So today is a very special day. Friday 13th, the uploading of the 69th story part *immature sniggering*, the day of my first exam (welsh, urgh) and a very special new character's birthday(incidentally also the day before my sixteenth birthday). To all of you who are also currently suffering through the form of slow torture that is exams, good luck. I'm going on study leave as of Monday, which actually leaves more time to write. Whoo hoo! End of compulsory education!

I don't know what I expected from a birth, but this was not it. There was a fair bit of blood, for a start. The sheets and mattress were splattered with it. According to the expert — Maggie, who was overseeing the whole thing — that was fairly normal, especially with werewolf babies. They were bigger than most, and a great deal harder to push out.

"Ow, crap," Fion whined. "Just get it out already."

"That's your job," I reminded her.

We were crowded around for moral support — all the rogue girls. Tally, Cassidy, Maggie and me.

"Not helpful, Skye," she snapped. "When you've tried pushing something the size of a watermelon out of your vagina, you can make as many sarcastic comments as you like."

Maggie felt her forehead. "Are you in pain, honey?"

Fion rolled her eyes. Sweat dripped down her forehead, and one of her hands clenched mine with bone-breaking strength. "Just a bit."

"You can give her some gas now," the old woman informed us. She was busy doing all the jobs of a midwife, most of which I didn't understand.

Cassidy was closest to the tank and quickly worked out how to attach the face mask. Minutes later, Fion was breathing in deep lungfuls of the stuff. It was commonly known as laughing gas, for no particular reason at all. I had received a few gulps over the years for stitches and never once found it funny.

"I feel like I'm floating above my body." Fion's voice came out in barely more than a whisper. "Is that normal?"

"Very. Don't breathe in too much all at once," I scolded her, confiscating the facemask. It only made things even more overwhelming in large quantities.

I had placed myself at the head of the bed, to be moral support without having to deal with the actual birth part. Outside the door, I could hear the steady pacing of feet. Rhodric or Rhys, or both of them. The rest of the crowd would be at the bottom of the stairs, getting themselves well and truly drunk. It was a rogue tradition to ply the prospective father with alcohol, and in Brandon's obvious absence, Ollie had cheerfully volunteered to lead the effort.

"What are you going to call it?" Tally asked in an attempt to distract Fion.

"Skye, obviously," I said.

Fion actually laughed, although it was a pained sound. "Mm, no. This poor child is getting a fresh start. I'm calling it Aidan or Nia."

"They're good names, sweetie," Maggie said approvingly. "But right now I need you to push, not talk."

So she did. For another forty-five minutes at least, until I was sure whoever was outside the door must have worn a track on the stone floor. Until finally, a little pink bundle of joy made its way into the world. Maggie wrapped the baby in a towel and dealt with the umbilical cord while Fion slumped back, completely exhausted but smiling all the same. She still didn't let go of my hand, which had long since lost all sensation.

"It's a girl," Maggie announced. For the first time, it occurred to me that this baby was actually her great-grandchild. "A little Llewellyn girl."

The child was placed in my sister's lap, and I saw my niece for the first time. She had her father's hazel eyes and a smattering of brown hair that wasn't anywhere close to Fion's vivid shade of ginger. There was a lot of her mother in her face, though. At least, I reckoned so. It was hard to tell when the little girl was so tiny.

"Nia Llewellyn," Fion said, beaming.

I pulled the sheets up firmly, once my hand was released in favour of cradling the baby. Then I shouted over my shoulder, "You can come in now."

Rhys was through the door before I had even finished speaking and knelt at the side of the bed. Rhodric followed at a slower pace, and behind him I could see a crowd of faces just waiting their turn. They would have all heard the gender and name, thanks to their wolves. So I didn't have to break the silence as Rhys leant over to grin at the baby.

There was awe in his voice. "She's beautiful."

"She is," Rhodric agreed. "Well done, Fion. That was the quietest childbirth I've heard in a long time."

I noticed Leo and beckoned him in. My mate hovered at my shoulder and smiled in a way that made me wish we had our own children. He leant forwards to whisper in my ear, "I want one."

I gave him a shrug. "And you'll get one, just not for a while. I need a few more months of freedom before I start popping out pups."

Maggie had already started ushering people out. "You can all coo at the baby as long as you like later. Right now, this poor girl needs a rest."

Cassidy and Tally shuffled towards the door with Leo not far behind them. I didn't envy them the job of explaining to all the boys that they couldn't visit right now. Then my honorary grandmother turned her attention to Rhys and me.

"You too, troublemakers. Let her sleep."

I noticed that she didn't try and order Rhodric out.

"It's okay," Fion murmured. Her eyes had already drifted shut. "They can stay. Thank you for everything, Maggie."

She clucked her tongue. "You're very welcome, honey."

Then Maggie was gone, and we had the room to ourselves. My brother turned his attention back to his niece. "May I...?"

Fion nodded in a well, duh sort of way without even opening her eyes. She trusted him, of course. Rhys took the baby from her with astonishing gentleness and cradled her in one arm. I could hear him humming some sort of lullaby under his breath.

"You're a real softie sometimes, little brother," I teased him.

"Shut up and say hi to Nia," he replied. "We're going to spoil this kid rotten."

I laughed. "Obviously. Look at us all. Such grown-up, responsible parents. If I think really hard, I can still remember the little ginger runt I met in that cave, and the not-so-little idiot who chased me through a forest."

Now Fion was looking wide awake, a faint smile on her lips. "Ah, those were the days. Some filthy waif fell out of the sky in front of me and I've never quite been able to get rid of her since." 

Nia started crying, a loud screech which instantly put me off my niece. Babies were cute, sure, but they cried and made a lot of mess. Leo and I could definitely wait a few years for the joys of parenting. Rhys frowned, probably wondering if he'd done something wrong.

"I don't think she likes me."

"There's a surprise," I sniggered.

Rhodric shook his head wearily. "She's just hungry. You would be, too, if you'd spent the last six months in a womb. Give her to me."

Rhys was only too happy to hand her over. And then Rhodric was smiling down at his granddaughter. He seemed to know what he was doing. Seconds later, she fell quiet, blinking up at him with more alertness than I reckoned a newborn should have. "Yes. She's hungry. And that is a job for her mother."

Fion groaned. "No, thank you. I'm beat. There's a bottle around here somewhere..."

I fetched our pre-prepared bottle of milk. It had been kindly donated by one of the young mothers in camp, and Maggie had warmed it up for us. But when I tried to hand it to Rhodric, he shook his head. "I can't stay. And besides ... it's your turn."

Nervously, I let him show me how to hold the baby. Weren't girls supposed to be better at this kind of thing? As far as I knew, Rhys didn't have any more experience than me, and he had seemed far more competent. Or perhaps I was just too scared of hurting such a tiny person. Once she was settled, I held the bottle to her mouth.

"You're a natural," Fion said sarcastically. "Now stop looking at her as if she's about to combust."

My sister drifted off to sleep shortly after that. Rhodric disappeared off to do Goddess knew what, and we left baby Nia in her cot to get some well-earned rest. We would need to plant her a tree before the day was over, but that could wait until Fion was awake enough to choose a handful of seeds from the ancient jar.

I sat down beside my brother with my back against the rough stones. We spent an hour or two in silence there, guarding Mam and baby, until I got bored enough to reach into the link I shared with Rhys.

"We need a plan," I said. "To kill Malcolm, I mean. The police will be raiding him, so we only have a few days at the most to press our advantage."

He wrinkled up his nose. "I thought you already had a plan, Skye."

"And what the hell gave you that idea?" I demanded.

"The way you started smiling when Jeff hulked out, for one thing. Then you went to fetch Kara ... I just assumed there was a good reason behind all that."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Alright. Fine. I have a few isolated ideas, but they're nowhere near a fully-fledged plan yet. I was hoping you might have an inkling of how we could go about ridding ourselves of that leech."

"Don't look at me," Rhys laughed. "I'm just a foot soldier, remember? Great at killing things, terrible at being tactful about it."

I gave him a knowing look. "Well, that's not true, is it?"

"Fine." A familiar grin spread onto his face. "I suggest we run over to Jace's pack, throw a whole bunch of grenades up in that joint, blame it on Malcolm and let the triple alliance do the rest."

My elbow found a home in his ribs. "Seriously now. Any ideas that don't involve pissing off one of our only friends?"

"Look, I know you struggle with the concept of social interaction, but I actually have a large number of friends. Jace is not one of them. If you really insist though, I suppose Alpha Keith would work just as well."

An idea struck me. "Maybe Keith is already involved. Someone was holding all those hunters hostage — holding Cassidy hostage. What if he's trying to find leverage to make Malcolm take his side in the pack war?"

"Yeah, about the pack war..." Rhys began cautiously. "Don't you find it a little strange that—"

Fion sat up in bed suddenly. We had been so engrossed in the conversation, neither of us had even noticed she was awake. There were bags under her eyes, and her face was deathly pale, but Fion looked happier than she had been in a long time. I suspected it might have something to do with the tiny human being outside of her, rather than inside. Pregnancy was no picnic, I'd discovered.

"Gunfire," she said abruptly. "At the border. We should go."

"How'd you know?" Rhys asked immediately. Yet both of us rose to our feet by instinct alone.

"Mind-link, duh." She tapped her skull. It was easy to forget her ... gifts. Fion could have been listening in on our mental conversation if she wanted. And she had obviously been tapping into the patrols' mind-links to get that sort of information. She must have not been sleeping as deeply as I had imagined.

"I volunteer," I offered immediately.

"Simmer down, Katniss. We're coming too."

"We?" Rhys looked at her incredulously. "You just gave birth, Fion. You're not going anywhere for a good while."

Fion pushed back the covers and stood, stretching like a cat. A challenge gleamed in her light green eyes. "And I suppose you are going to stop me?"

"Maggie said you need to rest. So yeah. Even if I have to tie you down," Rhys confirmed.

She just smiled dangerously. The next second, my brother was on his knees and clutching at his head. One brush of the mind-link told me that he was no longer in control of his own body. Holy. Fudging. Shit. That shouldn't have even been possible. But Fion was standing there, exploiting the mind-link to immobilise Rhys. She had always been good with mental battles, but this was a whole different level. I was freaking scared.

"Oh, yeah, as it happens, I didn't spend the last few months just lying around all day. Turns out there's not much you can't do when you're inside someone else's head," Fion said, even as she turned her gaze onto me, like I was next.

I threw up my hands in surrender. "Whoa, hold fire. You can come, alright? I'm not arguing." 

She smiled, this time with her usual careless happiness. "That's better."

Rhys slumped as she withdrew her mental talons. He gaped at her with an unnerving amount of awe and absolutely no resentment. "I think you just became the MVP."