"Oh, you cheeky thing." Her voice came out shaking, laughing, crying all at once. "Just like your father. Just like him. Wherever he is, he’ll be back soon, my chubby little one. He’s going to lose his mind when he meets you. You’re so handsome. You’re the most handsome little panther cub I’ve ever seen."
The cub’s whimper dissolved into a soft, hiccupping sound. His little mouth found her breast with the faultless accuracy of something that had been born knowing exactly where home was, and latched on with a ferocity that made her gasp. The pull of him was immediate and deep, that sweet, aching tug that told her body to keep making, keep giving, keep filling this small, miraculous mouth.
She looked down at him and felt the world narrow to the space between her arms.
His cheeks were round and flushed, working in slow, rhythmic pulses as he drank. The black panther’s ears twitched with each swallow, going soft and relaxed, the way Lucan’s did when he was content, when he let himself be content, which wasn’t often. The tail had uncurled from his thigh and lay draped across her wrist, the dark fur silky against her skin. His fingers splayed against the swell of her breast, tiny and perfect, each nail a minute crescent of black.
"You have your father’s ears," she whispered, tracing the curve of one with her fingertip. It flicked under her touch, and the cub made a small, protesting sound around his mouthful. "Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sweetheart. You eat. You eat as much as you want."
She looked up and found Voss still on his knees beside the bed, his scarred jaw working, tears tracking fresh down his cheeks. His wolf ears were angled toward the cub, cataloguing every sound, every swallow, every breath, every tiny shift of weight.
"He teleported," Voss said, and his voice was wrecked. "Fel. He teleported out of my hands and straight to you. He’s Lucan’s boy and has his father’s gift. Already. Before his eyes were even dry, I know there are no studies on this, but he was what a minute old?"
She looked down at the cub again. At the dark hair, the dark ears, the dark tail. At the blue eyes half-lidded with contentment, the chubby cheeks working steadily, the tiny hand that had found her finger and wrapped around it with a grip that felt like it could hold the world.
"He knew where I was," she said softly. "He knew exactly where to go."
The cub pulled off with a wet sound, milk beading on his lower lip, and blinked up at her with those crystal-blue eyes Lucan’s face, her eyes, this impossible combination that shouldn’t have existed and did. He made a small, satisfied noise, almost a purr, and his tail gave a slow, lazy flick against her wrist.
Then he burped. Loudly. With the unselfconscious dignity of someone who had just accomplished something important and wanted everyone to know.
Felicity laughed until she cried, and pressed her forehead to his, and breathed him in—that newborn smell, warm milk and clean skin and something electric underneath, something that tasted like ozone and magic and the crack between worlds.
"My clever boy," she whispered against his forehead. "My impossible, beautiful, clever boy. Your father is going to lose his entire mind."
She pressed her lips to the crown of his head, soft and lingering, breathing in that impossible scent. Where was he? Where was Lucan right now, in whatever corner of this broken world he’d been pulled to? Was he looking for them? Was he already tearing through the ruins, that cold composure cracking at the edges, feeling something shift in the fabric of things, feeling himself shift, somewhere deep and primal, the way a compass needle swings north?
He’ll find us, she thought, and let herself believe it. He’ll find us because there’s nowhere else to go.
Her thumb traced slow circles on the cub’s temple, over the fine dark hair, the soft spot that pulsed warm beneath her fingertip. His ears twitched in his sleep, dreaming already, and she murmured against them.
"You look after your brothers, my sweet. You hear me? That little snake in Damien’s arms, and that little wolf in Ivan’s, they’re yours. They’re yours to protect and yours to love, and you be kind to them, you be so kind, because the world isn’t always going to be kind back and they’re going to need you." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she swallowed hard, pressing another kiss to his forehead. "And if you ever need me, if you ever, ever need me, you find me. However far, however dark, you find me. You just close your eyes and think of me, and I’ll be right there. I promise. I promise, baby."
His tail gave a slow, sleepy flick against her wrist, and she took it as agreement.
She looked up, her gaze finding Dimitri’s red eyes across the dim room. He was watching her with that warm, steady attention that always made her feel like she was the only thing in the room, and she felt something in her chest loosen just a fraction.
"Dimitri." Her voice came out thin, reedy with exhaustion and the beginnings of a new fear. "How far can a newborn cub teleport? If he has this already, does that mean the others, the snake cub, the wolf cub, have their fathers’ gifts too? Already? Is that normal, is that...?"
"Shh." Dimitri was beside her in two strides, his hand finding the back of her neck, warm and grounding. He bent and pressed his lips to hers, soft and unhurried, and she felt the words dissolve on her tongue. "Too many questions, little one. You still have one more cub to bring into the world, and we need to find Lucan and Vict—"
The space blew open.
Not the space the air blew open, the pressure in the room dropping so fast that Felicity’s ears popped, and Victor was there, filling the frame, filling the room, filling every corner of her awareness like a storm rolling in off the coast. His wings were half-extended, silver-to-black feathers ruffled and dark with what might have been sweat or something worse, and his red eyes swept the room once the cubs, the other men, the blood on the sheets, the small figure in the centre of it all, and then he was moving.
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