Ian and I were walking along Chase's pack's little boutiques where we stopped for ice cream. After the shocking meeting with Cassian, we decided to let Cassian and Maddie have their moment first.

The turn of events still baffled me, but I was happy for Maddie.

She is such a precious angel who deserves all. Through the snippets of dreams that I had of her life, I could understand that she's been through a lot, but I acknowledged that I could never fully understand the pains of living as a rogue.

"What's on your mind?" Ian asks as he lifts his hand and wiped the side of my lip where I probably had smudged ice cream.

I reacted quickly and wiped it too, feeling embarrassed and making him chuckle.

"D-don't laugh!" I pout and grabbed a tissue, but Ian continued laughing.

"Such a messy eater." he says and shakes his head.

"No, it's because the ice cream is good!" I tried to defend myself and furiously wipe the cluttered ice cream over my face which shouldn't have been there anymore.

After I finished a cup, I got another one.

These days, I've been eating more than usual, which makes sense because I was feeding two people now.

Ian was content with just one, so he decided to just sit and watch me eat.

"Alec would like the strawberry one." I say, remembering Alec who was probably crying with his workload right now.

"Excuse me? Are you thinking about someone else while I'm here?" Ian says. I tried to detect amusement in his voice to see if he was joking or not. Finding none, I slowly raise my eyes up to meet his.

He holds the look for a few seconds before erupting to laughter.

Wow, was that supposed to be a joke?

"Your jokes come off as a threat." I say which makes him laugh even more.

At the sound of that, I smiled too.

I liked hearing him laugh.

These days, finding him smiling or laughing wasn't so rare anymore. It came off naturally now and that made me really happy.

He wasn't like that before, he was a hungered power-craving beast and he would stop at nothing just to get more of that. He was so stoic, looking at Archer sometimes reminds me of the way Ian used to be before and I honestly don't know how I was able to handle it.

Well... I barely did.

And to be honest, there were many times when I gave up because the obstacle was too hard, his heart was too cold and hard and I was tired too.

But in our own ways, we didn't give up at the thought of making things work and I think that's what I'm thankful for the most.

"So... let's think of a name." I start.

Ian looks confused for a moment then he smiles in excitement.

"Ian Junior."

"No." I reject flatly.

There is no way I was going to have a junior.

"Why not? It's a good name!" he whines and sits up properly.

"Absolutely not, Ian. How about Jay?"

"No, it sounds old and hateful."

How does Jay even sound hateful?

Ian and I kept suggesting each other names, but every time one of us suggested one, we just declined it and criticized the choice.

We both got up and left the small ice cream shop and aimlessly walked around the pack.

Ian and I were still debating about the name, but then it went to imagining what our child would look like.

"He will obviously look more like me since an Alpha's firstborn is always a male." Ian debates which makes me roll my eyes at him. Where did that logic even came from?

"Just because he's a boy doesn't mean that he'll look like you. My grey eyes are very dominant so I'm sure he will have my eyes." I added and he disagrees and adds something else saying that his features will for sure be inherited from Ian.

Finally, after noticing that it's already late, Ian and I decided to go back to the pack house.

When we got back, we ate dinner with only Chase and Hazel. Archer was supposedly in a meeting with his Beta back in his pack and well, Maddie was still with Cassian.

I could see that Chase was worried, he barely even ate, but it was a good thing that Hazel was there to annoy him and forcing him to eat.

"Argh, you're so annoying! Go annoy Archer, won't you." Chase says with low spirits. Hearing that, Hazel gasped.

"He's a grown man, he knows when it's eating time or not!" Hazel replies.

This leaves Ian and I to look at each other and just laughed.

After dinner, Maddie and Cassian still have not returned. Understandable, they had a lot to catch up on anyways. As for everyone else, we decided to call it a day and have a meeting tomorrow morning before Ian and I depart back to Panselinos.

I had been lying down the bed, waiting for Ian to come back from the shower, and stared at the ceiling.

It was quiet around me, but all I could hear was the water running down from the shower. Then thoughts of the future crept in and I started thinking about the future ahead.

The very first was the safety of my child. Having been given a child at such a time like this is scary, that's true, but that's not what lingered on my mind. I thought mostly about how I can protect him and still manage to fulfill my duties as a warrior.

And then I thought about pack, I couldn't heal too much because I'm scared that I might put the baby's life in danger again and there is no way that I was going to put him through that again. But I still had to protect the pack.

And then I thought about the other warriors, most especially the last warrior. Effyía. She's the last warrior, known as the seer. Sure, I had dreams every now and then warning me about the future, but her ability was being able to see the future and so she is vital for the very operation of defeating the Strays.

I'm sure she would be able to see this and if so, why hasn't she showed up yet?

Is she hiding? Why?

Suddenly, the door of the bathroom opened and Ian came out while drying his jet black hair, topless. I can almost swear that I saw how droplets of water dripped from his upper body. My heart skipped a beat when my eyes met his and I suddenly felt embarrassed for getting caught checking him out.

I turned around, fanning myself.

Why are am I even feeling embarrassed as if it's my first time seeing that?! I scolded myself mentally.

And then I felt a light kiss on top of my head. Turning around, it was none other than Ian. He had a smirk that I couldn't quite decipher, but I somehow felt that he was poking fun at me.

"Dry yourself and go to sleep." I said, trying to ignore him, but I just heard him chuckle and made me turn to him.

He put his hand on my stomach and stayed still, listening to the heartbeat of our child.

Watching the scene made my heart melt.

Who would've ever thought that I would be living a moment such as this, but still all I felt was thankfulness.

"What are you worried about?" Ian suddenly asked. He must've felt my anxiousness. I thought for a while and then started to talk.

"Say, Ian..." I started hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"I've been thinking... how are we going to handle what's ahead? To be honest, I'm scared. I'm so happy that we're going to have our own family, but I'm scared. What if I can't protect him? What if I can't protect the pack? Wha--"

I stopped talking when I saw Ian smiling. Why is he smiling? Can't he see how serious this situation is?

"To be honest, I was starting to worry too, but when we came here, I realized that we are not the only ones fighting this battle. There's Archer, Chase, Cassian, Hazel, Maddie and all the others. And since you've recently met them, you probably don't know that although they are goofy like that, they're really strong. Knowing that they will be with us eased my mind. We'll be fine, Hannah."

I blankly stared at him.

Gone was the Ian I met at the beginning. Here is the Ian who knew how to rely on his friends for a battle he knew he'd otherwise lose if he didn't have the others. It was so wholesome.

I smiled at him and moved closer to him to hug him.

"I love you, go to sleep." he said and wrapped his arms around me too.

"I love you too."