Page 81 of Alpha's Revenge Luna
The first wail of life slices through the sterile silence of the hospital room. I stand rooted to the spot, my heart rattling against my rib cage. The world narrows down to this single moment—the birth cry of my son.
Emery’s face, twisted in pain, relaxes instantly as our son is placed on her chest. Her fangs out, and for a second, I worry our son covered in her blood has brought forth her bloodlust, something she still struggles with, but her hands clutching him are gentle, and my hands shake as I itch to pull him away from her, but I hold back knowing it’s my own fears not a real threat to my son.
Leaning down, I stroke her damp hair back from her face, her eyes filled with tears as she peers up at me, shocked, in awe, and so many emotions flit across her face at what we created.
“He’s so small,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to his head, she is so smitten with him that her bloodlust is long forgotten. The doctor’s fuss about cleaning him, though, is annoying her, and I shake my head when Doc goes to remove him.
“Leave her. She is fine,” I tell Doc, who watches her worriedly like he, too, is worried she’ll take a chunk out of him.
Emery shifts in the hospital bed, adjusting the bundle of blue blankets in her arms. A gentle sway, a mother’s instinct, as she cradles our newborn son, Dior.
The name rolls off my tongue in silent practice, a playful tribute to my own.
It fits him, somehow, as if he’s already wearing it like a second skin.
I inch closer, drawn by the magnetic pull of my new family. My fingers brush against Emery’s arm, a soft touch to remind her I’m here, and she peers up from Dior with tired eyes that sparkle with joy. Sitting beside her, I stroke his little cheek, his face red as he wails loudly.
Hours seem to pass, and I watch in awe as she holds and feeds him.
She has asked a few times if I want to hold him, but I am happy just watching her with him.
Some part of me questioned my existence, for the bundle in her arms is surely the reason.
This only confuses me more; my own mother discarded me like trash; I haven’teven held him and would lay my life down for him without hesitation.
***
“Would you like to hold him?” A nurse, clad in pastel scrubs adorned with cartoon animals, offers me a swaddled bundle, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.
My hands, usually so steady and sure whether signing contracts or soothing Emery, now tremble. They’re slick with perspiration as I reach out and cradle the most precious bundle of my life—my son.
His face is all scrunched up, he peers up at me from the crook of my elbow, and something within me shifts. It’s as if every ambition, every dream I’ve ever chased, pales compared to the weight of this tiny baby whose existence rewrites the definition of my future.
“Hey there, little man,” I whisper, voice unsteady, emotion threatening to breach the walls of composure.
Dior blinks, his gaze an unfocused dance of blue-gray that has yet to settle on a hue as if deciding on the color is too big of a task for his first day in the world. My thumb, dwarfing his hand, strokes his tiny fist that reflexively tightens, gripping me with a strength that contradicts his size.
Emery, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten, beams at us—her hair sticks to her forehead, a few strands defiantly escaping the loose bun she had painstakingly made this morning, or was it yesterday? Time has lost all meaning in the wake of Dior’s arrival.
“Look at what we made,” she breathes out, voice filled with wonder and fatigue, her gaze locked on our son.
“I know,” I say, my own voice barely above a hushed reverence. “He’s perfect.”
Together, we exist in a bubble. It’s a sensation of wholeness I never knew I lacked, the completion of a circle that began when Emery and I met and now closes with the addition of Caleb and Dior.
And in this stillness, amongst the soft beeping of machines and the whispers of nurses, I understand that every decision I’ve taken has led me here—to this room, to this moment, to her, and to my son.
And it’s this quiet hospital room with the hum of machines and the warmth of my mate and child that is our happily ever after. And I can’t wait to see where it takes us.