"Give them here," Felicity said, already pushing herself up despite the ache low in her belly, arms already outstretched.
Ivan crossed the room in two steps and settled the cubs against her before she’d even gotten fully upright, guiding her back into the pillows with one broad palm at her spine. The moment they touched her skin, the crying stopped, cut off so fast it startled a laugh out of her, wet and helpless.
They latched almost instantly, both of them, and the sound that came out of her was somewhere between a sob and a sigh as they settled into content, rhythmic little pulls. The eagle girl’s wings flared once, twice, then folded slowly against her back as she quieted.
The snake cub’s tail found Felicity’s wrist and wound around it, loose and warm, tiny scales catching the morning light.
"They’re perfect," Ivan murmured, sweeping a stray lock of hair from her face before pressing his lips to her forehead. "Taking the bottle just fine through the night. But if you want to feed them yourself, we’re not stopping you."
"Mm." She couldn’t manage more than that, too busy staring down at the two small faces working against her, milk-drunk and furious in the way only newborns could be furious about something so good.
She looked at her daughter first, downy feathers just starting to show along her scalp, small wings twitching every few seconds like she couldn’t quite believe they were hers yet. "Tilly," Felicity whispered, testing the shape of it in her mouth. "I want to call her Tilly."
"Beautiful name," Victor said from beside her, voice low, thick with something she didn’t have a word for yet. "Thank you."
She turned to the snake cub next, and her chest did something complicated and enormous, because he was Damien in miniature. He had the same obsidian scales, the same sharp angles waiting to grow into him, even a faint shimmer of gold threading through his skin where the light caught it.
"Alfie," she said. "His name is Alfie."
Nobody argued. Nobody said anything at all for a moment, the room gone soft and quiet except for the small satisfied sounds of two cubs feeding and the low creak of Victor’s wings settling further around the bed.
Felicity stroked her fingers over Tilly’s downy scalp, over the soft curve of Alfie’s scales, laughing under her breath at how quickly the fury drained out of them once their bellies filled. Their small bodies went heavy and loose against her, milk-drunk and boneless, and within minutes both had drifted off mid-suckle, mouths slack, tiny fists uncurling against her skin.
"There we go," she murmured, brushing her thumb along Alfie’s jaw. "There’s my furious boy, all worn out."
Ivan lifted them from her with the same careful precision he did everything, one cub cradled in each massive forearm like they weighed nothing at all. He paused at the door to look back at her—something soft passing over his face before he turned and carried them off toward the nursery, his footsteps deliberately quiet on the floorboards.
The room hadn’t even settled into silence before Damien appeared in the doorway, a panther cub tucked against each side of his chest, both of them whining high and thin, wriggling against his hold like they couldn’t stand another second of not being where they wanted to be.
"They won’t stop," he said, voice edged with something close to helplessness. "I tried to."
He didn’t finish. The air folded, that same space-warping shimmer she’d felt when Lucan moved through a room, and both cubs vanished from his arms and landed against her chest in the same breath, small and warm and immediately silent, little noses pressed into her skin as they’d never been anywhere else.
Damien froze mid-step, staring at his empty arms.
"Well," Felicity said, laughing so hard it jostled the babies, "that’s new."
That is not new," Voss said from somewhere near the window, tone flat with the particular disgust of a man watching his worst fears confirmed. "That is exactly the thing I said would happen. Teleporting infants. Wonderful, fantastic." He dragged a hand down his face. "We’re going to need harnesses.
"Harnesses won’t stop teleportation, genius," Damien muttered, still staring at his arms as they’d betrayed him.
"I’m aware." Voss’s ears flattened. "I said it anyway because it made me feel better."
Felicity didn’t hear much past that. Both cubs had already latched, drinking with the same frantic hunger their siblings had, little paws kneading against her in contented rhythm. Twin purrs built low in their chests, vibrating through her ribs, and she pressed her lips to the crown of the boy’s head, breathing in that new, milk-and-warmth cub smell.
He was black as pitch, sleek fur already showing the faint ghost of rosettes along his shoulders, unmistakably Lucan’s son down to the shape of his ears.
"Teddy," she whispered, voice cracking halfway through the second syllable. "Your name is Teddy."
Her throat closed before she could explain it properly, and she had to force the words out past the tightness. "Lucan told me that if he ever had a son, he wanted to name him after his grandfather. Teddy." She blinked hard, but the tears came anyway, hot and fast, dripping down onto the cub’s dark fur.
Dimitri’s arms came around her from behind, solid and grounding, his voice low against her ear. "We’ll find him. He’ll see this. He’ll see him."
She nodded, unable to speak, holding her son a little tighter as he nursed on, oblivious to the ache in her chest, purring like nothing in the world was wrong.
When she finally looked down at the second cub—the girl, curled against her other side with her tummy already rounding out with milk—the tears turned softer, easier.
"And you," Felicity murmured, kissing the top of her head, feeling the purr against her lips. "You’re Lottie. After my grandmother." She smiled through the wet mess of her own face. "She would have adored you."
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