Chapter Fifteen: Little Bundle
1025 Words
The house had gone quiet by evening.
Not empty — everyone had stayed, scattered through the sitting room and kitchen in the specific loose orbit of a family that had just witnessed something none of them would ever fully stop marveling at. But quiet. The loud joy of the birth had softened into something gentler, the whole household moving carefully now, mindful of the two people upstairs who needed rest more than celebration.
Elara was exhausted in a way she had never experienced in three centuries of existence.
Her body ached everywhere, the specific hollowed-out weariness of having given absolutely everything she had to bring another life into the world. Victoria had checked on her twice already, murmuring reassurances about normal recovery, about how the body needed time, about how even a vampire's resilience had limits when it came to something this profound.
"Sleep," Victoria had told her gently. "We have her. Rest."
Elara had wanted to argue.
Had wanted to keep her daughter close every single second, the fierce new instinct already wired so deeply into her that letting go felt physically wrong.
But her eyes had grown too heavy to keep the argument going.
Jace sat in the armchair beside the bed, Luna cradled against his chest.
She had fallen asleep almost the moment he'd settled into the chair — tiny and impossibly light in his arms, dark lashes resting against soft cheeks, one small hand curled loosely near her chin. Her breathing was steady and even, the specific fragile rhythm of something brand new to the world, still learning how to simply exist in it.
He hadn't moved in over an hour.
Hadn't wanted to.
He watched her sleep with the specific quiet wonder that had taken over every part of him since her first cry — the thousand year old wolf who had fought wars and buried grief and survived a silver blade completely undone by nine pounds of sleeping innocence.
"You're staring at her," Elara murmured, half-asleep herself, eyes barely open.
"I can't stop," he said softly. "Look at her. She's perfect."
"She is," Elara agreed, voice thick with exhaustion.
"Sleep," he said. "I've got her. I've got both of you."
"I know," she said. "I trust you completely."
Her eyes closed fully.
Within moments her breathing evened into real sleep, the specific total collapse of a body that had spent everything it had and finally, finally been given permission to rest.
Jace looked between the two of them.
His wife, pale and worn from labor but breathing peacefully. His daughter, small and warm and entirely unaware of everything she'd already survived just by being born.
"I've got you both," he said quietly, to the room, to the sleeping baby, to his exhausted wife. "Always."
He didn't put Luna down.
Couldn't quite bring himself to, not yet, even when his arms began to ache from holding the same careful position for so long. He simply shifted her slightly, adjusted the hand-sewn blanket his father had made, and kept watching.
She stirred once — a small frown crossing her sleeping face, a tiny huff of breath — and he found himself instinctively rocking, the motion coming naturally despite never having done this before in his life.
She settled again almost immediately.
"There you go," he murmured. "There you go, little one."
Downstairs, he could hear the muffled sounds of the family — Nova's voice rising with excitement about something, Max saying something that made Cole laugh, the specific warm chaos of people who loved each other filling a house that had, for one long afternoon, held its breath along with everyone in it.
He looked down at Luna.
At the tiny features that were somehow already unmistakably hers — not quite Jace's, not quite Elara's, something entirely new that belonged only to her.
"You have no idea," he whispered, "how much you're already loved. How many people downstairs are fighting over who gets to hold you first tomorrow. How much your grandfather cried when he heard you were coming. How your mother carried you through more pain than either of us knew how to prepare for, because she wanted you here so badly."
Luna's small hand twitched against her chin.
"You're going to grow up surrounded by people who would burn the world down for you," he continued softly. "Wolves and vampires who used to be enemies, now just people who love you already, completely, without conditions." His voice caught slightly. "I promise you that. Whatever comes. Whatever the world decides about what you are. You will never, for one single day, wonder if you're loved enough."
She slept on, unaware, innocent, entirely at peace.
He pressed the softest kiss to the top of her head.
"Welcome to the world, Luna," he whispered. "We've been waiting so long for you."
Sometime past midnight, Cole knocked quietly and peered in.
"Everyone wants to know if you need anything," he whispered. "Food. Water. Someone to take a shift so you can sleep."
Jace looked at his brother.
At Elara, still deeply asleep beside him. At Luna, still cradled against his chest, entirely unwilling to be handed off even now.
"I'm fine," he said quietly. "I don't want to put her down yet."
Cole smiled softly.
"You don't have to," he said. "Just wanted to check."
He lingered a moment longer, looking at his brother holding his niece with a tenderness that seemed to fill the entire room.
"You're going to be a good father," Cole said quietly. "I already know it."
Jace looked up at him.
"I hope so," he said. "I really hope so."
Cole nodded, closed the door gently, and left him to the quiet.
Jace looked back down at Luna.
Still sleeping. Still small. Still entirely, impossibly his.
"Every single day," he whispered again, more to himself than to her. "I promise."
The house settled into its late-night quiet around them, the whole family finally resting, the war outside the walls momentarily forgotten in the face of something far more important.
A little bundle of joy, sleeping soundly, completely unaware of everything she already meant to everyone who loved her.
- Writer
