“Thank you for coming,” Jackie says.
I nod, thinking that I do not deserve her kindness. “Least I can do,” I say.
Jackie flips her long crochet braids over her shoulder and leads us down the hallway toward a room in the back, where Sasha gave birth less than twenty-four hours before to a beautiful baby boy.
As we pass the living room, I catch sight of two wolves I do not recognize. The two enormous males eye me and my sister as we go by. I swallow, and notice that my palms are warm with sweat.
Then we are at the doorway, and Jackie is grinning as she announces our arrival to the new parents.
“Look who’s here,” she says.
Both mom and dad turn to look at me. They smile wide. I do my best to return the gesture.
My heart lifts a little as I spot the baby cradled in Sasha’s arms.
“How is everyone this evening?” I ask, my natural inclinations as a healer kicking in to override my other jumbled mess of emotions.
Sasha looks tired but happy, and this goes a long way in raising my spirits. The previous evening had been touch and go for a while, the little hybrid baby large even for a bigger woman, which Sasha certainly is not.
It is almost hard to believe the big bundle in her arms came out of her tiny body, but I suppose the female anatomy is just amazing like that.
The father, Linus, climbs to his feet, towering over the women in the room and clasping my hands together in his giant ones. He pulls me into an embrace.
“Thank you, Miracle Meadows,” he says, his voice a deep thunderous rumble as he holds me tight. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
Linus looks over my head at Flora. “This must be your sister. You all look just alike.”
I nudge Flora. “You hear the compliment he just gave you?”
Sasha and Linus laugh as Flora rolls her eyes at me and says, “Nice to meet you,” to Linus.
I move to the table beside the bed where Sasha rests and set down my kit. Withdrawing a few of my instruments, I set out what I need to do the check up and turn toward the bed. I hold out my hands.
“May I?”
Sasha doesn’t hesitate. We’ve been friends and Coven sisters since we were girls. She holds out her child, and I take the babe into my arms.
Big brown eyes stare up at me, a twelve-pound bundle with a head of thick brown hair. Half witch, half wolf.
Whole perfect, I think as the babe squeezes my pinky finger in his tiny hand. I grin; he has his father’s grip.
How could such a beautiful creature be so frowned upon among our peoples? Simply because of what he is, he will never belong to a coven, nor any pack. What powers he will manifest remain to be seen, or he could manifest none at all. But, even so, with or without magic, how could anyone look upon such an innocent creature and declare it unfit for the basic rights afforded others?
I swallow, exiting these thoughts before I am forced into an inappropriate display of emotion.
Summoning my magic, I scan his tiny body with my healing powers.
I smile. “He’s doing very well.”
“Hell yeah he is!” Linus exclaims. “Thanks to you, Mir.”
Everyone in the room laughs, while Sasha playfully chastises him with a smirk.
I pass the babe back to his mother, sending a silent prayer up to the Goddess that he live a long and happy life, as I would with any witchling newborn.
“You’re an angel,” Sasha tells me as she cradles her new baby.
I wonder if she’d still think that if she knew about the events that had transpired directly after the birth of her beautiful child, if she knew about that horrible paper I had signed.
10
8:00 p.m.
I’m an asshole, that’s what I am.
Or, at least, that’s what I feel like.
Flora lets out a heavy sigh as we step out of the house and back onto the sidewalk.
The neighborhood is quiet in the early evening, though that small thrum which hangs in the background of all cities is present.
Flora loops her arm through mine as we begin walking the few blocks back to the nearest train station. When she sighs again, I look over at her. I am about to question her when a voice calls from the direction of Sasha’s house.
“Excuse me,” the voice says.
Our heads swivel in unison.
One of the wolves that had been in the living room when I’d arrived is bounding down the steps of Sasha’s house. I’d only glimpsed him earlier, but now I see his face fully for the first time.
Flora and I exchange a look.
Dude is handsome.
Like, very handsome. He moves with the grace of a predator, a subtle power that is offset by the attractive face. His skin is a brown that indicates his parents are of mixed backgrounds—a combination I’ve always found particularly beautiful. His hair is dark and short, his gait easy and confident.
I take in his beauty in the heartbeats it takes him to reach us.
He nods politely to my sister, who I can just feel smirking beside me. Then he looks at me and holds out his hand. I take it and am struck by the heat of his fingers; the body temp of wolves runs higher than that of humans and other supes.
“I wanted to thank you,” he tells me, voice smooth and deep. His other hand encloses the ones that we already have clasped, and I swallow against the fresh scent and heat he’s exuding.
“It was a brave thing you did, a selfless thing,” he continues. “The Pack will not soon forget this.”
Dear Goddess, how I wish everyone would stop thanking me. It is no small thing to be in the graces of the Philadelphia Wolf Pack, but I’d never felt less deserving of thanks in my life,
