No one warns you about the first weeks.
Aria had survived a rejection, a war, the holding of a seal that had broken witches stronger than her across centuries. She had stood in front of two hundred armed wolves without flinching. And yet nothing in any of it had prepared her for the particular exhaustion of a newborn who did not understand that nights were meant for sleeping.
Maren had opinions about this. Loud ones.
"She has your lungs," Kael said at some hour past midnight, walking slow circles around the chamber with the small furious bundle against his bare shoulder. He had not slept more than two hours at a stretch in a week and he did not seem to mind in the slightest. "I have heard you argue with regional Alphas. She would win."
"She has your stubbornness," Aria mumbled from the
