Cactus handed me the vial. “Bottoms up.”

I took it, the glass still uncomfortably warm. I pressed it to my lips, took a deep breath and gulped down the contents.

Fire and blood was my first thought, the coppery tang hot on my tongue and then . . . it hit my bloodstream. An explosion along my nerve endings and I was falling, someone caught me and that was the last I remembered.

The next thing I knew, cold cloths were placed on my forehead and Catya was inside my head.

These pains will ease soon. She’s growing quickly.

I didn’t answer her, just let the contortions my body was doing wash through me. I could feel the baby growing, and I knew she wasn’t exactly having a good time of things, either. “I’m sorry, sweet one. It will be done soon,” I whispered and put a hand over my already substantially larger belly.

At some point, the pain eased off and I fell asleep.

And Liam was there waiting for me.

Dark hair and golden eyes, a body made hard by all the years of working out, and then the rigors of becoming a werewolf. I ran my hands up his arms and over his biceps to rest on his shoulders. He placed his hands on my hips.

“I don’t want to speak about our last visit. I don’t know how much time I have.”

“Sounds good to me.” I laid my head on his chest and breathed in his smell. None of it was real, but I didn’t care. I just needed to feel him for that moment.

“You always have things to do, trouble to find.”

I tightened my grip on him as the dream tried to slip away from me and I swallowed hard, knowing what I had to do. “I have to focus, Liam, on what’s in front of me.”

He stroked my hair with one hand and rubbed my back with the other. “I know. I’m just surprised you figured it out already.”

“I didn’t. Not really. I saw Cactus, letting the world pass him by for the bliss of oblivion, I see Erik grieving still the loss of my mother, all these people, living in the past. They missed out on the world, and more than that, they miss out on what they could be.” I lifted my head to look into his face. “Kiss me goodbye, Liam. I have to face what I was born to do. When I’m done”—I reached up and touched his jaw—“then we can be together.”

His eyes were sad, but he smiled. “I will be there, even if you can’t see me, love. Know that.” He pressed his lips to mine, parted them with his tongue, and I kissed him back. Emotions flowed between us, love, sorrow, lust, and an unbreakable bond. Underneath it all was something I needed more than anything else.

Hope.

That this wasn’t the end. That my words would prove to be prophetic and I would be with him, that maybe we could even be a family. I didn’t know how it would happen, I only knew that as long as I believed, there was a chance.

Hope. A word I barely knew anymore, yet I clung to it, and all it represented for me.

A world with Liam in it was worth hoping for, worth believing.

Worth fighting for.

And that, more than anything else, was something I understood. If nothing else, I would never stop fighting, no matter how much pain and loss was slung my way.

I broke away from Liam and smiled up at him, my heart feeling lighter than it had in longer than I could remember.

“Don’t forget me, Wolf.”

He gave me a half bow. “Blood of the Lost, I would sooner forget everything in my life, and forsake my soul.”

Still smiling, I let go of that dream and slid into sleep, a smile on my lips.

In the distance I heard him, as if he stood beside me and held my hand.

“I will always love you, Rylee, you and our wolf cub. Always.”

Chapter 11

So it turned out that something about the spell I whipped together was the extra strength prescription. Never mind a month, two weeks later I was in labor. Yeah, not my idea of a fun time. The only upside was the whole pushing-a-baby-out-an-opening-that-didn’t-seem-big- enough-thing was over in less than a day.

Daisy helped, and the details, well, some things are better left to the imagination. But after that—pain as if I were being ripped apart—feeling like it would never end, after all that shit was done, none of it mattered once I had her in my arms.

The little one cradled in my arms was . . . mine. I stared into her tiny face, astounded that I was a mom. Jet black hair like Liam, but her eyes were closer to mine, only two colors instead of three. A deep chocolate brown flecked with gold. She blinked sleepily at me, then smiled and I was gone—my heart was no longer my own.

I stroked her cheek with a finger. “What are we going to name you, little one?”

Daisy laughed, her mirth shaking the bed. “Oh, her name will come to you when she is ready. For now, just love her.” She patted my shoulder, leaned over, and kissed my forehead. As if we were family. And considering what we’d just been through together, I would say she was family indeed.

I let out a sigh, rolled over, and tucked my girl against me, a sense of contentment I’d never expected to feel washing over me. This was what Doran had said when he’d told me I would love another. Not another man, no, Liam held that spot in my heart. But this love, for this tiny little one was so intense, so pure, and I would do anything to keep her safe, to help her grow strong and true. Anything.

“Marcella,” I whispered her name as I fell asleep, knowing in my heart Liam would approve. A bit of my mother, Elle, and the rest . . . the god of war . . . it was a strong name, one I hoped would serve her well.

The first few months flew by, filled with learning how to bathe, feed, and change diapers of two fast growing babies. Zane took to Marcella as if they had known each other for years. They would lay side by side, holding tiny fingers as they stared up at the sky in the central garden, warm breezes blowing over them.

They would lay and laugh at each other, and I would do my workouts beside them. Sometimes Bao would help, teaching me a more relaxed fighting style that meant I would wait for an attacker to come to me and deflect, turning their blows away and allowing them to tire themselves out. I wasn’t sure it would work on the kind of asshats I encountered, but it was worth learning. And it pushed me, forced me to keep my focus, something I was having a hard time with, now that Marcella, or Mars as she was quickly becoming, was in my life.

But for her, I forced myself through, and slowly my body came back together. The two weeks of baby growing in triple time had pulled muscles, torn ligaments and stretched me without mercy. The only good thing was I had the time to rebuild myself.