Isla's POV
The baby was shifting inside her.
Those five words did not make sense and yet Mira had said them and Mira did not say things she did not mean and so Isla sat on the cracked stone floor of the ritual chamber and pressed both hands flat against her stomach and tried very hard not to fall apart.
She felt it then.
Not pain, not exactly. More like pressure, like something small and powerful turning over inside her, searching for a shape it was not ready to have yet. A flutter that was too strong to be normal movement, too deliberate, too aware. Her wolf, still electric and raw from the awakening, snapped to full attention and angled every bit of her focus downward like a shield closing over something precious.
"Can it hurt her?" Isla's voice came out steady. She was proud of that.
