Page 22 of Mating Mia (The Alphas’ Perfect Prey #2)

thirteen

. . .

Mia

M y heart pounds in my chest as I clutch my newborn son against my skin.

The woman, my mother, stares at me with eyes identical to my own; her face is a mirror of what I might look like in twenty years. The world narrows to just us. The only sound in the background is the roar of the waterfall.

“Mia?” she whispers, her voice breaking. “My Mia?”

I nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. Tears spill down my cheeks, mingling with the sweat of childbirth still cooling on my skin. My son squirms against my chest, his tiny mouth rooting instinctively against my collarbone.

“Yes, it’s me. I’ve been looking for you.”

“It’s really you,” she breathes, reaching out with trembling fingers that stop just shy of touching my face, as if afraid I might dissolve into mist. “My baby.”

“Mom,” I manage to choke out, the word unfamiliar, but it feels right. I never felt like this when addressing Martha Jenkins at all. This feels primal and true, which feels like it’s coming from my soul.

My mom’s composure crumbles as tears flood her eyes and roll down her face. In one fluid motion, she’s beside me, her arms encircling both me and my newborn son in an embrace so gentle yet fierce it steals my breath.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she sobs against my hair. “I’ve dreamed of this moment for years. Dreamed of holding you again.”

The scent of her fills my nostrils. Her scent is like pine trees after rain, mixed with something sweet that reminds me of honeysuckle. It feels so familiar, as if some part of me has been searching for this exact scent my whole life without knowing it.

“Why do you stay here?” I ask, my voice muffled against her shoulder.

She pulls back just enough to look at me, her thumbs wiping tears from my cheeks with the instinctive tenderness only a mother can possess. I kiss my baby’s forehead as I look back at my mother. Two new family members in one moment feels crazy to me.

“I’ve been living here for years. Behind the waterfall, there’s a network of caves. It’s the perfect hiding place because the waterfall masks my scent completely.”

“That’s why Orion never found you,” I whisper as understanding dawns over me. “The water.”

She nods, her eyes darting nervously to my alphas who stand in a protective semicircle around us.

“I can’t stay on this side for long,” she says urgently. “They’ll scent me, and if they can, others might too. I’ve managed to stay hidden all these years. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I can explain once you’ve recovered from childbirth.”

“But you just found me,” I protest, panic rising in my chest at the thought of losing her so soon after finding her. “You can’t leave now.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she assures me, brushing a strand of sweat-soaked hair from my forehead. “I’ll be waiting on the other side of the falls. Once you’re recovered, you can come back.”

My son lets out a cry that’s tiny but fierce, demanding attention, and I smile. Sarah’s eyes drop to him, filling with wonder and fresh tears.

“My grandchild.”

“Would you like to hold him?” I offer, suddenly desperate to see my mother hold my son, to connect these broken pieces of my family.

She hesitates, then nods, carefully accepting the squirming bundle. Her hands, calloused but gentle, cradle him with practiced ease.

“He’s perfect,” she murmurs, tracing one finger along his cheek. “So perfect, just like you were.”

The baby quiets in her arms, his cries subsiding to soft coos as he stares up at her with unfocused newborn eyes. I have to blink back fresh tears at how beautiful the moment is.

“Mia,” Finn’s deep voice breaks the spell, his tone gentle but insistent. “We need to get you and the baby to a hospital. You’ve both been through a traumatic birth. You need medical attention.”

I’m suddenly brought back to reality.

My body is still bleeding, still reeling from pushing a human being into the world. My son, though seemingly healthy, should be checked by doctors. The rational part of my brain knows Finn is right, but my heart rebels at the thought of leaving my mother when I’ve only just found her.

“Take me across the waterfall first,” I plead, looking up at Finn with desperate eyes. “Just for a minute. I need to see where she's been living all this time.”

Kane shakes his head, moving to kneel beside me. His hand covers mine, warm and solid. “Little omega, you’re still bleeding and possibly delirious. The baby needs warmth and proper cleaning. We can come back after you’re both checked out.”

“But what if… ?” My voice breaks as I hold back my fear. What if she disappears again? What if this is all a dream?

As if reading my thoughts, Sarah passes the baby back to me and takes my face in her hands. “I promise you, Mia. I’ll be waiting. I’ve waited years, and I’m not going anywhere now.”

Her eyes hold mine with such fierce certainty that I believe her. I have to.

“Your father,” she says suddenly. “Liam. Is he…?”

“He’s alive,” I assure her quickly. “He was searching for you when we last saw him.”

“Alive,” she repeats. “All these years, I thought... I felt the bonds with Ezra and Theo break when they died, but Liam’s bond was always there, just so faint I couldn’t track him.”

“The mate bond,” Kane murmurs, understanding in his voice. "It never fully severed."

“Tell him where to find me,” she says urgently as fresh tears spill down her face. “Tell him I’ve never stopped loving him. Not for one day.”

The sound of crashing underbrush announces Jace’s return before he bursts into the clearing, arms full of baby supplies from the car. His hair is wild, his chest heaving from the sprint through the forest.

“I got everything!” he announces triumphantly, then stops short at the tableau before him.

“We won’t need anything except for the blanket. We need to get to the hospital,” says Finn.

“Oh,” Jace says, blinking at Sarah. "You must be Mia’s mom. I can tell by the eyes."

Despite everything, a laugh bubbles up from my chest. Trust Jace to cut through the tension with his perfect blend of observation and nonchalance.

“Yes,” Sarah says, a small smile curving her lips.

"Jace," he introduces himself with a slight bow that somehow doesn't look ridiculous despite the armful of baby supplies.

“We need to get Mia to the hospital,” Kane reminds everyone, his practical nature asserting itself. “The baby, too.”

I look at my mother, memorizing every detail of her face. The tiny scar above her right eyebrow. The laugh lines around her eyes. The fullness of her lips, identical to mine.

Kane helps Jace lay out a clean blanket, and they work together to wrap our baby properly. Finn produces a small emergency kit from his pocket and ties off the umbilical cord, handling it with surprising competence.

“Military training,” he explains when he catches my questioning glance. “Field medicine.”

Sarah stands, reluctance in every line of her body.

“I need to go back across,” she says, glancing nervously at the forest. “The longer I stay on this side, the greater the risk.”

“We’ll bring her back,” Kane promises, addressing Sarah directly for the first time. “As soon as they’re both cleared by doctors. You have my word as alpha.”

She studies him for a moment, then nods, apparently satisfied by what she sees in his eyes. Leaning down, she presses a kiss to my forehead, then to my son’s.

“I love you,” she whispers. “Both of you. More than you could ever know.”

Before I can respond, she’s moving away, graceful despite her haste.

At the edge of the waterfall, she turns back once, raising her hand in farewell before slipping behind the curtain of falling water and disappearing from sight.

I stare after her, feeling as though a piece of my heart has vanished with her. But the warm weight of my son against my chest reminds me that I’ve given birth and I need to take care of us.

“Ready?” Jace asks, crouching beside me with a soft blanket to wrap around my shoulders.

I nod, allowing him to bundle me up while Kane secures the baby in a makeshift sling across my chest. With gentle efficiency, Jace slides his arms beneath me and lifts me as if I weigh nothing, cradling me against his chest.

“You did such an amazing job,” he murmurs as he adjusts his grip. “Bringing our son into the world like a total badass. In the middle of the woods, no less.”

I smile weakly, nestling my head against his shoulder. “Not exactly what I had planned when we set out this morning.”

Jace takes off, moving with the supernatural agility that marks him as alpha.

Despite his speed, his stride is smooth, jarring me as little as possible as he navigates the forest path. The baby sleeps against my chest, exhausted from the work of being born.

“I can’t believe I found her,” I whisper, watching the trees blur past. “After all this time. And on the same day our son was born.”

“I agree it’s pretty wild,” says Jace. “But deep down, I knew you’d find her eventually. Especially since Liam told us she was still alive.”

By the time we reach the hospital parking lot, I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, the adrenaline of birth and reunion giving way to bone-deep exhaustion. Jace shouts for help, and suddenly we’re surrounded by medical staff.

They place me on a stretcher, carefully transferring my son to a separate one beside me. The bright lights of the emergency entrance hurt my eyes after the shade of the forest.

A nurse takes my blood pressure while another starts an IV. Someone else is examining my son, counting fingers and toes, listening to his heart.

“BP’s low but stable,” someone reports. “Mild tachycardia. Get a CBC and type and cross. Start fluids wide open.”

The medical jargon washes over me, but I start to get a little worried. All I can focus on is my son’s little face, now cleaned of birth fluids and pink with healthy color. They’ve put a tiny cap on his head and wrapped him in a proper hospital blanket.