20. Epilogue

My baby was officially overstaying their welcome. I loved that they were staying inside me all nice and protected from the world. There was something reassuring about that. But also, they needed to come out before they were a toddler, and from the size of my belly, they were getting close.

I stood behind my kiln, tapping away on my phone. I needed Franklin. He's said to call at any time, and he probably meant it. At least I was hoping he did, because even as I dialed, I knew the answer to my question: No.

"Franklin here." He answered the phone on the first ring, and if he looked to see who was calling him, he hadn't acknowledged it.

"Hey, Franklin. It's Walker, and I have a quick question for you."

"I was just thinking about you."

I didn't stop to ask him in what capacity, instead blurting out my question, "Is your ultrasound drawing thingy accurate? Could I have twins or triplets taking up real estate here?"

"How many heartbeats do you hear?" he asked, because of course he had logic on his side… that and not carrying a two-ton baby. Sure, he had carried triplets and probably knew better than I ever would, but I was hormonally irrational and in my mind that didn't count. "Two total, or two plus your own?"

"Two total." I let out a sigh because I'd just answered my own question. "Why am I so huge?" I asked, all whiny and annoying like.

I knew I was grumpy about being pregnant for what felt like forever. I was ready to meet my baby and not be waddling around like some big duck shifter. Still, Franklin didn't deserve my whine.

"Aside from your stomach being large, how are your feet?" To his credit, he ignored my piss-poor attitude. I owed him a mug or a complete set of dishes. Maybe a nice vase or a sculpture. Something.

"Oh, I don't know, I haven't seen them in weeks."

"Ask your mate. He can see them for you." Which was true, but it also meant admitting to both him and Apollo that I'd called Franklin about my worry before discussing it with my mate.

"Okay."

As a surprise to no one, I found him in his workshop. He was working on a small rocking chair for one of our herd's kiddos. He planned to make one for every nibling born. If there was an uncle-of-the-year award, he'd deserve it for sure.

"Hey, I have a question for you, Apollo," I called out, hand grasping my phone at my side.

"What do you need, mate?" He wiped his hands off and stood up, crossing over to me, kissing my cheek.

"I need to know how my feet look."

"Wait, is this some new thing… like feet stuff?" I didn't want to process what "feet stuff" might look like, especially not while I was so huge I couldn't see them.

"No, not feet stuff." I held up the phone. "Franklin asked if I was only ginormous in my belly or if my feet were huge, too."

"Oh." He squatted down. "Franklin, I'm looking now… just a minute… interference."

It took me far too long to figure out he was referring to my shoes.

"Two seconds, Franklin, I need to get barefoot first."

I walked over to the bench, plopped myself down, and was all too happy when my mate said, "I'll take your shoes off."

He carefully did and then looked up at me. "Oh, they're really puffy. Like really puffy."

"They fit into my shoes."

"You are wearing my shoes."

Which I hadn't realized until he said it, and they should've been huge on me, not snug. Crap.

"Didn't your feet hurt?" He looked up at me, not even pretending to mask his concern.

"Of course they did, but everything was aching. Everything hurts." I'd teased numerous times over the past couple of weeks that even my hair hurt, but since my scalp really did, it might not've been teasing as much as trying to lighten the mood.

I spoke into the phone. "Did you hear that?" I asked Franklin, who immediately asked me to put my mate on the phone.

I didn't catch all they said, my mind reeling at how messed up my feet were. The next thing I knew, I was being whisked into the house, and Franklin was on his way to our land.

"He said just rest until he gets here," Apollo said. As much as I loved the idea of that, resting when you were the size of Nebraska wasn't easy. I lay on the bed, shoes off, much to my relief. I spent the next fifteen minutes playing the game of rolling over from one side to the other and back again in the hopes of finding a comfortable position and finding none.

Giving up, I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on a new design I was trying out. It was difficult to say focused, but if I let my mind wander at all, I was going to end up hyper-fixated on my feet and what about them had Franklin so concerned.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, Franklin was there, sitting on the edge of my bed offering me some weird little shot glass of I didn't even know what. Frankly, I didn't care, because if Franklin was giving it to me, it was going to do something good for my baby and me. I drank it down, instantly regretting it due to the taste. It was a cross between mud and grass, maybe leaves—I don't know exactly what, but it wasn't good.

"Is everything okay?" Obviously not if I was getting treated, but ask I did.

"For now it looks like everything's fine, but it's time to get this baby out. You're starting to get some inflammation I'm not pleased with, and for humans, that means one thing, but for wolves, it means it's time." I was missing some sort of subtext here, but I heard it was time and was pleased.

"And so how do we do this?" I knew from looking online that humans had to go to the hospital if they needed the baby out sooner than their bodies did. But I wasn't human, and we weren't playing the hospital game. I was in unfamiliar territory. All I knew for sure was that my delivery was going to look very different from any information that I found on the internet and from my delivery plan.

"I already started the tincture; you should have you in full contractions within half an hour and ready to push a couple of minutes after that."

He said it like it was no big deal, and I originally thought he was exaggerating about the timing. He wasn't. Almost to the minute, I found myself screaming out in pain. It came on so hard and fast, which was for the best because the worry had been building each minute that ticked by. I hadn't heard of any shifters needing to be induced, and that had my fear ratcheted up.

"You're doing great," he said.

That was not something I was firmly believing. I felt like I was failing at all things. I couldn't even go into labor on my own. But the next wave came through, and I wasn't able to perseverate on that very long because it was time to push, again. My body demanded it. I pushed and pushed until out came our beautiful baby.

"Beautiful." I held them in my arm after a quick cleanup.

Apollo sat on the bed next to me, his eyes filled with tears as he looked down at our precious baby.

"Thank you, love," he said. "She is beautiful."

"What should we name them?" I asked.

We had talked about so much, but not names other than we'd know their name as soon as we saw them.

"What about Jasmine?"

"Jasmine," I tried it out. "It's absolutely perfect."

Franklin excused himself, promising he'd be in the other room as Apollo and I watched our baby have their first meal, both of us in awe.

It wasn't long ago that I made the decision that had my life in danger and my wolf on the run. Little did I know at the time that I was being led exactly where I needed to be; here in the forest with my mate, the one who'd spent centuries waiting for me.

And here we were, building our family in the only place that ever felt like home. I wouldn't change a single step in my journey; each and every one of them led me here to Apollo… to my home.

"I love you, alpha mine."

"As I love you."