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She braced herself under my arm and helped me back onto the mattress, holding on until I could turn onto my side. I caught her dress before she could straighten.

“They didn’t listen.”

“They are following Master Darius’s orders.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Can’t you see? I’m their boss too. If they were really our men, they would’ve listened to me.” I looked past her towards the others and lowered my voice. “They must be tricking us to get me away from Darius and our real guards. What if they’re here for the girls?”

Eira said my name, but I could barely hear her as I shuffled back as far as I could and dragged a blanket over my belly. They looked like our guards, but a uniform didn’t make someone good. I remembered the uniformed physicians at Hart Manor and the horrible things they’d done to me, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

They must have found out the girls were twins and Omegas. That was why they were here, and I couldn’t let them take my babies.

“Get a gun, Eira. Please.”

“I am staying here with you.” She laid Alaric’s pillow beside my face and drew another blanket around my back. “You know this scent. Breathe here.”

I pressed my nose into the pillow and relaxed a little as Alaric’s scent reached me. I wanted him here so badly, and then I remembered the bracelet. I could call him and tell him about the guards, and I knew he would take care of it.

My trembling fingers missed the control twice. When I finally opened the Pack channel, the call failed before it rang. I tried Alaric alone, then Darius, but neither call connected.

“Yours,” I said to Eira. “Let me use yours.”

She opened the call for me and gave me her pad. It failed too. I stared at the screen, then tried again because surely one of them would answer if I could only get it to ring.

“The household link is down,” the female Alpha said. “I have requested Lord Darius on the security channel.”

Her voice seemed too far away. “They won’t answer me,” I said.

“They are not refusing you.” Eira rubbed my back. “The calls are not reaching them.”

Darius was supposed to be here. One of them should have been with me, so I tried Leon, then Caius and Lucien. My hands shook so badly that Eira had to stop the pad from falling. She was speaking close to my ear now, but even though I could see her lips moving, her words sounded distant.

Then she stopped rubbing my back and fell silent. When I looked at her, she stared out the window behind me, her face blank. The guards followed her gaze.

Slowly, I turned to look. Beyond the windows, three ships were flying over the residential district. I had spent enough time looking out of these windows to know that no ships should be flying over this area, and they certainly shouldn’t be coming right at us.

A streak of light crossed the view from below, followed by another from higher in the Mountain. I thought of Star Wars. Then a light flashed from one of the ships, coming straight at us, and I realised the people inside were firing.

“Incoming!”

Eira reached across my shoulders, trying to pull me down onto the pillows as the female Alpha ran towards the nest.

The Mountain moved, and the mattress lurched beneath me, throwing me against the wall and Eira off the nest.

A loud, crackling boom came from within the Mountain, travelling through the walls and into my bones. Dust swept across the window, hiding the ships until all I could see were fragments of stone falling through grey.

The Mountain was falling.

Chapter 36

Darius

The independent surveillance system Caius and I had installed began failing shortly after midday. Within seconds, we had lost four feeds along the access routes to our home. I brought up the official Mountain network on the main projection. Its feeds were working perfectly.

They are coming.

“Full defensive deployment. Bring Lady Stormforge inside.”

Harrow opened the security channel. “All teams, take your defensive positions. Garden detail, bring Lady Stormforge to the nest.”