Aurora Heights she comes and she goes.

It had started yesterday. After Revon, Kyna had thought she’d known what to expect – pain increasing slowly and then all at once, everything intense, excruciating and awful. And that’s how it started. Slow. Spasms of pain, but not enough to bother anyone, and certainly not enough to go hide away. It felt better to move, to walk, to get up and shift. To have a cold drink of water or bask in the afternoon sun. But it didn’t change.

She retreated to the den she’d carved out when she had Revon a year ago (as she’d done for the past week or so, now so large that she could barely sleep more than a few hours at a time and unwilling to bother the rest of her pack), sure the pups would come soon. But they didn’t. The sun fell and the moon rose and nothing changed. Kyna drifted off into uneasy sleep – and was awoken in the wee hours by that horrible, awful pain that could mean nothing else.

She did not call, she did not do anything else.

It went all morning – so early afternoon rolled around and Kyna finally summoned her mate and her daughter. “It seemed Revon was right, after all,” she hummed tiredly once her family had arrived. Not one pup, but three. Three! And all boys, no less.

Perhaps she wasn’t as much like her mother as she thought.

And – the middle one, with his beautiful greying coat – he looked like her father. Perhaps when his eyes opened… It made tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. One like Greer, one like Phineas, and one not so different from herself and Revon. A perfect trio. The Argyris lineage would live.

He knew something was happening, even without being summoned by his mate. As soon as the morning sun made an appearance Greer began his pacing outside the scarlet mother’s den, his brows pinched tight as concern masked his typically stoic appearance. This time appeared easier than the previous year. Not only did Kyna know what she was doing, but so did the shadow. He’d acquired some sweet grass, which he had placed at the entrance of the mother’s den days before the birth, along with some white fir just in case she experienced any pain afterward.

A sigh of relief caused his shoulders to sag as the familiar, but unfamiliar, mews came from deep within the den. This time there was more than one—there were three! His eyes widened almost immediately as his pace slowed, his mate’s voice beckoning him toward the dark entrance. He shuffled, almost bashfully, forward before ducking into the mouth of the den, his sinewy legs folding gracefully beneath his body as he tucked himself beside her. His chin rested softly against her shoulder as he glanced at the three shapes nestled against her stomach. A wide smile sprawled effortlessly against his dark features before he touched his nose to her cheek. He did not have to convey with words how proud he was of her; she always knew how he felt. Argyris Archer’s, he hummed thoughtfully, almost to himself, before he refocused his gaze onto the trio once more. Three sons—three perfect sons, carrying on both of their lineages.

It was weird knowing that she was going to have siblings. Or a sibling; it depended on whether her mother’s prediction was true or not. She’d grown accustom to the only child life—heck, she’d grown accustom to being the only child (or youth) in Aurora. At least now she’d be able to put some of the blame on the younger generation… and be able to rough-house with wolves closer to her own age. It could be fun… right? And she needed some of that. Especially after her only friend had been tossed (accidentally) over a cliff. She blinked, her frown reappearing as she sauntered toward the den after being beckoned by her mother. Familiar scents greeted her as she approached. Her mother. Father. Ember. Three constants in her life, even if the latter had disappeared in the past. She had returned; that was all that mattered. They were the three most important wolves in her life and now she had three more. She committed the new scents to memory as she folded herself against the ground beside the pale second, her chin resting neatly atop her paws. The scarlet Argyris Archer would allow her parents some privacy before she bombarded them with her presence.

As she listened to the soft sounds from within the den Revon began to realize how drastically her life was about to change… especially with three boys to take care of… Well, shit.