WITH THE ALPHA

Part 11 ; They are yours

I smoothed my hands over the two sleeping pups in their crib, watching their soft chests rise and fall. A full month had passed since the brutal, terrifying day I brought them into the world, and every time I looked at them, a fierce wave of maternal love washed over me.
Back then, the birth had been pure agony—pain so intense I had cursed everything in existence. But the exact second those squirming, crying newborns were placed against my bare chest, every ounce of anger evaporated. The bond was immediate, deep, and far more visceral than anything I had ever felt. They were mine. I had grown them, nourished them, and survived for them.
The memory of the hospital room half an hour after their birth was still burned into my mind. Custom dictated that Damian and Derick had to sniff the newborns while their scent was still pure to establish paternity. Derick had gone first, leaning over the crib. His wolf remained completely quiet, leaving him looking empty and vaguely disappointed.
Then Damian had stepped up.
The moment Damian took his first breath of their scent, his eyes swirled into a dark, pitch-black void, signalling the sudden, dangerous rising of his inner wolf. Pain in my abdomen be damned—I had scrambled out of that hospital bed instantly, snatching both twin boys into my arms and backing away to protect them. Damian's hand had clamped down on the wooden frame of the crib, shattering it into splinters.
"They're mine," Damian had choked out, his eyes split between human gold and wolf darkness. He had stood there utterly shattered, rambling about Carlisa and how this revelation would destroy his new mate dynamic.
I had simply looked at him, holding my sons tight. "Basically, we're both fucked. But they're born now. If you want to kill them, you'll have to go through me first."
When Damian admitted his wolf had surprisingly accepted them as his blood, I hadn't held back: "If you're worried about Carlisa, remember that Zehr accepted me carrying another male's pups. If she can't do the same for you, your mate is a douche." He had snarled at me, turned on his heel, and stormed out, leaving Derick and me in silence.
Now, sitting in the quiet room with my growing boys, my mind drifted back to Zehr.
We hadn't seen each other face-to-face in months due to his duties as Alpha of his Lycan pack, but he called every single evening without fail. He assured me constantly that the mate bond was unbreakable, even jokingly teasing that if he ever died, he'd be relieved knowing I'd have to follow him to the grave since we were destined to mark each other soon.
Yet, in the quiet hours of the night, a dark, uncomfortable question nagged at the back of my mind.
Did I only accept Zehr because he was a powerful Lycan Alpha?
All my life, I had been obsessed with power, survival, and reaching the top rank. If Damian hadn't found Carlisa, would I have willingly submitted to the mate bond, or would I have used Derick to eliminate Damian and take the throne myself? Was my love for Zehr genuine, or was it just my lifelong greed wrapping itself in the convenient excuse of a mate bond?
I shook my head, running a gentle finger over my son's tiny cheek. I did love Zehr—his warmth, his carefreeness, his absolute refusal to let the world bend him. But my old devious nature wasn't entirely dead; it had just shifted focus.
Now, my ambition wasn't about surviving an Alpha's whims. It was about securing a kingdom for my sons.