"Then let it," Althander snarled, human again, standing despite the blood running from wounds Jasmine hadn't seen him receive. "Let the world change. Let it burn if it must. But you will not touch my family."
The Council members looked at each other. Some unspoken communication passed between them. Then Garrett nodded slowly, his expression resolute.
"Then you've made your choice, son."
The mages raised their hands in unison. The dome of suppression expanded, slamming outward in a wave that made the air itself scream. Every plant within fifty feet died instantly. The ancient oak that had sheltered them for four years split down the middle, its trunk blackening and crumbling.
And inside Jasmine, she felt her daughter's panic spike, felt that vast consciousness reach for more power, more energy, something—anything—that could protect her parents, could protect herself, could stop what was coming.
The ocean of spiritual energy that Jasmine had carried dormant for thirty years suddenly opened. Not gradually. Not carefully. It opened completely, a floodgate breaking under impossible pressure, and her daughter drank from it with the desperation of someone drowning.
Jasmine screamed. Not from labor. From power.
Her body became a conduit for energy that no human frame was meant to channel. Light poured from her skin, her eyes, her mouth. The marks Althander had drawn on her belly blazed so brightly they were visible through her clothes. The air around her ignited, not with fire but with pure spiritual force made visible.
The Council members staggered backward, shielding their eyes. Even the mages' suppression dome fractured under the onslaught.
"By all the gods," one of the younger shifters whispered. "What is she?"
But Jasmine wasn't in control. Her daughter was. And her daughter, feeling the threat, feeling her mother's pain, feeling her father's determination and the Council's hostile intent, made a choice that would echo through the years to come.
She decided to be born. Now. Not tomorrow. Not in a few hours when Jasmine's body was ready. Now, while she still had access to this vast reservoir of power, while she could protect them, while she could fight.
Jasmine felt her daughter's consciousness push. Not outward into the world, but inward—into Jasmine's nervous system, her muscular system, her entire body. Taking control. Forcing changes that should take hours to happen in seconds.
"No," Jasmine gasped, but it was too late. "Baby, no, you're not ready—"
The birth began with violence that made Althander cry out and the Council members step forward in alarm despite their mission. Because this wasn't a natural process anymore. This was something unprecedented forcing itself into existence through sheer will and impossible power, consequences be damned.
And above them all, the storm screamed, and the island wept, and Sophia—watching from outside time—finally understood the truth.
She hadn't been born into a world ready for her.
She'd been born fighting.
The actual moment of birth was agony wrapped in lightning.
Jasmine's body wasn't designed to withstand the kind of energy her daughter was channeling through it. Cells that should have been merely flesh became temporary conduits for power that could level cities. Her nervous system lit up like a circuit board receiving a thousand times its intended voltage. Blood vessels glowed beneath translucent skin.
Althander caught her as she collapsed, his arms wrapping around her from behind, supporting her weight. His wolf was howling inside him, desperate and helpless, because there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. This birth was happening on terms dictated by an infant who wielded power like a weapon but had no concept of mercy or restraint.
"I've got you," he whispered against her ear, his voice breaking. "I've got you, love. Just breathe. Just—"
Jasmine screamed. Not words. Just sound, raw and primal and edged with something that transcended pain. The energy pouring through her reached a crescendo, and for one eternal moment, the entire island held its breath.
Then she was there.
The baby emerged into Althander's waiting hands in a rush of light and fluid and power that made the air itself crystallize. She didn't cry. She gasped, drawing her first breath with a sound that carried harmonics no human infant should produce. Her eyes opened immediately—not the unfocused gaze of a newborn, but aware, alert, taking in everything with devastating clarity.
Those eyes were golden. Not amber, not hazel. Pure gold, like molten metal made liquid, like honey lit by fire from within, like the color of dawn breaking over a desert horizon. They fixed on Althander's face with an intensity that made his wolf whimper in recognition and submission.
Alpha, something in him whispered. This child is alpha to you now.
The umbilical cord connecting mother to daughter still pulsed with energy, a visible thread of silver-green light. Althander reached for it with trembling hands, ready to cut, to separate them, but the infant moved first.