Chapter 394:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

I gritted my teeth and followed her instructions, squeezing Ryder’s hand so hard that, had he been anything other than a wolf, I would have crushed every bone in it. He stayed beside me, his voice steady and calm, murmuring words of comfort even as sweat glistened on his brow.

“You’re doing so well, Jasmine,” he said, his voice weighted with love and barely contained anguish. “Just a little more. I’m right here.”

The room was a blur of movement and sound — nurses moving quickly, medical equipment beeping steadily, and Layla growling softly at the edges of my mind. She was on edge, her instincts razor-sharp, ready to protect me and the life I was bringing into the world.

The contractions were relentless, each one crashing over me like a wave and dragging me under. But I didn’t falter. I couldn’t. All of this was for my baby — the one who had accompanied me in quiet, steadfast silence through every battle, every wound, every victory.

“One last push, Jasmine!” Dr. Lee urged, her voice firm but steady.

I cried out — raw and primal — and gave everything I had left. And then, all at once, the pressure broke, and the most beautiful sound I had ever heard filled the room: the cry of my baby.

“It’s a girl,” Dr. Lee announced, lifting the tiny, squirming figure so I could see her.

𝖭𝖾𝗐 𝗐𝖾𝖾𝗄𝗅𝗒 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝗈𝗇 𝗀𝖺𝗅𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗌.𝖼𝗈𝗆

A girl. My daughter.

Tears spilled freely down my face as she was brought closer, and my heart flooded with a love so fierce and consuming it took my breath away. Ryder stood beside me, eyes shining with tears he was barely holding back, gazing at our daughter with pure, undisguised wonder.

“She’s beautiful,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the words.

Dr. Lee placed her in my arms, wrapped in a soft blanket, and the world went still. She was perfect — her tiny fingers curling instinctively, her eyes blinking open and finding mine as though she already knew exactly who I was.

“Hello, baby,” I murmured, my voice cracking with emotion. “I’m your mama. And he’s your daddy. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Ryder leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and in his eyes I saw the kind of love that moves mountains — the kind that would shield her from everything and everyone.

But then something happened that none of us could have anticipated.

One moment Dr. Lee was smiling, her hands still attending to my daughter. The next, a blinding, radiant light flooded the entire room.

“What’s happening?” I asked, panic rising in my chest.

Before anyone could answer, my daughter began to change. Her delicate human features blurred and shifted, and within seconds she had transformed — a tiny silver wolf cub, her eyes glowing like twin moons.

The room erupted.

“She shifted,” Dr. Lee breathed, her voice hushed with disbelief. “She changed form the moment she was born.”

“That’s impossible,” Ryder murmured, his face pale with shock. “No one shifts before twelve years old — sometimes not even until eighteen.”

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