Trust Ethan to be the one to pick up on my sudden disquiet.

“Nothing’s wrong. I promise. Thank you for asking though.”

He huffed, which sent shivers down my spine because I felt it internally, but I ignored him and focused on Lara.

She was skin and bone right now, and her cheeks were drawn in, the lines a little more pronounced from hunger and exhaustion and fear. The time spent fearing the shifter hyena’s attack had taken its toll on her, and I sensed she was truly grateful to be here, happy and not at all annoyed because she was safe. She was alive. And she hadn’t expected to make it out of her home in anything other than a body bag.

But here she was.

In my arms.

Knight cooed between us, making us both laugh as he giggled and gurgled. I’d never known a baby before who liked being squished as much as this kid, but it figured when I thought about how I loved being with his fathers, loved being trapped between them, and not just in a sexual way either.

Our animal side appreciated the closeness, the bonds that came from the time spent together, and Knight was pure animal right now. Especially with how he gnawed on my boobs.

She reached up, shaking me from my thoughts. One hand settled on my cheek, and the other cupped Knight’s head.

It was stupid of me to forget that she could sense my emotions, stupid of me when that was the major reason I’d brought her here. Sure, we needed to figure out if she could help us in some way, and I wasn’t talking just about with Seth. We all knew that if Cyrilo was powerful, and if I was too, it was likely she held a power of her own, so she needed to be brought to us so we could help her figure that out.

But even as a human, she’d always been strong. Always seen things more than anyone.

I’d seen auras, but it hadn’t been a powerful trait. It had been enough to get me by, to enable me to earn a living from fortune-telling as a carny, and to help me ascertain if I was in danger or not—very helpful when you were on the run.

But Lara’s gifts were life-changing. And not in a good way.

She’d often stayed at home to avoid people, because she couldn’t deal with them and their emotions. She’d often evaded school trips and the like, because she couldn’t cope with being around too many people. The trouble was, of course, when you lived like we did, surrounded constantly by humanity as we traveled from town to town, hustling, there was never any peace.

She needed that.

In more ways than I thought she even knew, and that was another reason why I’d brought her here.

The twins had lived in a cabin just off the packhouse. It was enough of a distance away that she could stay there, be close, while being able to cut herself off too.

The packhouse was a lot busier than before. With Eli having changed how he ruled the pack, it was no longer a case of meetings only happening at the totem. People visited us every day, at all hours between nine and six, and we had a lot of humanity trampling through the place.

But the cabin would give her a respite from that. It was a little too far away for her to actually feel people’s emotions, but if she did, maybe she could help. She’d always wanted that. Had always wanted to be useful, but she was so sensitive that she couldn’t.

I hoped that had changed, hoped for her sake that she’d been able to lead more of a life than what she’d had before, but I doubted it.

Especially from the aura around her… While her energy was good, upbeat, her aura was filled with sadness. Sorrow. Apathy.

Not a good sign, and it made me all the happier to know she was here, because maybe we could do something to improve her quality of life.

She broke into my thoughts with: “I thought you were allergic to dogs.”

I snickered. “I used to be. Apparently getting spidey senses is the best antihistamine going.”

“Apparently,” she said ruefully. “Especially with this little man here… I can’t believe I have a nephew. My, he’s a strong one,” she rumbled.

I sighed. “I know.”

She grinned, and it was genuine and earnest and so beautiful to behold, that I knew I’d done the right thing in finding her. Not only because I’d been there on that call, the one that had kept her going while the hyena attacked, but because if I could bring her out of herself, I’d consider it a job well done.

“Eli’s son, no?”

I nodded, surprised that she’d figured that out. Knight, as much as I adored him, was still a mush of features that were forming into how he’d look when he was older. And considering the men were all bound together by blood anyway, it would be pretty impossible to discern a difference between them at this point.

A shifter would scent it, even though my she-wolf did find it difficult, simply because of how much time Knight spent with all four of us. I liked the idea of that though. Of the lines of fatherhood blurring simply by how much we were all together.

Sure, Austin was finding it hard to acclimatize, but they were all so good with him. I couldn’t be anything other than grateful for their help.

Lara hummed under her breath, then said, “I trained as a doula.”

It wasn’t only Eli who was going to have me gawking at them today. “You? You trained as a doula?”

She snickered. “Yeah, I did. I didn’t do it long, though. I couldn’t cope when things went wrong.” A memory had her blowing out a shaky breath. “But I can tell you now, you’re doing okay. He’s happy. Hungry, but happy.” Her head tilted to the side. “You’re breastfeeding, aren’t you?” Then her cheeks burned. “God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. That was so rude of me. I mean, you’re probably using formula, aren’t you? And that’s perfectly fine too!”

I had to laugh at her babbling, because it reminded me of the young Lara, a Lara who hadn’t been as somber, who’d been a lot goofy too.

At her verbal diarrhea, I placed a hand on her shoulder and murmured, “Lara? You can ask me anything you want and I will always answer. I’d say you could ask me all the stuff you never had the chance to ask me after I left, but I think you already know what the birds and the bees are, huh?”

“If I didn’t, I’d have been a crappy doula, wouldn’t I?”

We both snickered at that, and the sudden splash of orange and pink in her aura that highlighted just how uncomfortable the conversation had made her, abated, morphing white as she accepted that I wasn’t judging her.

“I’m supplementing with formula,” I told her softly, rubbing Knight’s head. “But he’s always hungry.”

“How do you know he’s always hungry?”

“Because he’s gnawing on my boobs all the time?”

Her brows rose. “Well, that’s normal.”

“It—well, no. It can’t be,” I reasoned. “He gets so frustrated. I hate it.” Then, as shame hit me, I whispered, “It makes me feel so useless. I feel like I’m letting him down.”

“Well, you’re not. It’s totally down to you, but if you carry on supplementing with formula, then you’ll need to add more and more because your milk production will never increase to the point where it can satisfy him. You just need to reconnect with him, and he’ll control the flow.”

I blinked at that. “Seriously?”