#Chapter 114: The Damage

Nicholas The baby was small and innocent, his tiny face scrunched up tightly as he slept peacefully in my arms. He was beautiful, perfect in every way, and yet… I felt nothing. No, that wasn’t entirely true. I felt something, but it wasn’t joy or pride or the overwhelming love I had expected to feel when holding my child for the first time. It was confusion. And a complete and utter lack of recognition. The baby’s eyes were a soft, pale blue—nothing like my amber or Anna’s dark brown. And while he was small, he didn’t look like a premature baby. He was too big for that, too well-formed. But most of all, I could feel the certainty coiling in my gut like a snake. Even my wolf didn’t recognize his own kin, his own blood. This baby was a stranger. Anna was prattling away beside me, talking about names and plans and all of the wonderful things a woman should be thinking about in the first hours of her child’s birth. And then she hit me with the kicker: s