The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate Chapter 211

Athena

Six months.

Six months since Adrian and Arianna had come home from the NICU, and I still sometimes woke up in the middle of the night to check that they were breathing.

The monitors helped, their steady beeping had become the soundtrack of our lives, but the fear never completely went away.

Though it had gotten better. Much better.

Now, instead of constant terror, I felt mostly joy. Joy watching them grow and change every single day.

Joy hearing their coos and gurgles turn into something that might become words someday. Joy seeing their personalities emerge, Adrian serious and observant, Arianna social and expressive.

They were sitting up now, had been for about three weeks. And just yesterday, Arianna had started to crawl, that awkward, determined army crawl where she dragged herself forward with her arms while her legs tried to figure out what they were supposed to do.

Adrian hadn't figured out crawling yet, but he'd roll everywhere, covering surprising distances across the living room floor. We'd had to baby-proof everything practically overnight.

"Where's my girl?" I called out, scanning the living room where I'd left both babies on their play mat five minutes ago while I grabbed a glass of water.

Adrian was still there, contentedly gumming a teething ring and watching his reflection in a baby-safe mirror. But Arianna was gone.

"Ari?" I set down my water, trying not to panic. She couldn't have gone far. She'd just learned to crawl. "Baby girl, where are you?"

A soft gurgling sound came from the corner of the room, near the bookshelf where I'd been trying to keep a potted plant alive. Trying being the key word—the poor thing had been dying for weeks despite my best efforts. I'd been meaning to throw it out, but kept forgetting.

I rounded the bookshelf and found Arianna. She'd crawled all the way across the room and was reaching up toward the dying plant, her little hand stretched toward the brown, withered leaves.

"No, baby," I said, moving quickly. "Don't touch that. It's yucky."

But even as I reached for her, her tiny fingers made contact with one of the dead leaves.

And the plant moved.

I froze, my hands hovering over my daughter, not quite believing what I was seeing.

The brown leaf under Arianna's touch was turning green. Not slowly, it was growing rapidly, like watching a time-lapse video.

The green spread from where her fingers touched, flowing up the stem, reaching other leaves, transforming them from brittle and dead to lush and healthy.

The whole plant was reviving. Right in front of my eyes.

New growth sprouted from the stem. Flowers bloomed—small purple blossoms that definitely hadn't been there before. The soil even looked richer, darker, more fertile.

And Arianna just sat there, her hand still touching the plant, gurgling happily like she hadn't just done something completely impossible.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. My hands were shaking. My mind was racing through explanations, trying to rationalize what I'd just witnessed.

Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe the plant hadn't been as dead as I thought. Maybe...

No.

I'd been trying to save that plant for weeks. I knew exactly how dead it had been. And I'd just watched it come back to life the second my daughter touched it.

My daughter. My six-month-old daughter who shouldn't be able to do anything except crawl and babble and maybe wave bye-bye.

"Ari," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Baby, what did you just do?"

Arianna looked up at me and smiled—that gummy, drool-filled smile that usually made my heart melt. But right now, all I could feel was confusion and fear and a dawning realization that terrified me.

Did Arianna inherit my gift?

If she had inherited a stronger version of my gift...

"Okay," I said aloud, trying to calm myself down. "Okay. Let's not panic. Let's just... we need to show your father. We need to show Daddy what you can do."

I picked Arianna up carefully, as if she might suddenly develop some new terrifying ability. She just giggled and grabbed my hair, completely oblivious to the fact that she'd just turned my entire understanding of the world upside down.

The plant sat there on the bookshelf, impossibly healthy and blooming. Proof that I hadn't imagined it.

I could hear voices from outside—Tristan, Orion, and Derek were in the side yard, discussing the final touches on the expansion Orion had just completed.

For the past six months, he'd been overseeing the construction of his property.

Sarah and Orion had moved in two weeks ago with Lily and Liam, and already it felt right. Natural. Like we were meant to live this way—two families, close enough to help each other but far enough apart to have our own space.

Though in practice, we spent most of our time together anyway. Meals were usually communal, the kids played together constantly, and right now the babies were just as likely to be found in Sarah's arms as mine.

I grabbed Adrian from his play mat —couldn't leave him alone in the house—and headed outside, my heart still racing.

The October afternoon was beautiful, cool but sunny. Tristan, Orion, and Derek stood near the new garage, looking at blueprints spread across a makeshift table.

"Tristan!" I called out, and something in my voice made all three men's heads snap up immediately.

Tristan was moving toward me before I even reached them, his instincts clearly sensing my distress.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his hands already reaching for me, for our daughter. "Are you okay? Is Ari okay?"

"I need to show you something," I said, my words tumbling over each other. "Something just happened. With Ari. I don't know how to explain it, I just... you need to see."

"Athena, you're scaring me," Tristan said, his eyes scanning both me and Arianna for signs of injury or illness. "What happened?"