Chapter 176 The New Normal

Chapter 176 The New Normal
Soren

Three weeks into motherhood I learned that babies don’t care about pack politics or Alpha ceremonies or the wars outside the door. Hope cried when she was hungry, cried when she was tired, and cried when she wanted to be held, and the rest of the world could have quietly gone up in flames for all she cared. Felix and I took turns walking her around the apartment, singing songs we barely remembered, and making promises we hoped we could keep.

The apartment was permanently cluttered with bottles and burp cloths and the endless laundry a newborn brings. Jazz called it the tyranny of the little person, and she wasn’t wrong. But every time Hope smiled in her sleep, every time she closed her fingers around mine, every time Felix looked at her as if she were the most precious thing in the entire universe, I forgot the chaos and the exhaustion and the fear that still lurked at the edges of my thoughts.

Georgina had gone quiet after the hospital—too quiet. The unknown number had stopped texting, and the Council had stopped calling, and for a while I allowed myself to believe she might have given up. Felix wasn’t convinced. He checked the locks twice before bed and kept his phone on the nightstand and woke at every small sound. But he didn’t talk about her, and neither did I, because Hope deserved parents who weren’t being swallowed by shadows.

\---

The Council meeting Felix had attended ended without new conditions or demands. Morrison had sent a formal letter recognizing Felix as the rightful Alpha, and the elders had voted to dissolve the oversight committee that had been monitoring our every move. It wasn’t forgiveness, not really, but it came close to acceptance, and I took it as a small victory.

Felix came home with a stack of papers and a tired smile.

“They want us to move into the Alpha house,” he said. “The old one near the pack grounds. It’s been empty since your father got sick.”

I looked around our small apartment—at the cradle in the corner and the pile of diapers on the couch and the life we had built in this little space.

“What did you tell them?”

“That we’d think about it.”

“Do you want to move?”

Felix sat on the couch and pulled me onto his lap, careful because of the baby sleeping in the nursery.

“I want to be wherever you are. If that’s here, we stay here. If it’s the Alpha house, we go there. The only thing that matters to me is protecting you and Hope.”

I rested my head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat.

“The Alpha house has a garden,” I said. “I saw it once when I was new to the pack. It was overgrown, but I could see what it must have been. I’d like to plant something. Flowers. Vegetables. Something that grows.”

Felix kissed the top of my head.

“Then we’ll move. I’ll make you the most beautiful garden this pack has ever seen.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

\---

We moved on a Tuesday, with help from Marcus and Jazz and a few pack members who had decided I wasn’t the enemy after all. The Alpha house was old and large and needed more work than I remembered, but the foundation was solid and the garden was waiting and the nursery had windows that faced the rising sun.

Hope slept through most of the move, waking only to feed and fuss briefly before falling back asleep in the new crib Felix had assembled while I unpacked boxes. Jazz stayed to help me set things up, and Marcus helped Felix fix a leaky faucet, and by the time the sun went down the house almost felt like home.

“You did it,” Jazz said, leaning in the doorway of the nursery with a glass of wine in her hand. “You really did it. You survived the Council and the attacks and your crazy mother, and now you’re the Luna of the biggest pack in the region.”

“I’m not the Luna. Felix is the Alpha. I’m just his mate.”

“You are the Luna.” Jazz’s voice was firm. “And you should start acting like it. These people need to see that you’re not afraid, that you’re not hiding, that you belong here just as much as he does.”

I looked at Hope sleeping peacefully in her new crib and thought of everything I had survived to get to this point.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m always right.”

We laughed, and Felix came in, found us giggling like teenagers, shook his head, kissed my forehead, and went back to fixing the faucet.

\---

Life in the Alpha house was different from life in the apartment. There were more rooms to clean and more stairs to climb and more space for Hope to explore when she was old enough to crawl. But there was also a porch where I could sit with my coffee in the mornings, and a garden where I could plant the flowers I had promised myself, and a study where Felix could work without being disturbed by the noise of the city.

The pack members came to us now instead of the other way around. They brought gifts for the baby and questions about the pack and sometimes just themselves, because they wanted to be seen by the new Alpha and his Omega mate. I learned their names and their stories and the small fears that kept them awake at night, and I realized that the role of Luna wasn’t about power or status. It was about listening. About being there. About being present for people who had been overlooked their whole lives.

Felix watched me with the pack members, and I saw the pride in his eyes.

“You’re good at this,” he said one evening after the last visitor had left.

“I’m still learning.”

“You’re a natural.”

I kissed him and went to check on Hope, who was still asleep, and I stood in the doorway of the nursery and felt something that might have been contentment.

\---

Hope was six weeks old when the first letter arrived.

No text this time, no unknown number. A real letter, with a stamp and a return address and handwriting I recognized.

Georgina.

I opened it in the kitchen while Felix was in the shower and read the words alone.

Soren,

I won’t apologize for what I did, because you wouldn’t believe me anyway. But I want you to know that I’m leaving the country. I’ve taken a position with a pack overseas and I won’t be coming back.

You won. I hope you’re happy.

Tell Felix his father would have been proud of him. I know I wasn’t the best mother to you, but I’m proud of you too. You’re stronger than I ever was.

Take care of my granddaughter.

Georgina

I read the letter three times, then folded it and put it in the drawer with the other things I wanted to keep.

Felix found me there, my hand still on the drawer handle, and he didn’t ask what was inside because he trusted me to tell him when I was ready.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine.”

He kissed my forehead and went to make coffee, and I stood in the kitchen and let the small, quiet relief settle in—that a war might finally be over.

\---

That night I dreamed of the river again.

Not the cold, dark river from my nightmares, but the one from before, with sunlight on the water and fish beneath the surface. Felix was with me, and Hope was in his arms, and the three of us walked along the bank toward a house I didn’t recognize.

The house was small and white, with a porch and a garden and smoke rising from the chimney. A woman stood in the doorway, and I knew her face even though I had never seen it before.

She was older, with gray hair and kind eyes, and she smiled.

“Welcome home,” she said.

I woke with my heart pounding and my hand on Felix’s chest.

“Bad dream?” he asked, still half-asleep.

“No.” I pressed my forehead against his shoulder. “I think it was something else.”

“Like what?”

I thought of the woman in the doorway, of the house I had never seen, of the river that had stopped being a symbol of death and started meaning something new.

“I think it was a promise.”

Felix put his arm around me and pulled me close.

“Then I’ll remind you of it.”

Hope stirred in her crib, and I went to her, lifted her into my arms, and breathed in the sweet scent of her skin.

I wished this kind of perfection would last.