Page 150 of Choose the Bears

“Alaric. Ric!”

I heard her cries but they were muffled by the walls, so we both set the babies down and followed him.

“No.” Nat was like an animal possessed, the whites of her eyes showing. “No, Alaric, no, the babies?—”

“Are fine.”

Lars was a prick, but he planted his feet now and stood in her way, unable to be moved by anything.

“They’ll wake up.” Did she hear how hysterical she sounded? “They’ll wake up and I won’t be there. Or worse.” She went perfectly pale. “What if they don’t wake up? What if SIDS?—?”

“No.” Alaric stepped forward, hands outstretched like one might with a feral animal. “No, love?—”

“You’re supposed to be at work.” It was as if she saw him for the first time. “You’ve got that job…” She started to wave her hands around frantically. “The job! The job!”

I knew then that she couldn’t remember which job or when, that time and space had stopped for her. That she was too tired to engage with concepts she’d been dealing with her whole life, that’s how exhausted she was.

“Natalie.” Alaric sounded exactly how I felt, like he was hanging on by a thread. “There’s no job.”

“There has to be.” Her face fell as she stared at the lot of us in incomprehension. “There is, otherwise…” Her chest started to heave. “Otherwise why…?”

Why had she been doing this? We’d all asked ourselves the same question, and yesterday we’d reassigned all our work to other members of our team. This situation, it couldn’t go on.Today was the first day of turning a corner, because I was terrified by what could happen if it didn’t.

“The business can go to fucking hell for all I care.” Alaric darted forward, pressing his forehead to hers. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But you?—”

“You do.” I wove my way through the crowd and sank down at her feet, trying hard not to clutch at her hand. “You’re the only one that does. Just you. The kids need you the most right now and we need…”

“We need you to be healthy,” Thorn stammered out. “Happy.”

“And that starts now.”

Lars crossed his arms and stared her down, right as we heard a knock at the door. Nat stiffened. Beyond the initial baby rush, she hated people coming past, the whole experience exhausting, something we’d told the family when we’d talked to them.

“Who’s here?” She was like a hound with a scent in its nose. “They’re making too much noise. They’ll wake the…”

Right on cue, twin wails cut through the air, and my mate collapsed in on herself. Just a small moment to shed a couple of tears and then she steeled herself, ready to get up and attend to them, but I shook my head.

“We’ve got this,” I told her. “The babies have just been fed, so right now they need soothing.”

Just like you do, I thought to myself.

“Come and have a lie down in here with me.” Alaric was trying hard to sound confident and calming, but we all heard that shake in his voice. It turned out to be a winning combination. For him, she could curl up under the covers. For him, she could nestle down against his chest.

“You’ve got the tiddly winks,” Lars told me and my brother. “I’ll deal with the mothers.” We heard a raucous voice. “And fucking Holly.”

We had a plan, now we needed to put it into place.

Chapter 77

Lars

Whose bloody bright idea was it to have kids? I thought as I ran downstairs, but of course I knew. We’d all thought it was the way to go, but to be fair, when my mate was panting, in heat, I was thinking with a whole other head. Now the big one was left to try and work out a way through this. Never a-fucking again, that was for sure, I promised as I strode into the living room. I couldn’t. We couldn’t. Nat was fading away by the day, her skin always bruised and papery thin. My girl… the babies seemed to be sucking the marrow from her bones.

“What’s happening?” Mum appeared in my path. “What are you doing down here? Is Natalie sleeping? She should be sleeping with the babies.”

“Good morning to you too, Mother,” I replied.

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