LOGINAnd then it was just us. Our family. I picked up Arianna while Tristan got Adrian, and we carried them upstairs to their nursery. The room had been redecorated twice as they'd grown—first to accommodate their crawling, then again when they started pulling up on furniture. Now it was a mix of cribs
Chapter 214 Athena I looked at Adrian in my arms, then at Arianna in Tristan's. They'd grown so much—both walking now (well, Arianna walked, Adrian preferred to crawl at high speed). Both babbling constantly in their own twin language that we couldn't quite decipher. Both showing more personality
Chapter 213 Athena The backyard was full of chaos—the beautiful, loud, messy kind of chaos that came from having a joint first birthday party for twins. I stood on the back porch, watching the scene unfold before me with a smile that felt permanently fixed on my face. Colorful balloons bobbed
Chapter 212 "Mama's sorry," I soothed, bouncing her gently. "But we need to figure this out before you touch any more plants, okay?" "Can I see?" Lily asked, pushing past the adults to get closer to the plant. "Wow, it's so pretty! And it smells good too." She was right. The plant was giving off
Chapter 211 Athena "The plant," I said, knowing I wasn't making sense but unable to form coherent thoughts. "The dying plant in the living room. She touched it. Tristan, she touched it and it came back to life." Silence. All three men just stared at me. "What?" Orion finally asked. "The plant
Chapter 210 Athena Six months. Six months since Adrian and Arianna had come home from the NICU, and I still sometimes woke up in the middle of the night to check that they were breathing. The monitors helped, their steady beeping had become the soundtrack of our lives, but the fear never comple
"You didn't fail," he says firmly. "You survived. You got away from him, and you came home. That took incredible strength, incredible courage." I want to believe him. I want so desperately to see myself through his eyes, through the eyes of someone who loves me unconditionally. But Daxon's voice
I'd seen red. Orion and I both did. We found that bastard at his favorite bar, surrounded by his buddies, bragging about how he was going to "claim" Athena whether she wanted it or not. The beating we gave him put him in the hospital for three weeks. After that, whenever he so much as caught a gli
Chapter 15 The emotional weight of everything I've shared with Tristan settles over me like a heavy blanket. My body feels drained, hollowed out from finally speaking the words I've kept locked inside for so long. But there's also a strange sense of relief, like a poison that's finally been drawn
Chapter 12 Athena's POV For the first time in months, I sleep without nightmares. Tristan holds me through the night, just like he used to when we were younger. Back when he was still just Orion's best friend, the older boy who treated me like the little sister he never had. Back when everythin







