Chapter Text
LUKAS
Callum’s shadow-borne note had said that Genna was in labor.
His message had failed to mention the ghost standing in front of me, a strange lookalike of a female I hadn't seen since I was thirteen years old.
I took a step toward her, wondering if this was some magic of Koschei’s, if I had even left the continent, or if I had been killed and joined her in the afterlife.
“Mother?”
I didn’t feel dead, and she looked different, older than I remembered. Did people age in death?
“Lukas!” She rushed toward me, wrapping me in an embrace, then began ushering me toward the stairs. “Oh, Lukas, good! You haven’t missed anything.”
I stared at her, bewildered. “How are you here? How are you—alive?”
“Your sister-in-law freed me from that lake. Kalli. It's a long story, I'll tell you all about it later. Come.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to think. But I hadn’t returned home for a reunion with my mother.
“Genna—”
“She's in here, dear. That Night Court healer of hers is simply delightful.” My mother’s voice dropped slightly in volume and turned reproving as she escorted me into the upstairs hallway. “I can’t say I was thrilled to learn you’re still hanging out with that Callum, but it was nice to see a familiar face.”
My head spun as I followed her into the bedroom. She kept chatting away like she’d never died, and I kept wondering if I was dead, or if I’d been placed under some kind of spell. Was any of this even real?
I stopped hearing her voice as Genna came into view. She was seated upright in our bed, legs spread, face scrunched up in concentration. In pain.
She was in active labor.
I strode to her side, my blood boiling. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” I snapped at Callum, who was standing uselessly in the corner.
He visibly paled. “She wouldn’t let me!” he protested.
I shot him a glare of disgust as I sat down on the bed and took Genna's hand in my own. Her cheeks were red, her temple covered in sweat. Her gold eyes softened as they landed on me.
“I'm here, love,” I murmured, tracing my fingers over her cheek.
“Lukas,” she breathed, tilting her head back for a kiss that I delivered with possessive hunger.
For a minute, everything slowed, and we were the only two people in the room, the only people in the entire world. This was real. Genna was real. My anxiety abated somewhat as it washed over me that I hadn’t missed my son’s birth, that I was back with my omega, where I belonged.
“Kalli?” she asked hopefully as I pulled away.
I shook my head. “I don't know. I left before anything happened.”
Her face fell. “Oh. I tried to hold out longer.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “The Forest House was attacked while you were gone. I had Callum send some of our soldiers, and it sounds like everything’s calmed down now. Three of ours injured, no deaths.”
She’d been handing down orders while actively in labor? I was going to kill Callum.
“Don't worry about any of that right now,” I told her soothingly. “I’m sure everyone’s all right.” I glanced over my shoulder, ordering Callum to confirm it with a look, before turning back to Genna. “You did everything right. So good.”
She sighed happily, like my arrival had righted all the problems of the world. “I told him to wait for you,” she whispered, running a hand over her swollen stomach.
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Thank you. It would have made a terrible first impression if I hadn’t been here to welcome him.”
Genna grinned. “He’d have thought you an absent father for sure,” she teased. I could hear the exhaustion already in her voice, and it terrified me.
“It won’t be too much longer now,” Madja said encouragingly as she withdrew from between Genna’s legs, and my heart rate instantly accelerated. I’d been an anxious mess the whole pregnancy, but the birth was the part I was most afraid of. My mother had died in childbirth.
Or… at least, I’d thought she had. Somehow knowing it wasn't true didn't alleviate any of the fear that the lie had caused. Labor killed females. Genna was in more danger now than I’d been on the continent. I gripped her hand, smoothing her hair back from her forehead.
“Can you do my glands?” she whispered, and I smiled and nodded, bringing her wrist to my lips, diligently working my tongue over the raised patch of skin there. She shuddered and eased into the pillows. “That helps so much,” she sighed.
“I'm glad,” I murmured, though glad was just about the last thing I was feeling.
How long had Genna been in pain? I would kill Callum for letting it get so far without notifying me. When he returned, I would make my former best friend pay for every second of discomfort my omega had endured.
And why the fuck had he smelled like Lila?
I was still vaguely aware of my mother somewhere behind me, but I hadn’t yet decided if she was real. I’d refrained from looking directly at her since first arriving, afraid she might disappear before my eyes, or that I might discover some inaccuracy in Koschei’s recreation of her, some proof that she wasn’t really here, confirming that I was hallucinating or trapped on the continent.
But even death itself couldn’t recreate Genna’s omega scent, or simulate the way that my body reacted to hers. She was real, and I could only assume that meant my mother was, too.
Genna must have seen the confusion on my face, because she took my hand and squeezed it. “Your mother took such good care of me,” she said quietly.
I stood, finally facing my mother, and my heart stuttered as I took her in. “Thank you.”
She looked almost exactly as I had remembered her. But for the small lines on her face and the dark circles under her eyes, I might have thought no time had passed at all. Those weren’t signs of age, I knew, but marks of whatever stress and abuse she had endured in her years of captivity. She looked so tired.
“Would you like to lie down?” I asked her.
She hesitated, appearing to consider. “I think I will, yes. Once everything has settled down.”
“There’s a guest room down the hall to the left,” Genna told her. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
My mother nodded. “Once we have news of your sister.”
She’d been pregnant the last time I saw her. Where was that child?
My mind spun, pulling my thoughts in a million different directions. I didn’t know what issue to address first, or how, but Genna was most important, always. Genna and our baby.
“He’s early,” I remembered, turning back to my omega with concern. By three weeks. Anxiety threatened to drown me once more, the fear that something would happen to Genna or our child instantly more acute than any concern I might feel about my missing sibling.
“Not dangerously so,” Madja assured me. “I'm actually surprised she’s held out this long. He’s already the size of a full-term baby. And with the wings…well, let’s just say he doesn’t need to get any bigger.”
I knew her words were meant to be a comfort, but they only added to my fear. Genna was so small…
I glanced at the talons topping her bat-like wings. Those were going to come out of her?
I began to grow lightheaded, practically overcome with worry. I’d thought I had more time to mentally prepare for this part. And I had wanted Genna to have a calm, peaceful experience when birthing our son. Not for her to be worried about Kalli and Autumn and Spring casualties.
“I'm sorry things are so hectic,” I murmured. “This isn’t how I wanted it to be.”
“I think he feels all the magic in the air,” Genna said, sounding far less concerned than I was as she ran a hand over her stomach. Her other hand closed around my wrist, and I felt her fingers brush over my own scent gland. I smiled gratefully, knowing she could feel my stress and was trying to calm me down. “That’s why he’s decided to come early.”
My brows furrowed. “Magic?”
“Can’t you feel it? I think it’s coming from Autumn.”
And now that I stopped to consider, I could feel a strange hum of magical energy coming from the north. It felt both familiar and otherworldly, and I fumbled through memories, trying to determine what it was and where I had experienced it before.
I was still piecing it together when Callum reappeared, dramatically panting like he’d actually done something useful. “I confirmed the three Spring injuries, all minor,” he said. “No deaths.” He swallowed, glancing guiltily first at me, and then at my mother. “And I can’t get into the Forest House.”
Genna frowned, sitting up straighter against the pillows. “What do you mean, you can’t get in?”
“It’s… inaccessible,” Callum answered vaguely. He shot me a look that I returned with a silent glare.
“It’s the Scepter,” my mother said suddenly from the corner, and I turned to stare at her in bewildered disbelief. “I took it from the starlight pool and used it to repel the attack on the Autumn complex.”
How the hell—
Callum could count his days. He didn’t have many left.
“What’s that?” Genna asked curiously, glancing back and forth between me and my mother.
I repressed a growl of frustration, not wanting to have this conversation when Genna was actively giving birth. “It’s a weapon,” I told her reluctantly. “One that my father received from Koschei.” And one only Callum had known the location of.
“In exchange for me,” my mother interjected, and I shot her another look of bewilderment before turning back to Genna.
“I was going to tell you about it after the baby was born,” I told her apologetically.
Genna’s brows furrowed, and I could tell it hurt her that I hadn’t confided in her about it. “We can talk about it later,” she said after a moment.
I nodded solemnly, kissing her temple. “We will,” I promised.
“I instructed the males in charge to leave it in place until they've received word that Genna’s sister has been safely extracted.” My mother began wringing her hands anxiously. “But I wanted to be here when you got back, so I left it there with them. I don’t know how long it will hold in my absence.” Her tone turned uncertain, and she glanced up at me nervously. “I assumed you would trust them with it, given the family connection.”
“We do,” Genna answered, and I reluctantly nodded my agreement.
Cristin had been left in charge of Autumn, which meant that my brother-in-law now knew I had an object of the Dread Trove. I would have to figure out how to deal with that later. Azriel’s deadline for me to tell Eris was drawing close, anyway, so I supposed it wasn't the end of the world.
I didn’t bother asking how my mother intended to get back in if the Scepter was keeping everyone out. Maybe it wouldn’t deny entry to the one who had wielded it.
None of it even mattered if something happened to Genna. Autumn could have my weapons, my crown, my court. My life would end with hers. There would simply be no point in continuing without her.
“She’s going to be fine,” Madja assured me with a comforting touch to my elbow. I swallowed hard, my mind still filled with gruesome images of those taloned wings ripping through my wife’s petite body.
I knew it would do no good to threaten the elderly healer, so instead I turned back to Callum, shooting him my most lethal glare, and warned in a low growl, “She’d better be.”