Chapter 191

Lila

It began like a knife twisting low in my belly. At first, I thought it was another cramp, the kind I had grown used to as the days dragged on. But then the pain surged outward into my back, sharp and unforgiving, stealing the air from my lungs.

I doubled over, clutching my stomach, a cry tearing from my throat before I could bite it back.

The back door of our cottage loomed behind me, but my knees gave way before I reached it. I caught myself on the fence, nails scraping wood, breath sawing in and out as the contraction tore through me like fire.

Sweat burst across my brow in an instant. My body was no longer mine; it was a storm, and I was nothing but wreckage caught inside it.

“Lila?” Ronan’s voice cut through the haze. His hands gripped my shoulders, steadying me.

Another wave hit, fiercer, sharper, and I choked on a scream. My body curled against itself, trying to withstand the agony. The room blurred.

The only thing anchoring me was Ronan’s presence, his hand sliding down to clasp mine. His grip was strong, unyielding, as though he could pull me back from the edge just by holding on.

“You’re in labor,” he said, urgent but calm, as if stating the obvious could make it more manageable.

I couldn’t answer. My teeth ground together, the pain ripping through me until I thought my bones might splinter.

Every nerve in me screamed, but still, beneath it all, fear coiled tighter: what if I couldn’t survive this? What if Ruby stayed silent, leaving me to endure without the strength of my wolf?

“Ruby,” I gasped between shudders, calling to her like a prayer. Please. Please, wake when I need you.

But there was nothing. Only silence where her voice should have been.

Terror clawed up my throat. If Ruby abandoned me now, I was as good as dead.

Ronan’s hand tightened on mine, dragging me back from the spiral. “Breathe,” he commanded, his tone low, steady. “With me, Lila. In, out. Match my breath.”

I tried, but the next contraction crashed over me like a tidal wave, tearing another scream from my throat. The sound echoed, raw and broken, shaking me to the core.

I collapsed sideways into Ronan as he guided me back into the cottage, clutching at his shirt as though it could tether me.

The air was thick, suffocating. Each breath came ragged, shallow, my throat raw from crying out. My skin burned hot, then cold, then hot again, as though my own body no longer knew which way was up.

Between contractions, a fleeting moment of stillness came. My body trembled, slick with sweat, every muscle humming from strain. I looked up at Ronan, his face grim and pale in the firelight, his jaw clenched.

Fear flickered in his eyes despite the calm he forced on his features.

“I can’t…” The words slipped out before I could stop them, broken and hoarse. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” he said fiercely, leaning closer, his forehead almost brushing mine. “You will. For the baby.” His gaze darted to my stomach, then back to me, steady as stone. “More than claws and fangs, remember?”

The next contraction ripped through me before I could reply, tearing me open from the inside. I arched against it, my voice cracking into another scream.

My hand clenched his so tightly I felt Ronan’s knuckles shift, but he didn’t pull away. He let me crush his hand, let me pour every ounce of my desperation into that grip.

I bit down on the pain, tried to ride it, but gods, it was endless. Every cry felt like it might be the last sound I ever made.

Don’t die. Don’t leave them. Breathe, fight, survive.

That mantra burned through me as hot as the pain. For the little life inside me who hadn’t yet seen the world.

When the contraction finally ebbed, I lay limp, trembling, gasping for breath. The reprieve was brief, I knew another would come soon.

Ronan squeezed my hand once more, his eyes fierce. “I’ll get the midwives,” he said, and though his tone was clipped with urgency, his hand lingered on mine as if he hated to let go.

The pain gathered again, a storm rising, and I clung to his touch as long as I could before it swallowed me whole.

Consciousness came to me in fits and starts. The pain in my back, the weight pressing on my lungs, the restless movement inside me…it all made awareness a fragile thing.

But there were moments when exhaustion pulled me under, and I floated just beneath the surface of waking.

It was there, in that thin space between dreams and reality, that I felt it – Ronan’s quiet unraveling.

My eyes stayed shut, my breathing even, but the shift in the room was undeniable. Ronan’s footsteps dragged instead of paced. The scrape of the stool, the hitch of his breath; he thought I was asleep, and for once, he didn’t guard himself.

The scent of blood reached me, faint but distinct. My chest tightened. He was tending his wound again. I’d seen the way he favored that side, how his jaw clenched when he thought I wasn’t looking.

He’d tried to hide it, to shield me from one more worry. But now I heard the sharp hiss of pain as he cleaned it, the muttered curse he thought no one would catch.

My fingers curled against the blanket. Part of me wanted to sit up, to demand he let me help, but another part… stilled. Because this was the only time I had ever heard Ronan sound remotely not perfect.

He was always the strong one. The unshakable one. The shield I leaned on even when I swore I didn’t need him. To see that shield crack? It frightened me more than I wanted to admit.

His breathing grew ragged, uneven, and in the silence I heard words he hadn’t meant for me. A vow whispered into the dark.

“Stay strong through the end,” he said voice hoarse.

I didn’t know if he meany my end, or his.

The fierceness of it pulled at something inside me. I turned my head slightly on the pillow, eyes half-lidded, and caught the shape of him slumped forward, one hand pressed hard against his thigh, the other gripping his knife hilt like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

His shoulders trembled once, just once, before he forced them still again.

I bit back the urge to call his name. He needed this moment, even if it broke me to watch.

He thought he carried this alone. That by locking away his fear, he was protecting me. But lying there, half-hidden by shadows, I realized something bitter and beautiful all at once: he was as terrified as I was.

Afraid he wouldn’t be enough. Afraid of leaving me unguarded. Afraid of death waiting just outside the door.

Tears pricked at my eyes, unexpected and sharp. I had been so consumed with my own fear of losing the baby, of Ruby’s silence, of dying…that I had forgotten Ronan was bleeding right beside me, fighting battles of his own.

He whispered again, softer this time, “Death will have to go through me first.”

I pressed my face into the blanket, hiding the wetness on my cheeks, my chest aching with the weight of it. He would give his life for me without hesitation, and I hated that I might let him.

A part of me longed to reach out, to take his hand, to tell him I saw him, that he didn’t have to carry this vow alone. But fear kept me still. Because if I acknowledged it, if I let him know I had heard, he would lock it away again.

The fragility. The possibility that we might not survive.

So, I lay silent, breathing slow and even, pretending to sleep. Pretending for him, the way he pretended for me.

Until the next contraction hit and the scream tore out of my mouth.