaty sheets up to her chin. Judy started to rise, but Irene’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist. The grip was too tight, desperate. “Stay? Just… until I…”
Judy didn’t hesitate. She shifted, swinging her legs up onto the bed, her back against the ornate headboard. She settled Irene’s head back onto her shoulder, the girl’s hand once more resting on her stomach. “Just until.”
From his post on the floor, Gavin spoke into the darkness, his voice a low rumble. “Lena knows a woman. A therapist. Not a human one. One of us. She specializes in… aftermath. For pack members who’ve had to do what you did.”
Irene was silent for so long Judy thought she’d fallen asleep. “Does it work?”
“She helped Marcus. After the border skirmish with the Blackwater Pack.”
“He never said.”
“He doesn’t have to.” A pause. “Will you see her?”
Another long silence. Then, a whisper. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Good.” That single word held a world of relief.
The moon shifted. The room settled. Judy felt the baby quiet, lulled by the steady double rhythm of heartbeats. Irene’s breathing deepened, her body growing heavy against Judy’s side. The grip on her wrist loosened, became a loose clasp.
Judy watched Gavin on the floor. His eyes were open, fixed on the window, watching the night. The protector, powerless against the enemy within, yet refusing to surrender. Her own eyes grew heavy.
Just as she was drifting off, Irene’s sleep-slurred voice murmured into the quiet.
“Judy?”
“Hmm?”
“When the baby comes… will it call you Mom?”
The question, so simple and so enormous, landed in the center of Judy’s chest. She looked over at Gavin. His head had turned; his glowing eyes were on her in the dark, waiting.
“Yes,” Judy said, the word solid as stone. “I think it will.”
“Good,” Irene whispered, echoing her father. She nuzzled closer. “You smell like pack now.”
A soft rumble came from the floor. Approval.
Judy closed her eyes. The last thing she heard was the deep, even sound of Gavin’s breathing from the floor, a steady counterpoint to Irene’s, a syncopated rhythm guarding the threshold of dreams. The nightmare had been faced, not banished, but faced. And for now, in this room fragrant with sweat and cedar and the faint, clean scent of new life, that was enough. It was a start.
The morning light was harsh. It painted the disarray of Irene’s room in brutal clarity: the discarded blanket on the floor, the rumpled sheets, the empty space on the bed where Judy had been. Downstairs, the smell of coffee and bacon tried, and failed, to normalize the day.
Irene picked at her food, shadows like bruises under her eyes. Gavin read financial reports on a tablet, his presence a dense, quiet force at the head of the table. Judy buttered toast, the baby active, a restless tapping against her ribs.
“The therapist’s name is Elara,” Gavin said, not looking up from his screen. “Lena is setting up a meeting for this afternoon. At the old lodge. Private.”
Irene just nodded, pushing scrambled eggs around her plate.
The doorbell chimed, an elegant, restrained sound that felt violently out of place.
Marcus appeared in the dining room doorway, his face unreadable. “Alpha. A contingent from the High Council is at the gate. Led by Elder Prewitt.”
The air in the room changed. Gavin slowly set his tablet down. The soft click of it on the mahogany table was as loud as a gunshot.
“How many?” Gavin’s voice was dangerously calm.
“Three cars. Prewitt, two senior enforcers, and a scribe.”
Irene’s fork clattered onto her plate. The color drained from her face. “The Council? Why?”
Gavin stood, his chair scraping back. “Because a pack-affiliated human is dead by pack hands on pack lands. Even a disgraced one. Especially that one.” He looked at Irene, his gaze turning to steel. “You will say nothing. You will do nothing. You will sit in the sunroom with Lena until they are gone. Do you understand?”
It wasn’t a question. It was an Alpha command. Irene nodded, her eyes wide.
He turned to Judy. His eyes softened for a fraction of a second. “You are unwell. The stress of recent events. You are resting in your chambers. Under doctor’s orders.”
“Gavin—”
“This is not a discussion.” He came around the table, cupped her face, and kissed her forehead, a hard, swift brand of possession. “Marcus, with me. Lena, take them.”
The mansion transformed into a fortress in under a minute. Judy and Irene were shepherded into the east sunroom, a bright, glass-paned cage overlooking the manicured lawns. Lena stood by the sealed French doors, her posture casual but her eyes scanning the grounds. The pleasant view felt like a taunt.
They could hear the distant, muffled sounds of the front doors opening, of formal greetings in the foyer. Then, silence as the party was led to Gavin’s study.
The wait was an agony. Judy held Irene’s hand. The girl’s fingers were ice.
“They can’t… they can’t take me, can they?” Irene’s whisper was barely audible. “For defending the pack?”
“No,” Judy said, with a conviction she didn’t entirely feel.
“They can try,” Lena said from the door, her voice flat. “They won’t succeed.”
An hour crawled by. Then, the study doors opened. Voices, low and serious, moved back down the hall. The front door opened and closed. The cars started, their engines fading down the long drive.
Gavin appeared in the sunroom doorway. His tie was loose again. He looked tired, but his eyes were clear, sharp with a calculated victory.
“Well?” Judy demanded, rising.
“Elder Prewitt sends his regards for your health,” Gavin said, his voice dripping with a dry, contemptuous edge. “He expressed… concern over the tragic, unforeseen violence that occurred on our lands. A terrible accident, resulting from the unstable individual’s own uncontrollable rage.”
Irene blinked. “An accident?”
“Officially, Ethan Halsey, in a fit of jealous madness, trespassed with intent to harm. He was tragically and accidentally killed by his own hand during the ensuing struggle with our head of security, Marcus. A loyal pack member protecting his Alpha’s family.” Gavin’s lip curled. “Marcus has accepted a formal reprimand for excessive force. A month’s pay suspended. A stain on his otherwise impeccable record.”
The lie was so elegant, so seamless, it stole Judy’s breath. They had rewritten the story. They had buried the truth in bureaucracy and pack law, protecting the sixteen-year-old girl at its heart.
“And they just… accepted that?” Judy asked.
“They accepted the evidence we provided,” Gavin said, a dark satisfaction in his tone. “The security footage from the garden camera, which clearly shows Marcus intercepting Ethan. The matching testimonies. My position. My considerable… annual donations to the Council’s various funds.” He walked to Irene, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. “It is over. Officially. It never touched you.”
Irene looked up at him, a tumult of relief and shame in her eyes. “But Marcus…”
“Marcus knew the cost,” Gavin said, his hand squeezing. “He volunteered. He would do it a thousand times over. For his Alpha. For his pack’s future.” He looked from Irene to Judy’s stomach, his meaning unmistakable. “We protect our own. By any means.”
The relief that washed through the room was tinged with a new, cold understanding. This was how power worked. This was the machinery that whirred beneath the surface of their world, sanitizing bloodshed with paperwork and plausible lies.
“Elara will be here at three,” Gavin said, his tone shifting back to the practical. “Irene, get some rest before she comes.” He turned to leave, then paused, looking back at Judy. A flicker of something raw and unguarded passed through his eyes. “You held the line last night. Thank you.”
He was gone before she could answer.
Judy looked at Irene. The girl was staring out at the gardens, at the spot now scrubbed clean of any evidence. The nightmare in her head had just been given an official, alternate version. Which truth, Judy wondered, would be easier to live with?
Irene spoke without turning, her voice hollow. “Does it ever feel real to you? Any of this?”
Judy placed her hand over the onyx pendant, feeling its solid weight. She thought of ultrasound images and knife points, of a wolf-girl’s bloody jaws and a lawyer’s crafted fiction. “It feels too real,” she said softly. “All of it.”
Irene finally looked at her, the ghosts still dancing in her eyes. “The ceremony is in a few weeks.”
The ceremony. The public bonding ritual. The official, permanent stamp of her place in the pack. Judy’s hand drifted to her stomach.
“I know,” she said.
“Will you be ready?”
Judy thought of Gavin on the floor, guarding his daughter from invisible monsters. She thought of the lie he’d just spun to save her. She thought of the tiny, shifting life inside her, and the brutal, beautiful family that would now claim it.
She met Irene’s gaze. “I’ll have to be.”
The ceremony happened on a day thick with the scent of coming rain. Judy stood beside Gavin in the sacred grove, the coordinates from her pendant etched into the ancient stone altar before them. The entire pack formed a silent, watching circle. She wore a simple dress of charcoal grey, the fabric stretching taut over the hard curve of her stomach. Gavin’s voice didn’t boom; it settled, a low, seismic vow that vibrated in the chest of every witness. He spoke of strength, of protection, of a bond forged not by fate, but by fierce, chosen loyalty. When he placed the Alpha’s mate’s circlet—a slender band of woven silver and obsidian—upon her brow, the pack’s low, harmonic growl of acceptance wasn’t a sound heard with ears. It was a pressure in the air, a settling of reality. Irene, standing as her witness, squeezed her hand so hard the bones creaked. Judy felt the baby turn, a slow, somersault of acknowledgment. She was in. The pack’s scent changed for her that day, deepening from a foreign perfume to the very notes of home.
After that, time warped. The public victory of the ceremony gave way to the private, physical marathon of late pregnancy. Summer baked the estate, and Judy’s body became a territory of strange aches and relentless pressure. The due date came. It went. A week passed. Then two. The sleek, high-tech nursery in their wing, a masterpiece of brushed wood and soft wool, stood in silent, mocking readiness. Dr. Evans remained infuriatingly calm. “First babies are often fashionably late,” she’d say, her clinical eyes scanning the ultrasound monitors that now made weekly appearances in the mansion. “Everything is perfectly healthy. The baby is just… comfortable.”
Judy wanted to scream. Comfortable was a fluffy blanket. This was a hostage situation. Her back was a single, solid knot of pain. Her feet swelled until they resembled overstuffed sausages. The baby’s movements, once flutters, were now volcanic shifts that threatened to rearrange her organs. She felt like a overripe fruit, taut and strained, ready to split. Yet, she carried it silently. She attended pack meetings, a monument of cumbersome grace, nodding at appropriate intervals. She soothed Irene’s post-therapy anxieties. She managed the household staff with a quiet efficiency. She was the picture of poised expectancy. The only sign was the white-knuckled grip she’d maintain on chair arms, or the way she’d suddenly stop speaking, her breath catching as an internal foot lodged itself beneath her ribs.
Gavin watched her with the focused intensity of a strategist observing a besieged fortress. He saw the shadows pooling like bruises under her eyes, the way she’d subtly shift her weight every thirty seconds, the grim press of her lips when she thought no one was looking. He brought her glasses of water she didn’t want, pillows she couldn’t get comfortable with, his hands hovering near her as if he could physically absorb her discomfort. His helplessness was a live wire in the air between them. One evening, he found her standing motionless in the nursery, just staring at the empty crib, her hands braced on the rail. “Talk to me,” he’d said, his voice rough. She’d simply shaken her head, a single tear tracing a path through the dust motes dancing in the twilight. She didn’t let it fall.
The breaking point was absurdly small. It was a Tuesday morning. The sun was too bright. She wanted toast. Simple, plain, buttered toast. She shuffled into the kitchen, a behemoth in one of Gavin’s soft cotton shirts, her hair a wild crown on her head. Lena was at the island, chopping herbs. The toaster, a sleek stainless steel monolith, sat innocently on the counter. Judy put in two slices of bread, pressed the lever down. Nothing happened. She flicked the plug. She pressed the lever again. A dead, silent click. She stared at it. The useless, broken machine. This final, stupid, inanimate rebellion.
A sound escaped her. A raw, wounded scrape of air. Then another. The pressure of the last month—the fear, the pain, the waiting, the lie of calm—cracked open. She didn’t sob. She folded forward over the cold marble counter, her shoulders shaking, silent, overwhelming tears dripping onto the unyielding surface. They were for the toaster. They were for everything.
“Judy.” Gavin’s voice was immediately behind her. He’d moved like a ghost. His hands, warm and heavy, settled on her shaking shoulders. “Look at me.”
She couldn’t. The humiliation was too complete. She shook her head, a messy, wet motion against her arms.
“Sweetheart.” The endearment, so rarely used, broke something else. A low, choked wail was torn from her throat. She turned into him, burying her face against his chest, her fists clutching his shirt. The tears were hot and endless, a dam finally giving way. “It won’t… the toast… it won’t…” she gasped, the explanation dissolving into incoherent misery.
He held her. He didn’t shush her. He didn’t tell her it was okay. His arms wrapped around her, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other spread wide against the strained small of her back. He absorbed the tremors, rocking her just slightly, his chin resting on top of her head. He let her drown in it. When the storm subsided to hiccuping shudders, he spoke, his lips against her hair. “We’re going to see Evans. Now.”
Dr. Evans’s office was cool and quiet. Judy sat on the exam table, feeling hollowed out and puffy-eyed. Gavin stood beside her, a wall of grim solidarity. The doctor performed a quick, efficient exam, her fingers pressing, measuring. “Still only three centimeters,” she said, snapping off her gloves. “Baby’s engaged, but not in a hurry. You’re both healthy as horses, just… stalled.”
“I can’t do this for another day,” Judy whispered, the truth laid bare. “I’m not strong enough.”
Evans looked between them, a practical, unflinching gaze. “Medically, we could schedule an induction for tomorrow. But if you’d like to try a more… natural method first, there’s an option.” She paused, a faint, clinical smile touching her lips. “Sex. Semen contains prostaglandins, which can help soften the cervix. Orgasms can stimulate contractions. It’s worth a try. If nothing else,” she added, glancing at Gavin’s tense jawline, “it might relieve some tension.”
The car ride home was silent. The mansion felt like a gilded prison. Lena took one look at their faces and silently herded Irene out for a promised trip into the city. The heavy doors clicked shut, leaving them in a vast, suspended quiet. Gavin led her not to the bedroom, but to the living room before the massive stone fireplace, cold and dark in the summer afternoon. He sat on the deep, leather sofa and pulled her down to stand between his spread knees. His hands came up to frame her face, his thumbs wiping the last traces of salt from her cheeks.
“No more silent carrying,” he said, his voice low. “This burden is mine, too. You let it out, or I will crawl inside you and carry it for you.”
“I’m just so tired,” she admitted, her voice cracking.
“I know.” He leaned forward, resting his forehead against her swollen belly. “I know.” He breathed her in, his nose nudging the cotton of the shirt. Then he looked up, his amber eyes holding hers. “The doctor gave us a job to do.”
Her laugh was a watery, broken thing. “A job.”
“A job,” he confirmed, his hands sliding down to the hem of the shirt. “Let me do it.”
He undressed her with a slow, methodical care that felt sacramental. The shirt was lifted away. Her maternity leggings were peeled down her swollen legs. He knelt to help her step out of them, his calloused hands smoothing over her ankles, her calves. He didn’t linger. He didn’t worship her body. He simply exposed it, this vast, tired, magnificent vessel. He guided her back onto the soft leather, propping pillows behind her. He undressed himself quickly, his own arousal already thick and heavy against his stomach. He didn’t lay her down. He kept her semi-reclined, her hips on the edge of the cushion, her feet planted on the floor.
He knelt again, on the rug between her legs. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t touch her with his mouth. He simply looked, his gaze traveling over the tight, stretched globe of her stomach, the dark line leading down, the swollen, needy flesh between her thighs. He reached for a cushion and gently, wordlessly, tucked it beneath the small of her back, adjusting the angle. “This might be easier,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
His hands settled on the inside of her thighs, pushing them wider. His touch was warm, firm, not teasing. He was positioning her, preparing her. He reached between his own legs, giving his cock a single, slow pump. It was fully erect, thick and heavy, the head flushed a dark, ruddy color. Precum beaded at the slit. He guided himself to her entrance, the broad crown nudging against her. She was wet, a slick, aching readiness that had built from frustration and need and pure, simple want for him.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice a graveled whisper.
Her eyes, wide and weary, locked onto his. He pushed forward. Not with a sudden thrust, but with an inexorable, slow pressure. The stretch was immediate, breathtaking. She was swollen, sensitive, impossibly full from the baby’s weight. He filled her, stretching her open with a profound, burning fullness. She gasped, her back arching off the cushion, her hands flying to grip his forearms. He held her gaze, his own eyes dark with a fierce, restrained intensity. He kept pushing, sinking deeper, millimeter by relentless millimeter.
“Fuck,” she breathed, the word a shocked sigh. It was so much. More than before. She felt packed, claimed to her absolute limit.
He didn’t stop. He pushed past the point where he’d always before withdrawn, the point her body had learned as its boundary. He kept going. The thick root of him, the part she’d never taken, pressed insistently inward. Her inner muscles fluttered, a wild, involuntary resistance, then yielded. A soft, ragged cry tore from her throat as he seated himself fully, finally, completely. His pelvis met her swollen flesh with a soft, definitive press. He was in, all of him, his massive cock buried to the hilt inside her. They both went utterly still.
The feeling was seismic. It was an utter, devastating fullness that had nothing to do with the baby and everything to do with him. She could feel him, every inch, a solid, throbbing presence that seemed to touch the very core of her. Her cervix, so stubborn for weeks, was pressed against, surrounded. She felt impaled. She felt complete. Tears, different from the kitchen tears, welled in her eyes.
“All of it,” she whispered, awed and shattered. “You’re all the way in.”
“Yes.” The word was a groan, ripped from his chest. His control was a visible tremor in the muscles of his arms, in the corded line of his neck. He leaned over her, bracing his hands on the sofa behind her shoulders, caging her without crushing her. He began to move. Not a hard, driving rhythm, but a deep, rolling withdrawal and a slow, deliberate return. Each stroke was a full, devastating journey to the hilt. The friction was a raw, delicious burn, the pressure against her deepest, most sensitized places overwhelming.
“God, you’re so deep,” she chanted, her head falling back, her nails digging into the leather. “Oh god, Gavin, you’re so fucking deep.”
He fucked her like that, with a slow, penetrating tenderness that felt more invasive, more intimate, than any frantic coupling. The wet, slick sounds of their joining filled the quiet room. His breath was hot and ragged against her neck. She could feel the sweat beading on his skin, smell his sharp, wild scent mingling with her own. The pleasure was a deep, internal pulse, a throb that echoed the impending contractions of labor. It built not in a frenzy, but as a rising tide, swelling from that point of ultimate fullness where their bodies were locked together.
“Come on,” he gritted out, his pace increasing minutely, each thrust a focused, insistent nudge. “Let go. Give it to me. Give me everything.”
His words, the relentless, complete penetration, the sheer possession of it, broke her. The orgasm didn’t crest; it erupted from that deep, filled place. It was a deep, internal convulsion, a series of clenching, fluttering waves that gripped his buried cock with vicious, milking intensity. She screamed, a raw, guttural sound of release that had been held back for months. Her body bowed, lifting him with her for a second before collapsing back, shuddering.
Feeling her clench around him, so thoroughly and devastatingly, shattered his famed control. With a ragged, possessive snarl, he drove into her one final, punishing time, and stilled. His own release was a hot, liquid flood inside her, a pulsing jet that seemed to go on forever, joining with the deep, physical echo of her climax. He collapsed forward, careful to keep his weight off her stomach, his face buried in the curve of her neck, his breath coming in harsh, hot gusts.
They stayed locked together, joined at the root, for a long time. The world narrowed to the sound of their breathing, the feel of his weight, the incredible, stuffed-full sensation of him still buried deep inside her. Eventually, he softened and slipped from her body with a soft, wet sound. A slow trickle of their combined release followed, warm on her inner thigh. He fetched a soft cloth, cleaned her with a gentleness that contrasted violently with the raw act, then pulled her against him on the wide sofa, her back to his front, his hand splayed possessively over her stomach.
She was drifting, floating in a post-coital haze, when the first one hit.
It was a deep, clenching sensation, different from the baby’s movements. A tightening that started at the top of her uterus and swept downwards, banding her entire abdomen in a grip of iron. It peaked, held for a long, breathless moment, then slowly ebbed away. She went utterly still in his arms.
Gavin felt it. His hand stilled on her stomach. He held his breath.
A full minute of silence passed. Then another wave began, building, cresting, releasing.
He turned her in his arms, his eyes searching hers in the dim light. A wild, hopeful, terrifying light dawned in his gaze. She saw her own realization reflected back at her.
She wasn’t tired anymore. A sharp, clear energy was crackling through her veins. She reached for his hand, guiding it lower, placing it firmly on the lower curve of her belly where the next tightening was already beginning to gather.
“It’s time,” she said, her voice utterly clear.