Chapter 348 – The Awakening (Alora) Novel Free Online by L T Marshall

I can admit that I have love for him, and our relationship grows with every meeting. I never thought I would ever see the day I willingly called him father or dad, but I do, and I miss him when I don’t see him.

“Won’t be long before it’s you.” I prod him in the cheek knowing fine well he has convinced Carmen to start trying for a family already. Since they marked, they have been an inseparable smitten couple and he seems to know how to handle the fire that is Carmen so well. She’s healing and growing as a person. Letting love in warmed her up and made her less defensive around some of us. Although Jasper is the only one who gets to experience all her softness and she can still be bristly with Meadow, even though they love one another on some level.

Now the war is over a lot of Lycan have decided to try for pups and settle into our new peaceful life with real hope for a bright future. I feel like the twins are the beginning of the Santo pack stepping into a new life.

“Yeah. Hopefully soon, it’s not like we aren’t trying. Meadow beat us to it and Carmen can’t forgive her for that.” Jasper laughs at the ongoing rivalry between the two, that’s so obviously skin deep.

Pain hits again, severe, and knocks my breath away, clutching at the bed covers and I’m rocketed back to that place of misery. Colton shoos Jasper out of the way so he can come and take my hands and this time tries to breathe with me to guide me through it.

“These are fast, I don’t think we have long to wait to meet our daughters. Midwife just got here. Try and stay calm, baby.” He croons and softly kisses my forehead, grazing lips gently over my head and then my lips.

“I just want it to be over.” I exhale in a breathless whoosh, clinging to him and close my eyes once more to try and find the way through what I know is only going to get worse.

“I’m here, everyone except Mommy and Daddy, out. You don’t need to be in here unless I call you. We have babies to deliver.” Marda, the most experienced midwife of the Santo pack, sweeps in with authority and reassurance and despite not being able to respond to her, my heart calms a little knowing she is here.

She has delivered hundreds of pups over the years, she ever delivered me. I can relax into her care and know that I’m in safe hands and she will help me through this whatever way it needs to be done.

“I know these babies are a little different, but don’t worry. Whatever they throw at us we can handle it. You’re not our first mix breed birth under my watch.

A New Life

“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 peaking 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 selfheal, 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 on 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 Lycan 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. Lycan 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 Lycan 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.

“I don’t want them to feel different and unwanted. I want them to grow up feeling they fit in.” Something I never did, and it worries me now that they will be noticeably different to Lycan 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 overthinking.

I pull them closer and snuggle my face nearer, inhaling that baby scent that’s unique and now part of them. A smell I know I will become addicted to in time and will eventually pine for when it fades as they age. Colton leans in and strokes them both gently over their tiny crowns before kissing both on the forehead. Immersed in his own overflowing love for his daughters. I can feel it in him, and we share the emotions while smiling down at two gorgeous little heads.

“They’re perfect. The pack will welcome them with open arms and love them as much as we do.” 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 and clammy, and she nods as he takes it to administer some care to me.

“Have you decided on names? I know you didn’t want to reveal them until they were born.”

“We have.” Colton is the one to reply. “Eve and Eden. It somehow seems fitting for the first tribrids to ever grace our lands. I think they look like an Eve …” he points to the smaller of the two girls, the 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’. We spent so long tossing names back and forth before settling on those.

“Pretty names for pretty girls. 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 feeding session.

“We can announce it to that lot out there. I’ll tell them you need time to feed 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 are waiting downstairs.” Colton brushes a kiss across my temple, back in nurturing carer mode. “I’m really proud of you. They’re healthy and perfect and you did so well.”

“Not doing it again in a hurry.” I smile weakly and settle my head back into my pillows to relax and doze while they continue to suckle. I’m exhausted and not all that sad about his no visitor rule for a few hours. I feel bad knowing I am keeping my father waiting, but really, I’m in no fit state just yet.

Marda starts to tend to the bed clothes which are all pushed way down below my feet. Switching out the blood soaked messy for clean fresh linen, and Colton lifts my legs to help her change them.

“I’ll be back soon.” Colton stops fussing over me and goes to do what he said while Marda takes the time to wash my body and helps me to maneuver without disturbing the girls as she dresses me in my pajamas on the lower half and tucks me into a fresh bed.

“Enjoy the quiet before the 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 to the pack and I wish that was still the norm. Mother’s need respite as most like you, want to recover naturally without turning. They somehow feel the achievement means more when they allow a slower healing process and the bond to their children is stronger.”

“I understand that. After going through all 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 hurry.”

I can’t explain it, but I understand 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 birth.

“What now, Luna?” Marda comes to sit on the edge of the bed and checks the feeding position, stroking little faces and smiling with a warmth of a woman who has mothered her own little ones with her full heart.

“We take each day as it comes, and we see what happens. My father, Sierra, all will come up soon enough to welcome our next 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 from here on in to always protect them.”

And we will. No matter what it takes or what life throws at us. We survived wars and so much worse. We will always do everything in our power to protect our family.

“My gut tells me these two will be important to our species one day. We’ve never had anything quite like them and it will be a wonderful thing to watch as they develop their natural abilities without fear of showing them.” Marda admires them and reaches out to stroke the hair from my damp face with the gentlest of touches.

“Doc has requested that he be allowed to monitor them as they do. To record their progress and document changes. He thinks it will be an amazing addition to his research of non-human species. His eternal fascination of Lycans and immortals.” I smile warmly at that as I say it. Conjuring up our eccentric adopted Uncle who sometimes visits from his research lab to keep Sierra up to date, and generally because he misses us. He’s become a part of the Santo family and the pack adore him as much as we do. A never-ending source of knowledge for our kind in matters we never understood before.

“Juan Santo really should regret everything he lost. His own grandchildren, how amazing his son is. The rebuild of the pack.” Marda’s face crumbles a little at the thought of the alpha who ruled for most of her life, and I’m sobered by the sound of his name. Many older Lycan like her still hold him in a place in their hearts for the years before he changed and led us all into misery.

A few months ago, my father informed us Juan passed away not long after he was taken prisoner. With vengeance and hate replaced with a desire to bond with me, he no longer had the stomach for torture and allowed Juan to leave this world once and for all. It was quick, as painless a death as could be at the hands of vampires mauling you to death, and Colton never mentioned it again. He’s gone, the evil that started everything and yet there’s a part of me that aches for Colton because I know deep down, he wishes his father had been different in the end. I’m sad that my girls lack a grandfather because he was so caught up in his own madness, he forgot what love and family was.

“Only sunny skies and happier days from here on in, right?” Marda pats me once more and gets up from the bed as the door clicks open and Colton slides back in, beaming from ear to ear. Obvious happiness and glee etched from head to foot, and I know it’s from the excitement of our friends, family, and pack outside, waiting patiently.

“I love my life. What more could I ask for but all my girls?” He beams enthusiastically and scoots back to my side, hopping on the bed and slides an arm under my head to cuddle up close and watch our children sleep.

“You say that now, but you haven’t met night feeds or tantrums yet.” I giggle and nuzzle against him, closing my eyes to sleep because I know he will stand guard and move our kids when they are done feeding. When I am out cold, he’ll take them to meet their family.

“Bring it on. There’s nothing in this life that you can throw at me that I won’t handle like a boss.” He kisses me on the temple with passion, squeezes me tight and I relax, rest assured that he means it because I know it’s true.

—The End

---