Chapter 178

Things were happening again.

I knew the signs before anyone spoke them aloud. The way the morning felt heavy, charged with an energy that prickled against my skin like static before a storm. The way the birds fell silent, as if holding their breath, waiting. The way my heart began to hammer in my chest, a warning drum that drowned out all other sound and screamed one word: now.

I found them in their nest, the woven basket that had been their home since birth. Three small serpents, coiled together in a tangled knot of scales and misery, their usually glossy hides dull and dry, their bodies trembling in waves that shook the entire basket. My girls. My serpent daughters. And they were crying.

Their brothers, the four male serpents who had been playing in the corner, slithered to their father as if to comfort him, winding around his ankles, his wrists, coiling up his arms to rest on his shoulders. They watched together, father and sons, anxious to see their sisters in agony, their small tongues flicking out in worried, rapid movements, their bodies tense with shared fear.

The sound of their distress was unmistakable, a high, thin keening that cut through the air like a blade, a sound that no mother should ever have to hear. They twisted against each other, their coils tightening and releasing in spasms of pain, their small tongues flicking out in desperate, searching movements, as if seeking comfort that didn’t exist.

"Mama," they hissed, the word barely formed, barely human, more breath than sound. "Mama, it hurts. It hurts so much."

Soryn was already there, had been there since before dawn, his face ashen, his hands shaking as he reached into the basket to touch them, to soothe them, to do something, anything. He was a wreck, my serpent mate, my calm and collected Soryn was reduced now to a trembling mess of fear and helplessness, his hair standing on end, his eyes wild, his voice cracking every time he spoke.

"What’s happening?" I demanded, falling to my knees beside him, my hands reaching for my daughters, feeling the unnatural heat radiating from their small bodies. They were burning up, feverish, their scales hot enough to scald.

"They’re shifting," Soryn said, his voice breaking on the words, shattering like glass. "But it’s too soon. Three months too soon. They’re not ready. Their bones aren’t ready. Their bodies aren’t ready. Oh gods, Krys, they’re not ready."

Leon was no better. He stood behind Soryn, his usual bluster and confidence stripped away like bark from a tree, leaving only raw, exposed fatherhood. His mane was disheveled, sticking up in every direction as if he had been pulling at it. His eyes were red and wet. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, opening and closing with helpless rage. He wanted to fight something, anything, punch the pain, kick the suffering, roar at the universe until it bent to his will. But there was no enemy to battle, only biology and time and the cruel inevitability of growing up too fast.

"Someone do something," Leon said, his voice cracking. "Someone fix this. Soryn, fix this. You’re their birth father. Fix them."

"I’m trying," Soryn snapped back, his own control fraying. "Do you think I’m not trying? Do you think I want to see them suffer?"

"I think you’re useless," Leon shot back, grief making him cruel.

"And I think you’re an idiot," Soryn retorted. "But that doesn’t help anyone, does it?"

Caelion found me before I could launch myself at both of them, his arms wrapping around me from behind, holding me back, holding me up, holding me together. He knew I wanted to crawl into that basket and take their pain into myself, to absorb it, to carry it. He knew I wanted to scream at whatever that is making them suffer, to bargain with god, to trade my own comfort for theirs.

"I’ve got you," he whispered against my ear, his voice steady despite the tension in his body. "I’ve got you, Krys. Breathe. Just breathe."

Ravin was there too, his hand on my shoulder, his grip tight and grounding, his presence solid and sure. He said nothing. There was nothing to say. Words were useless things, small and inadequate against the enormity of what we faced.

Aureon paced back and forth, a tiger in a cage, his golden eyes fixed on the basket, on the suffering within. Back and forth wearing a groove in the floor that would probably become a permanent feature of the house. He hated this, hated seeing our daughters like this, hated the helplessness, the waiting, the not knowing. His claws extended and retracted with each step, scoring the wooden floor with sharp, angry marks. At one point, he stopped, lifted his foot, looked at the damage he had done, and muttered, "I’ll fix that later," before resuming his pacing.

Veylan stood rooted to the floor, his wolf’s nature warring with his father’s heart. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to hunt, to do something active, something useful. But he stayed, watching his daughters, his body rigid as stone, his ears straining for any sound, any call, any indication that they needed him. Niku stood beside him, his small hand finding Veylan’s larger one, holding tight with the determination of a child who had decided that his father needed him more than he needed to be afraid.

"It’s okay, Papa," Niku said, his voice high and clear. "They’re strong. Like me. Like Sikai. Like Levy. And like Mama. They’ll be okay."

Veylan looked down at his son, his expression softening just slightly, and squeezed his hand back. "I know," he said, though he clearly didn’t know, not really, not yet.

Levy moved through the chaos with the quiet efficiency of a child who had seen this before, who remembered her own shifting, her own pain, her own terror. She went to Leon, stood on her toes, and rubbed the sweat from his face with the hem of her dress. She said nothing, just touched him, just let him know she was there, that she had survived, that they would survive too.

"Papa," she said, her voice soft. "Don’t cry. You’ll scare them."

Leon looked down at her, his face crumpling further. "I’m not crying," he lied. "Lions don’t cry."

"You’re crying," Levy said, matter of fact. "It’s okay. I cried too. It gets better."

Jasper, my sensitive boy, went to Soryn. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to offer words that would be inadequate, that would dissolve against the enormity of a father’s fear. He simply stood beside the man and patted his back, a steady, rhythmic patting, as if Soryn were the child and Jasper the adult, offering the only comfort he knew how to give. Pat, pat, pat. Steady. Reliable. Present.

Soryn looked at him, and something in his face shifted. He reached out, pulled Jasper close, and held him there, the boy’s head tucked under his chin, both of them trembling, both of them holding on.

I would have laughed if I wasn’t so anxious myself. The scene was absurd, comical, a complete reversal of every natural order. Children consoling adults. Fathers falling apart. Mothers being physically restrained from rushing into the fray. It was chaos, love, fear, all tangled together in a knot that couldn’t be untied.

But I couldn’t laugh. Because I knew what this was. Just like what happened with Levy, my girls were shifting way too early. The signs were all there, written in pain and misery across every scale. The restlessness that had started at dawn. The refusal to eat that morning, turning away from food with hisses of irritation. The way they had stayed in their nest, coiled and unhappy, snapping at anyone who came too close, even me, even Soryn.

These were the signs. The beginning of the transformation.

But serpents weren’t supposed to shift for another three months. According to Soryn. Serpents shifted at eight months, their bodies taking time to prepare, to grow, to become ready for the change. They were one of the late bloomers of the shifter world, cautious, careful, slow.

Yet here my girls were. Shifting. Just like their older sister before them. Shifting before they should be shifting. Breaking every rule, every expectation, every timeline, every piece of wisdom Soryn had ever learned.

The agony lasted longer than it should have. Four, five hours of pain and crying, of hissing and writhing, of small bodies contorting in ways that made me want to scream, made me want to tear my own skin off just to give them relief. I couldn’t leave them. Even when my own body screamed at me, my throat parched, my skin burning, the need for water so intense it was a physical ache that made my vision blur. Even then, I couldn’t go to the lagoon. I couldn’t leave my girls. I couldn’t.

Caelion understood. He organized Theo and Eryx with the efficiency of a general commanding troops, set them to bringing bucket after bucket of fresh water from the rain barrels they had collected. They came running, back and forth, their arms aching, their shoulders burning, filling our home with the cool scent of clean water. I drank until my stomach sloshed, drenching my parched throat with water that tasted of salvation. I poured water over my skin, letting it soak into my clothes, my hair, trickling down my face in streams that mixed with my tears. Trying to satisfy the craving that gnawed at me, trying to stay present, stay strong for my daughters.

"More," I gasped, and Eryx was there with another bucket.

"Here," Eryx said, pressing a wet cloth to my neck, his eyes worried, his hands gentle.

Then, finally, after what felt like a lifetime, after hours that stretched into eternity, the crying stopped.

The basket was still. The hissing ceased. The trembling ended.

And then, movement. Slow, uncertain, but unmistakably human. Small hands gripping the edge of the woven reeds. Small fingers, five on each hand, with tiny nails and delicate knuckles. Small faces rising into view, round and soft and new. Eyes blinking, adjusting to light seen through human retinas for the first time, pupils dilating, focusing, seeing.

I crawled forward, Soryn beside me, and we looked into the basket.

In place of three small serpents, there were three little girls.

They were beautiful. Unbearably, impossibly, outrageously beautiful. Cherub cheeks, round and soft, flushed pink with the effort of their transformation, looking like they had been painted by an artist with a fondness for perfection. Hair that fell in waves of blue-green, the color of tropical shallows, of sunlight through crystal water, of the azure sovereign power that had marked their conception. Emerald eyes, bright and curious and new, looking up at us with wonder and confusion and absolute trust.

Was their hair a result of the azure sovereign power? The magic that had created them, that had made them possible? I didn’t know. I only knew that they were perfect, that they shouldn’t exist, that they were too beautiful for this world.

They rivaled Levy’s cuteness, and that was saying something. My first daughter, my golden girl, had set a standard that I thought could never be matched, a bar so high it scraped the clouds. But these three, these serpent girls with their ocean hair and their jewel eyes and their pouty little mouths, they were her equals in every way.

But in my opinion, all my girls were beautiful. So beautiful they looked unreal, like paintings, like dreams, like creatures from a story too perfect to be true, too lovely to exist in the mundane world of dirt and sweat and ordinary life.

I looked at my mates. And déjà vu hit me like a wave, like a memory, like a promise I had heard before.

I had seen these expressions before. On the day Levy shifted. On the day each of my children had revealed their true forms. That look of wonder, of love so fierce it bordered on violence. Of possession, of protection, of promise. The look that said: mine, ours, precious, guarded, protected, never to be touched, never to be approached, never to be looked at without permission.

The look on my mates’ faces told me everything I needed to know. These girls, these beautiful, impossible, perfect girls, better think twice before giving any guy the time of day. Because their fathers would be watching. Their brothers would be waiting. Their family would be a wall of teeth and claws and love so intense it could crush mountains, stop hearts, end worlds.

My poor girls didn’t know what was going to hit them. They didn’t know that their beauty was a blessing and a curse. That their face would be admired, their eyes would be sought, their smiles would be coveted. And that for every admiring glance, there would be a father or a brother standing in the shadows, counting the seconds, measuring the intent, ready to intervene with prejudice and enthusiasm.

"Oh no," I whispered, looking from my daughters to my mates and back again. "We’re going to need a bigger house. And maybe a fortress. And definitely more locks."

Soryn looked at me, confused. "What?"

"Nothing," I said, smiling through my tears. "Just... welcome to fatherhood. Again."

I reached into the basket and helped the Seraya climb out, then the Nyssara, then the Elira. They were warm, solid, real, heavier than they had been as serpents, their bodies sturdy and strong. They stood on wobbly legs, gripping the edge of the basket for balance, their blue-green hair tumbling down their backs, their emerald eyes wide with wonder.

"Legs," one said, looking down at herself. "I have legs."

"Two of them," another agreed, experimentally lifting one foot, then the other. "That’s very strange."

"I like them," the third decided, taking a tentative step forward, then another. "They make me tall."

They were not babies, these girls. They were children, around four years old, with the awareness and curiosity of preschoolers who had suddenly discovered a new way of being. They didn’t cling to me like infants. They stood, they wobbled, they explored, touching everything with their new fingers, marveling at their own skin, their own faces, their own reflections in the water bucket nearby.

"You’re beautiful," I told them, my voice thick with emotion. "All three of you. So beautiful."

They turned to me and smiled. Not the toothless grin of babies, but the bright, knowing smile of children who understood exactly what I meant.

"Thank you, Mama," they said in unison, as if they had practiced it. "We know."

And around me, my family gathered, a circle of love and fear and joy so intense it filled the room, pressed against the walls, reached toward the sky, threatened to burst through the roof and announce itself to the universe.

We were complete. We were whole. We were more than we had been, and less than we would become.