"Margaret!" I scream again, gripping the bedpost as another contraction tears through me. Rain hammers the windows like bullets, and thunder drowns out my voice.
She's not here. The church social ran late, and with this storm,
Pain explodes across my belly, doubling me over. Too early. Seven months. This can't be happening.
I stumble to the window, pressing my face against the glass. Through the sheets of rain, the moon hangs low and full, but something's wrong with it. The silver light looks... red. Like blood seeping through gauze.
"No, no, no." I grip my stomach, trying to will the contractions away. "Not tonight, little one. Please."
But my body has other plans. The next wave of pain drops me to my knees, and warm liquid pools beneath me. My water breaking sends panic shooting through my veins.
Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the room in stark white. In that instant, I catch my reflection in the mirror across the room. My eyes, they're glowing. Actually glowing, like silver coins caught in moonlight.
Another contraction hits, and I crawl toward the bed, gasping. The pain is different now, deeper. More urgent. Like something inside me is fighting to get out.
Thunder crashes overhead, so close it rattles my teeth. The lights flicker once, twice, then go out completely.
"Perfect." I haul myself onto the bed, grabbing towels from the nightstand. Margaret always keeps supplies nearby, she was a midwife once, before her arthritis got bad.
The red moonlight streaming through the window provides the only illumination. In its strange glow, everything looks otherworldly. Dangerous.
I press my back against the headboard, trying to remember what Margaret taught me about breathing through contractions. In. Out. In. Out.
But this pain is beyond breathing. It feels like lightning in my veins, like something cosmic tearing me apart from the inside.
"Come on, little one." My voice sounds strange, echoing in the dark room. "If you're coming tonight, we'll do this together."
The next contraction brings with it an overwhelming urge to push. My body takes over, instincts older than thought driving me forward. I grab the towels, positioning them beneath me.
Push. Breathe. Push.
The pressure builds to impossible levels. Something's happening, not just the birth, but something else. The air around me shimmers, like heat waves rising from summer pavement.
Lightning flashes again, and in the mirror across the room, my reflection looks wrong. The glow in my eyes has spread, creeping across my skin like silver fire.
Another push, and I feel the baby's head crowning. The pain is beyond description, beyond endurance, but underneath it runs a current of pure power that makes my teeth ache.
"Almost there," I whisper, though I'm not sure if I'm talking to the baby or myself.
One more push, and,
The world explodes.
Light erupts from my body, brilliant white tinged with silver. Every mirror in the room cracks down the center with sharp, musical chimes. The light bulbs in the ceiling fixture flare so bright they burst, raining glass.
But I don't feel pain anymore. I feel... everything. Every heartbeat in the house below, every raindrop on the roof, every blade of grass in Margaret's garden. The power flowing through me is ancient, vast, like touching the edge of infinity.
My daughter slides into the world in a rush of fluid and light, and the moment she draws her first breath, the power cuts off like a switch flipping.
I catch her in my shaking hands, this tiny, perfect being who just rewrote the laws of physics. She's smaller than she should be, but her eyes, when they flutter open, are the silver from my dreams.
"Hello, little love." My voice cracks with exhaustion and wonder. "I'm your mama."
She makes a soft mewling sound, and something warm spreads through my chest. The mate bond with Adrian, dormant for months, suddenly flares to life. Not just connection now, but completion. Like a puzzle piece clicking into place.
The umbilical cord still connects us, and I should deal with that, but my hands are shaking too badly. Everything feels distant, like I'm watching someone else's life through thick glass.
The baby, my daughter, settles against my chest, her breathing steady and strong despite her early arrival. She's warm, almost unnaturally so, and where her skin touches mine, I feel tiny sparks of that same power.
"What are you, little one?" I whisper, stroking her downy hair.
Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision. The power surge took everything I had, and more. My body feels hollow, emptied out.
The last thing I see before unconsciousness takes me is my daughter's eyes, silver and knowing, watching me with an intelligence far beyond newborn.
Voices drift up from downstairs, pulling me from dreamless sleep. My body aches everywhere, and the sheets beneath me are damp with sweat. How long was I out?
"Margaret?" My voice comes out as a croak.
The baby, where's the baby?
Panic shoots through me as I struggle to sit up. The room spins, but I force myself upright, scanning the dim space. She's not here. The towels are gone, the broken glass swept up, the mirrors replaced.
Footsteps on the stairs, slow and deliberate. Too heavy to be Margaret.
"You're awake." The voice stops me cold. Deep, familiar, impossible.
Caleb Quinn stands in my doorway, my daughter cradled in his arms. She's clean, wrapped in a soft blanket, sleeping peacefully.
"How, " I try to speak, but my throat feels like sandpaper. "How are you here?"
He steps into the room, his weathered face grave in the lamplight. "I felt it. The awakening. Every wolf within a hundred miles felt it."
"Give her to me." I hold out my trembling arms.
He moves closer, carefully placing my daughter in my arms. The moment she touches me, warmth spreads through my chest. She's real. Safe. Perfect.
"What happened to Margaret?" I ask, not taking my eyes off the baby.
"Safe. I sent her to stay with her sister until morning. Told her you had a difficult birth and needed rest." His eyes study my face. "She believes you delivered naturally."
"And the... the power? The lights?"
"Contained. For now." He sits heavily in the chair beside the bed. "But we need to talk, Evelyn. About what your daughter is. About what she means."
I pull the blanket back, revealing my daughter's face. Even sleeping, there's something extraordinary about her. Something that makes the air shimmer faintly around her tiny form.
"She's early. Seven months."
"She's exactly when she needed to be." Caleb's voice holds a weight I don't understand. "Born under the blood moon, in the surge of her mother's awakening power."
"What are you saying?"
He meets my eyes, and I see fear there. Fear and something like awe.
"Your daughter is Moonborn, Evelyn. The first in three centuries." His voice drops to barely above a whispe
r. "Prophesied to end our world, destroy it entirely."