Rejected Mate and Following Fate

“You did it, baby. Look at our girls!” Colton’s excited tone pulls me out of my fatigue as he mops my brow and tries to dry up the sweat that’s cascading like a waterfall. The cries of newborns ringing in my ears after what seems like the longest and most hellish night of my life. I can barely stay awake. A new day is peeking at us from outside the curtains which he drew at some point when the light got too intense. Everything feels surreal and it’s hard now to imagine I just spent so many hours going through the trauma of childbirth while the world is still. The memory of the pain is already subsiding.

My emotions are fried and the eagerness to lay eyes on them is the only thing keeping me conscious while my limbs cry to give out. My body is tender and heavy like a deadweight, but I am so glad it’s finally over. I should turn to self heal but I can’t muster the energy and would rather sleep after holding my babies.

“Here you are, momma. Two healthy girls and beautiful, just like you.” Marda leans down over me and places one from each arm on my chest. Instinctively I nurse them against me as they look to be fed and Colton helps pull open my nightdress shirt and assists. He’s a natural and been so good these past hours, keeping me sane, anticipating my needs and watching over me. I don’t think I could have done this without him.

My eyes mist with tears as this insane overwhelming love and adoration fills my heart to brimming at the mere presence of these two tiny lives. An all-encompassing emotion that I have never experienced before until I laid eyes on the beauty of our girls. It’s that knowledge that from here on in I will do anything to protect and love them, even die to ensure their safety. Perfect in every way and my priority now. Small and delicate but completely formed in miniature.

Each has a spattering of fine light hair, downy soft, much like mine, even if they are still covered in the mess from birth. The sallower skin of Colton and his Columbian genes, but the features are a combination of both of us as children in one face. I watch in fascination at one and then the other as they try to latch on to nurse. Finding their own way instinctively to source my milk and without hesitation. Little tiny eyelashes flickering open as I lock eyes for the first time on the new creations that have been growing within me for months. It doesn’t feel real and I can’t believe that we made these precious little beings.

I stop mid breath as first one flickers bright glowing blue my way, blinking and sleepy eyed, a sign of Colton’s magic within and the other glows red. As clear as switching ion a light in the pitch dark. Both stare at me for a moment, somehow focusing on the body they seem to recognize as mother and Colton sees it too before they drift closed and focus on suckling. My heart leaps into my throat and my mind slides into frantic overtime at what this might mean. We always knew the genetics might mean the girls would not be as Lychan as we hoped, or that they might have obvious gifts like Colton and I now do, but I didn’t expect it to be prominent from the get go.

We exchange concerned glances, that inner fear of their differences to normal pups, and Marda pats me atop my head with a motherly smile. Seeing our worry and sensing the sudden change in atmosphere between us.

“Gifts are present at birth only fleetingly; it doesn’t mean anything right now. As they grow what they can do will become more prominent and sometimes things fade away. It’s just an eye color, they all change quickly into the daytime human shade soon enough. Lychan babies are born with glowing amber. It doesn’t mean anything.”

I eye her dubiously trying to think back to my childhood and the lack of my abilities until my awakening ceremony. I’m not sure that Colton’s magical gifts would have been so concealed if Sierra hadn’t bound us so I can’t be assured that our babies won’t have something in infancy that shows up.

“It doesn’t matter what is more prominent. They’re our girls and the pack know they might be different to them. If Lychan isn’t the dominant gene, then we won’t care, and we’ll love them regardless. We’ll deal with whatever gifts are thrown at us.” Colton scoops my hand in his and soothes me with his words. That tone of dominant alpha on show because he’s stubborn and he means every word.

never did, and it worries me now that they will be noticeably different to Lychan pups. Pups don’t have gifts in childhood at all, not until their own awakening. I never knew they were born with amber eyes so maybe I am worrying about nothing, and my babies won’t display any difference to other children for a long time. I might be

pine for when it fades as they age. Colton leans in and strokes them both gently over their tiny skulls before kissing both on the forehead. Immersed in his own overflowing love for his daughters.

Marda wanders away, folding muslin cloths and fills a bowl with fresh water before strolling back and offering it to Colton to keep tending to my face and neck. I’ve stopped sweating but my skin is damp

names? I know you didn’t want to reveal them until they

one with the blue eyes, “And an Eden” he strokes my hand over our red eyed girl’s back, reading my mind in how we are to name them even though both are practically mirror images of one another. Somehow their names seem to fit. Identical twins with similar names but completely different meanings. Eden means ‘delight’ and Eve means ‘full of life’.

Girls that I am sure will go on to achieve great things for the Santo pack.” Marda pats Colton on the shoulder and wanders off to leave us to our

them and pull yourself together and then I’ll take the babies out for them to see and let you rest. I won’t let any visitors in until you’ve slept, and I’ll make sure our parents are the first. Both

my pillows to relax and dose while they continue to suckle. I’m exhausted and not all that sad about his no visitor rule for

all pushed way down below my feet. Switching out

fussing over me and goes to do what he said while Marda takes the time to my body and helps me to maneuver without disturbing the girls as she dresses

storm, Luna. After this the visitors and well wishers and resting time will be harder to find. Don’t let them overwhelm you. Take your time to recover, to bond with your girls. The pack can wait. Tradition is that we used to wait fourteen days before the Luna brought out the newborns to show them

of this, I don’t want to wipe it away as if the last hours were nothing. I want to linger in my exhaustion and relief that pain is over. Maybe in a day or two I’ll turn and get back to fit but it’s been so long staying human that I’m in no

what she means. The experience is tied up in the agony and the exhaustion. I want to hold onto every precious moment and memory

of the bed and checks the feeding position, stroking little skulls and smiling with a warmth of a woman who has mothered her own

generation and life will move on. I don’t know what the future holds but I know that Colton and I will do everything in our power

No matter what it takes or what life throws at us. We survived wars and so much worse. We