Chapter 409: Chapter 409

Chapter 409

Lanie

I knew parenting would be hard, but I’d never imagined facing anything like this. I hugged Stella hard again. “This isn’t exactly like helping you with your homework.”

To my relief, she laughed. The sound of it rang round the room like a chorus of bells. Something in it lifted my spirits, not the way she’d been doing to manipulate her father’s mood, but with clear and simple joy we all shared. In that moment, I had my own flash of the future, one in which all of us were all right.

No more danger. Only love and happiness.

“There’s something else we need to discuss,” I said to everyone. “Stella is now an adult, but we still have two toddlers. How will we explain all of this to Alaina and Isaac?”

Stella bit her lower lip. “They already know. We’ve all been bonded since birth…they’re not Celestials, but they are hybrids. They’re wiser than they seem.”

Xander grunted. “Don’t tell me they’re going to stroll in here looking like thirty-year-olds instead of three-year-olds next.

Stella laughed. She went to him for a hug, leaning her head on his shoulder. “No, Daddy. They’ll likely grow like wolf pups usually do. But they can talk and understand better than they’ve been acting like they could. They’ve stayed babies longer than they might have otherwise, but they probably won’t keep maturing faster than normal.”

“This is going to cause a stir around the enclave,”

Mason said seriously. “How should we handle it?

Obviously, the teachers at the school know. Word will get out. We can’t pretend you’re still a child.”

“Everyone knows I’m a hybrid. We’ll have my great-grandfather explain this as a quirk of genetics,”

Stella said as though she’d already been thinking of the answer to this before he had even asked the question. “Nobody can know I’m a Celestial, but nobody will even guess. It’s just not something anyone thinks about or would even believe.”

“I can hardly believe it,” Zane said.

Xander kissed the top of her head. “So…do we make an announcement? Or just let people come to us with questions?”

Stella’s eyes narrowed, but I could see a swirl of colors in them. My mother’s intuition told me that she

was running through multiple scenarios and outcomes in her mind, although I couldn’t read her thoughts. Her lips moved with silent words. Her eyes opened, and she focused on all three of us.

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“We let people come to us. The residents of Brightsky, most of them, are going to view my rapid maturity as something akin to going through puberty. A natural process that is different for everyone, nothing to be ashamed of, but not necessarily anyone else’s business,” she said. “There will be some who ask, and all we have to say is that my hybrid traits combined to make this my natural state of growth.”

“That makes the most sense to me,” I told her. “But when female wolves reach their maturity, their

mothers and sisters often have a little celebration. I’d like to acknowledge that for you.”

She beamed. “I’d love that, Mother.”

“Spa day,” I told her firmly with a look around the room at her fathers. “Girls only.”

There were things that Stella would now have to learn.

She might be a Celestial, but she was still a woman.

“I got all the messages…” Gabriela came through the door into the living room and pulled up short with a

gasp.

“Hello, Grammy,” Stella said.

Gabriela came to hug her at once. She cupped Stella’s face in her hands, her eyes wide with wonder.

“By the Goddess. You look exactly like my grandmother,” she marveled.

Xander’s mother turned to the rest of us. “I take it this is the important news you were all banging on about?

Don’t tell me it was something else.”

“No, Grammy,” Stella said with a laugh. “It was about me. I grew up…”

“I see that,” Gabriela said and stepped back to give her an up and down look. “You’re beautiful. This is

amazing.”

Stella put her fingertips to her temples as her eyes flared again. She blinked away the colors and smiled.

“I’m going to my room for a bit to let you all process this and to give my head a rest. So many feelings, thoughts…..fears…..”

She gave Xander a pointed look, but her smile didn’t fade.

“I love you all,” she said and hugged each of us tightly before stepping back. “I know you have a lot to discuss and work through. And just so you know, I won’t be listening in.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Even though you are all being so very, very loud.”

“Go rest,” I told her. “You’ve had a big day. We’ll order in for dinner tonight and have some nice family time.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said and retreated to her room.

“So,” Gabriela said after Stella had closed her door.

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“You’d

better tell m

me everything.”