Chapter 75: Chapter 74

Xander | dropped Alice’s hand like I’d been burned.

“Did she just say what I think she said?” | asked Zane “Sure f ucking did.”

“Xander...” Alice croaked. “Please get your father.”

The midwife attending to Alice glanced uncomfortably between me and my mother.

“Alice.” Gabriela’s voice was stern but even. “He isn’t here.”

| walked over to my mother, glancing back over my shoulder at Alice still muttering desperately.

“Why the f u ck is she asking for him?” | demanded in an angry whisper.

Zane and | had our suspicions about what Alice and my father had been doing the night they were out together, and this all but confirmed our worst fears.

This baby wasn’t ours. It was my father’s.

“| honestly don’t know.” My mother cast her eyes around the room like she was looking for an answer | was s so used to her lying to me, but this time she seemed to be telling the truth.

Did she have the same suspicions Zane and | had about the baby’s real dad?

“Alice was with Father the night she was out,” | said, not meeting my mother’s gaze..

She was silent for long enough that | finally looked up at her.

She was breathing heavily, her wolf flashing in her eyes.

I so rarely saw her get angry like this.

It scared me.

She pointed her finger at me, her voice icy with rage. “Don’t you dare go there.”

Zane walked up carefully behind me.

“Do you know what they were doing that night?” he asked my mother.

Alow warning growl tumbled from her lips.

“Your mate is dying,” she snarled. “There’s no time for these stu pid questions.”

“Gabriela, | need you to assist,” the midwife called in a shaky voice. “Her condition is unstable. We need to get the pup out now.”

1/2 “F uck. She's already losing too much blood.

“She s to push harder,” the midwife said. “She'll be too weak soon enough.”

Zane and | rushed back to Alice's side.

Her eyelids were starting to flutter closed and a long, continuous moan of pain fell from her slightly parted lips.

Usually, they were bright pink, full of life.

But right now they looked like the lips of a corpse.

A jolt of fear pierced straight through my heart.

We were losing her.

And we would lose the babies soon, | dropped my voice lower and tried to add a gravelly edge to it.

“Alice, it’s me, Orion,” | said.

She gasped weakly but didn’t open her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Zane demanded.

| didn’t dare look at my mother.

Go ds knew what she'd think of this.

“She needs to hold on,” | told Zane. If she wants my father, I'll give her my father.”

“Alice, you need to push,” | said, doing the best impression of my father | could.

Alice squeezed her eyes tight, and a screaming roar of pain sounded from deep inside her chest.

Then there was a much weaker, higher-pitched cry.

“The head is out!” the midwife yelled.

I “One more, Alice,” | whispered, my voice low and rumbling in her ear.

Another blood-curdling scream, and then Gabriela was holding up our pup, and Alice’s screams died down.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” my mother said, wrapping her tightly in a blanket.

She brought her over to Zane and me, and when | looked into her tiny face, | felt something stirring, like a long-buried memory slowly bubbling to the surface.

“You all have to decide what to name her when Alice is feeling better,” Gabriela said.

“Lanie,” Zane and | said together, and we all froze.

Adark shadow seemed to pass over my mother’s face, but in the next mornent, it was gone.

2/3 “How did you...?”

“| don't...”

Our thoughts both drifted off, neither of us able to explain why the name had come to us.

Lanie “Wait, there’s another baby,” the midwife said, ripping me back to reality.

Twins? What the hell?

Alice barely survived this birth, | didn’t see how she could possibly make it through another.

“...can’t...” Alice said in a barely audible whisper.

“Just one more, Alice. Just one more push.”

My mother’s screams mixed with Alice’s as she braced her whole weak, shaking body for one final push.

Another baby’s cry echoed around the room, but Alice had gone limp and silent.

“What's happening?” | demanded. “Is she okay?

“She’s hemorrhaging,” the midwife said.

“Orion,” Alice squeaked out, and | leaned close to her “Yes?” | asked, panic rising like bile in my throat.

“Tell Mason | did my best,” she said before she went still and silent.

| squeezed her hand, willing her to open her eyes, to say something else.

“Alice. Alice please, who is Mason?”

But she was already dead.