Page 77 of Wild Heart

“It’s a girl,” the doctor said, smiling.

Natalie collapsed back against the pillows, eyes fluttering, breath gone. Mason stood frozen for a moment, watching the nurse place the baby on Natalie’s chest. The infant wailed, fists clenched, feet kicking. She had a shock of dark hair and the longest fingers he’d ever seen. Then Mason broke.

He leaned down, kissed Natalie’s forehead again and again. “You did it. You did it.”

She stared at the child through tears. “She’s perfect,” she whispered. “She’s perfect.”

Mason stepped closer, stunned silent.

The nurse looked at him. “Would you like to cut the cord?”

He nodded, dazed, and the nurse guided his hand. Then they wrapped the baby in a warm blanket, tucked her close to Natalie, and everything stilled. The room dimmed again, as if to honor the moment. Mason sat beside the bed, one arm around Natalie’s shoulders, the other hand reaching to touch the baby’s tiny head.

The rain still tapped the windows. But inside, under hospital lights and blankets, something extraordinary had entered the world. And now, they had her. Her name would come later. But already, she was home.

The rain hadn’t let up, not even a little.

It fell in dense sheets now, blurring the forest into a watercolor of darkness and motion. Thunder rolled distantly, too far to be dangerous, but close enough to make the air feelraw and alert. Every breath Asha took came thick with pine, earth, and something metallic she couldn’t quite name. They were nearly done.

The wolf, young and narrow-hipped, no longer snarling but still breathing with pain ridden wheezes, lay sedated beneath the overhang of a large rock slab. Olivia knelt beside it, calm and sure even with the storm circling around her like a predator. Her hands moved with precision, tucking gauze around the injured leg, securing the sling beneath its weight, every movement quiet, reverent.

Asha stood nearby, gripping the flashlight with both hands, her arms stiff from effort. Her boots were soaked through. Mud oozed with every step. Her heart thudded in her throat, and her breath kept catching, not from exertion, but something closer to dread. Something wasn’t right. The rain, the wind, the way the air felt too full. The trees above them swayed in a rhythm she didn’t trust.

“Hold that light steady,” Olivia called, her voice breathless but sure.

Asha did, adjusting slightly, trying not to let the tremble in her hands show.

“We’ll move him on my count,” Olivia said, tucking the last strap around the wolf’s torso. “One, two…”

There was a sound. Low at first. A groan. A thud. Then something louder, splintering wood, cracking stone. And then,thunder without lightning.

Olivia froze. Her head snapped upward.

“No,” she whispered.

Asha followed her gaze and saw it. Above them, on the slope above the ridge, dark shapes moving. Not animals. Rocks. Large. Jagged. Ripping from the earth as though something had loosened the very bones of the mountain. The slope gave. A great tearing sound cracked across the mountainside.

“Run!” Olivia shouted, her voice fierce and full of command. “Asha, run!”

Asha hesitated. “Olivia…”

“Go!”

She couldn’t move. Her feet wouldn’t listen. Her mind was still trying to understand how the land could shift like that, how something so solid could fall apart in seconds. And then Olivia did something that ripped the breath from her lungs. She threw herself over the wolf.

Not a stumble. Not a slip. A deliberate, full-bodied lunge, her arms cradling the animal’s head, her back arched over it like a shield. Like instinct. Like love.

Then the mountain came down. The first rock hit the edge of the ridge and exploded into shards. Mud followed. More stones. And Asha finally moved, staggering back, slipping on wet pine needles and shale, stumbling down the trail as the mountain screamed above her.

She hit the tree line and turned, heart in her throat. The world slowed. In the weak beam of her fallen flashlight, she saw it: A flash of Olivia’s coat. The pale fur of the wolf. And then nothing but rain and rocks and a roar of silence so complete it felt like it swallowed the stars.

“Olivia!” she screamed, her voice tearing from her chest.

But the mountain didn’t answer. It just wept and howled and bled stone. Asha stood there, soaked and shaking, breath coming in jagged bursts. The path behind her was gone, swallowed in a torrent of earth. Somewhere beneath it lay Olivia and the wolf.

33

The hospital room was dim and hushed, cast in the soft glow of a single bedside lamp. The storm had finally passed, leaving the sky a pale, fragile gray outside the window. Natalie lay in the narrow bed, half-reclined, her hair damp against her temple. The baby, barely a handful, was curled against her chest, swaddled in a blanket the color of milk. Her tiny mouth moved softly, her fists tucked beneath her chin as if she were dreaming already.

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