Chapter 220: Big Sister
She remembered her birth mother, a normal housewife, looking at them with horror. They were growing too fast, speaking too fast, and their mother had left them with the group of survivors and left, leaving them shivering alone because they were "scary."
To Luna and Frost, the apocalypse wasn’t just about monsters; it was about the day the only person who was supposed to love them decided they were freaks.
"You won’t... leave?" Luna sniffled, her voice small and trembling. "Like the other Mum? Because I’m big and scary? Are the new babies going to be the good ones?"
Frost whimpered in agreement, pressing his cold nose against Felicity’s hand. He remembered the hunger, the way the wind bit into his fur when they were alone. He remembered thinking that growing up meant being abandoned.
Luna’s mind was a jagged glass house of memories. In the early days of the Collapse, when they had started growing quickly, she remembered her mother, a woman who used to smell of laundry detergent and vanilla, staring at them across a flickering campfire. Luna had tried to ask for a glass of water, but her voice had come out as a raspy, dual-toned growl, and her silver ears had sprouted right there in the firelight.
Her mother hadn’t hugged her. She hadn’t told her it was okay. She had backed away into the darkness of the survivor camp, whispering to a man with a gun that her children were "turning into monsters." By morning, she was gone. She’d left them with a bag of stale crackers and the crushing weight of their own "freakishness."
The men of the Snow and Leaf teams went deathly quiet. Even Lucan s
topped his teasing, his expression turning grimly protective. Ivan stood like a statue, his golden eyes shimmering with a fierce, paternal heat. Felicity pulled back, cupping Luna’s face in her hands, her thumbs brushing away the silver-furred tears. "Look at me, Luna, look at me."
She waited until the cub’s eyes met hers. "Your birth mother didn’t understand how special you are, but I do. You aren’t scary. Are you my daughter and these babies? They’re your brothers or sisters. They’re going to need a big sister like you to teach them how to be brave. I’m never going anywhere, not for a thousand cities of light, and not for a million new babies."
Victor reached out, his hand covering both Felicity’s shoulder and the cubs. "The pack doesn’t leave its own," he rumbled, a promise that carried the weight of his authority. "You are the heirs of this kingdom; anyone who thinks you’re ’scary’ will have to answer to me."
Luna sniffled one last time, her tail giving a small, hesitant wag. She looked at Felicity’s stomach, then leaned forward and pressed a tiny, wet kiss to the fabric over the kits.
"Mum?" Luna whispered now, her small, silver-furred hand tugging on Felicity’s sleeve as they walked. "Do the babies... do they have ears like mine? Or are they going to be normal?"
Felicity stopped. The entire column of thirty elite beastmen stopped with her, the silence of the bushland heavy and expectant. Felicity knelt in the dirt, oblivious to the way Victor’s jaw tightened or the way Ivan’s hand twitched toward his side.
"They are going to be exactly like you, Luna," Felicity said, her voice a soothing balm. "They’ll have ears, and tails, and hearts that beat just like yours, and they are going to look up to you because you’re the one who survived the cold. You’re the one who didn’t let the scary world change how kind you are."
Frost wasn’t as vocal as his sister, but the trauma lived in his bones. He remembered the hunger, the literal, gnawing ache of a stomach that was growing faster than the world could feed it. He remembered thinking that if he grew too big, he’d be too heavy for Felicity to carry, and then she’d leave him, too.
"I’ll be the best big sister," she whispered. "I’ll teach them how to do skipping rope and fight zombies."
A collective breath of relief went through the camp, and Voss let out a huff of amusement. He reached down and scruffed the back of Frost’s neck with a rough, paternal warmth. "Listen, pup. You’re growing fast because the world is dangerous. That’s a gift, not a curse. You think I was born this size? I was a scrawny thing once."
Voss looked up at the men of the Snow and Leaf teams. "Any of you lot think these kids are ’scary’?"
The response was a low, choral rumble of denial. Sarge stepped forward. "Scary? They’re the best little fighters we’ve got.
As they moved out, the cubs stayed glued to Felicity’s sides, their sorrow replaced by a fierce, newfound purpose.
Luna, feeling emboldened by Felicity’s promise, decided that "being a big sister" started immediately. She began to treat Felicity’s walk like a sacred procession. If a pebble was too large in the middle of the road, Luna would kick it away with a fierce, tiny growl, and if a branch hung too low, Frost would jump up and snap it off before Felicity could even reach it.
"Protecting the babies!" Luna announced, her silver tail held high. "They shouldn’t have to see ugly rocks!"
Frost growled at a bush in agreement.
The non-mated men were still "vibrating" with the knowledge of Felicity’s pregnancy, but it had shifted from a purely jealous energy into something much more complex. They weren’t just protecting Felicity; they were protecting a lineage.
When they stopped for a brief water break, Ash and Kai approached the rise where Felicity was sitting with the cubs. They didn’t come to flirt; they came with "offerings."
"We found these in an old toy store ruin a few k’s back," Ash said, his voice gentle. He reached into his pack and pulled out two sets of high-durability skipping ropes and a small, slightly dusty football. "For the training you said you’d teach them, Felicity."
Luna’s eyes went wide. She grabbed the skipping rope as if it were a legendary artifact. "The babies! We can teach the babies how to jump! And we can kick the ball at the bad men!"
"Exactly," Kai said, kneeling down to show Frost how to properly grip the ball. "And when the babies are born, we’ll make sure they have a whole field to play in, no zombies, no bad guys, just grass."