She just shakes her head again.
“But you’ve just given birth,” she says, her eyes squinting up in concern when she looks into my face.
“Look at me,” I say as I raise my arms and spin around. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I feel stronger and better than ever.”
Lydia’s eyes narrow up again, but this time for another reason. A knowing expression crosses her face.
“I suspected that this might have been your ability,” she said, as if confirming this suspicion for herself.
It’s my turn to pause.
“What do you mean?”
“Some shifters have special powers that allow for enhanced abilities above and beyond the regular shifter abilities. It’s not common, but they do exist.”
“Like how you can know people’s thoughts and emotions?” I ask.
“Yes, like that. When I saw how you survived that poison, and then how your body withstood not transforming while pregnant … I knew that there was something special about you.”
She purses her lips for a moment, as if not liking what it is she’s about to say. “I had a hunch that this was what it was, that your body has some sort of regenerative strength. It’s a very powerful gift to have and it might serve you well in a fight.”
I feel a strange calm settle over me.
“So, you’ll do it then?” I ask, my voice coming out as a barely a whisper.
Lydia is still reluctant, and I know that she’s torn between her worries for all of us. There is no right answer here.
There is only a terrible, shitty situation.
“Lydia please,” I plead with her one final time. I am keenly aware that time is something we’re quickly running out of. “I can’t live without them.”
She looks at me in the way that I always wished my mother would have, the way that a mother looks at her child when she is trying to keep them from pain. But rather than try to shelter me while only subjecting me to more misery … she caves.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll do it.”
I throw my arms around her, unable to hold back my own emotions. I feel my heartbeat quicken and my head rush as she squeezes me back.
“Thank you,” I exhale. This is not a happy moment. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my babies again after tomorrow. I don’t know if I will have to watch my mates get slaughtered in battle against Remus and his pack.
But this is a binding moment; an important one.
“You know that the guys won’t be as easy to convince as I am,” she says when she pulls back, looking me carefully in the eyes.
“I know,” I say.
She’s definitely right. None of the boys nor Romulus are going to want to let me come.
Although what Lydia just told me, about my so-called regenerative abilities, it might help.
“Let them try to stop you now,” she says with tears in her eyes. Her tone shifts slightly, her arms still holding me out at arm’s reach. “You watch over them while you’re out there. I’ll keep your babies safe, and you do the same for me.”
I feel like my heart is going to explode. Why now, after I finally have everything that I want—love and family and children and even a mother that I’ve been longing for my whole life—is it all being threatened?
When we walk back into the living room, the guys are all there, looking at the babies.
I have to resist melting into them and forgetting everything else—which is all I want to do. Just looking at them, my two sons and my daughter, in their fathers’ arms … it makes me wish we could all just run away and forget everything.
Forget Remus.