“I do, or they die. Choose.”
There was no choice, and Zahara knew it. He looked to his grandmother, pleading deep in his chest, even if he couldn’t force the words past his lips.
“I will give my life to save hers. I swear it.”
It would have to be enough. It had to be. Dominic nodded to Giuliana, and Zoey went limp, a calm sigh filling the space between them.
“Now!” Zahara demanded.
Zahara cut across the lower part of Zoey’s abdomen with her fingernail, Giuliana fought to keep a deep healing sleep on Zoey, Kalinda and Silva barreled into the room, and Dominic roared.
The world was chaos, blood, and fear. Kalinda slipped by Zahara and reached for the baby with an orb of green around her hands, and Silva faced the door, one of her silver blades at the ready.
They were a family, each working silently at what they did best. Romano even brought in towels and bowls of hot water and fetched whatever the fuck Zahara yelled for.
Sweat slid down Giuliana’s brow as she worked to seal the wound before Dominic’s eyes. The babe was out. She wailed, and Dominic sucked in a deep breath, his heart swelling in his ribs. She was here.
Isadora took her first breath and the wolves felt her fury. Her need. Her hunger.
“Um, this may not be the best time, I’m good for that. But would someone explain why this baby looks like she’s damn near a year old at birth?”
Dominic couldn’t focus. He could only give Giuliana the support she needed as she healed his mate from the inside out. While Zoey slept, he stumbled away from the bed, covered in muck and wondering if he’d ever wished for anything more than seeing Zoey’s smile again.
“Dom!”
“What?”
“Look at Isadora.”
Dominic spun at Romano’s insistence and his jaw dropped. Kalinda held his daughter, cleaned now and swaddled in a pristine white cloth. A shock of dark hair covered the top of her head, but a singular streak of green settled just over a small chunk in front. Her wide, violet eyes watched her father with uncanny awareness.
And she did not look like a newborn babe.
In fact, she sported teeth as she opened her mouth on a wail.
“Get her something to eat.”
Meat.
“Meat,” Dominic added to his order, reaching for Isadora.
Romano scoffed. “You can’t feed that to a baby, man.”
Isadora’s gaze swung to Dominic’s second, and the wolf fell to his knees, shaking.
Kill it.
“You cannot kill my Capo, Isadora. Stop this, now.” Dominic sent his Alpha call at his daughter, as crazy as it was, but the babe held on, pushing at Romano until her strength gave out. Romano took a shuddering breath and looked up at Dominic.
“That’s not a child, Dom. That’s Rosemary’s baby.”
His daughter smiled a taunting, cruel smile, and damned if Dominic didn’t feel a similar one split his lips. “She’s fucking perfect.”
“Whatever she is, why does she already have teeth?”
Pasquale’s quiet and directed question sucked the levity from the room and swung back into focus the fact the pup was much more developed than she should have been. It would explain why Zoey had been so large throughout her pregnancy, and the complication at the end made more sense.
But the answer … Dominic didn’t know.
