CHAPTER 40: THE TWO ALPHA
Her body convulsed once… twice.
Then her back arched violently as if struck by lightning, air forcing into her lungs with a strangled gasp.
A pulse of blinding gold exploded beneath her ribcage—a flare of ancient magic that lit up the space around them like dawn cracking over a battlefield.
Noah stumbled back. Caelum staggered, falling to his knees beside her.
The wound Leira had left—the gash just below her ribs—had stopped bleeding. The skin was knitting itself together, slow but glowing, as if time itself bowed before her.
And beneath her navel, a faint heartbeat thumped, echoing outward.
Two beats. One body.
Her child lived.
So did she.
Catleya opened her eyes—bright, terrifying, otherworldly.
Noah reached for her hand. “C—Catleya…”
But she turned
