Irina’s POV

The apartment smelled like baby lotion, warm milk, and clean cotton.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. The sunlight streaming through the large living room windows was thick and golden, painting warm squares on the hardwood floor.

I was sitting on the rug, my legs crossed.

Mia was sprawled out on the couch next to me. She was surrounded by a mountain of freshly washed baby clothes. She held up a tiny, pale yellow onesie. It had a cartoon duck stitched on the chest. It was impossibly small.

"I still don’t understand how a human being fits into this," Mia said, squinting at the fabric. "It looks like it belongs to a doll. Are we sure he isn’t going to break it?"

I smiled. A real, effortless smile.

"He won’t break it," I said quietly.

I looked down.

My son was lying on a soft, padded blanket right in front of me. He had just finished a bottle. He was wide awake, his tiny fists waving in the air in slow, uncoordinated circles. He was wearing a plain white onesie, his little legs kicking happily.

He was so perfect.

I reached out and let him wrap his tiny fingers around my index finger. His grip was surprisingly strong.

My heart swelled. It was a massive, physical ache in my chest. A good ache. The kind that made me want to cry, but for all the right reasons.

In my old life, afternoons like this didn’t exist. Time in the Obsidian Claw pack house had been measured in chores, hiding, and terror. Time in the Mad King’s palace had been measured in blood, heavy silence, and the suffocating weight of his alpha aura.

But here?

Here, time was measured in ounces of milk. In nap schedules. In the number of tiny socks we lost in the laundry.

My wolf hummed in my chest. A low, continuous vibration of pure contentment. She was resting near the surface of my mind, keeping a watchful, protective eye on our pup. She loved him just as fiercely as I did.

"He’s getting bigger," Mia observed, tossing the folded duck onesie onto a neat pile. "I swear his cheeks are chubbier than yesterday."

"He gained six ounces this week," I said proudly. "Elena weighed him this morning."

"See? We are excellent parents," Mia declared. She leaned over the edge of the couch and poked his little stomach. "Yes we are. We are raising a genius."

The baby blinked up at her.

His eyes were wide open. They were still that deep, piercing forest green. Every time I saw them, my breath caught for just a fraction of a second. They were a flawless, striking reflection of Nicholas.

But the fear was gone.

I didn’t see the violent, blood-soaked Alpha King when I looked at my baby. I just saw a survivor. I saw the tiny piece of my heart that lived outside my body.

"Okay," Mia sighed, pushing herself up into a sitting position. "Fun time is over. We have to do the paperwork."

My stomach tightened slightly. "Paperwork?"

Mia reached over to the coffee table. She picked up a thick, official-looking manila envelope. She pulled out a stack of crisp white forms.

"The birth certificate," Mia said gently. "Mom brought it home from the hospital records department. You have thirty days to file it, Irina. We can’t keep calling him ’Baby Boy’ on his medical charts. He needs a real name."

I stared at the forms in her hand.

A name.

It sounded so simple. But it wasn’t. In the werewolf world, names were heavy. They were ties to bloodlines, to power, to legacy. Maxim. Nicholas. Roman. They were sharp, hard names meant to intimidate. They were names of men who ruled by fear.

I didn’t want that for him.

I didn’t want him tied to a legacy of violence. I didn’t want him to carry the weight of an underground mafia empire on his tiny shoulders.

I wanted him to be free.

"I don’t know what to call him," I admitted. My voice was barely a whisper. "I’ve been so focused on just keeping him alive... I never let myself think about names."

Mia slid off the couch. She sat cross-legged on the rug right next to me, placing the paperwork on the floor.

"That’s fine," she said, bumping her shoulder against mine. "That’s what brainstorming is for. We have options."

I looked at her. "Options?"

"Oh, absolutely. I’ve been making a list on my phone for weeks," Mia grinned, pulling her phone out of her pocket. She unlocked it and cleared her throat dramatically. "Okay, first up. Batman."

I stared at her, blinking. "Batman."

"Yes. Think about it. It commands respect. No one bullies a kid named Batman at recess."

A laugh burst out of my chest. It was loud and bright. The baby startled slightly at the sound, then kicked his legs.

"I am not naming my son after a comic book character, Mia."

"Fine, fine," she sighed, scrolling down. "How about... Rex? It means king. Very strong."

The word *king* hit me like a splash of cold water.

*The Mad King.*

I looked down at my hands. "No. No kings. No titles."

Mia caught the shift in my tone. The humor instantly melted from her face. She put the phone down, her dark eyes softening with understanding.

"Okay," she said quietly. "No kings. Just a boy."

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"What do you want it to mean?" Mia asked. "Names have meanings. Do you want something that means strong? Brave? Smart?"

I looked down at my baby.

He was staring at a dust mote floating in a beam of sunlight. His little chest rose and fell. He was so calm. So oblivious to the horrors of the world I had dragged him away from.

When the darkness had consumed me in the ambulance, he was the thing that pulled me back. The sound of his cry. The knowledge that he existed.

He was the light at the end of the longest, darkest tunnel of my life.

"Light," I whispered.

Mia tilted her head. "Light?"

"I want a name that means light," I said, my voice growing stronger. I looked up at Mia. "Because my entire life was dark. For a year, I lived in absolute pitch black. And then he was born. He brought me into the light."

Mia’s eyes grew glassy. She pressed a hand to her mouth, blinking rapidly.

"Oh my god, you can’t just drop poetry on me on a Tuesday," she sniffled, wiping a tear from her cheek. "Okay. Light. Let me think."

She grabbed her phone again. Her fingers flew across the screen.

"Okay, let’s see. Orion. Meaning rising star." Mia read off the screen. "A little too sci-fi?"

"A little," I smiled.

"Kiran. It means ray of light."

I rolled the name around in my head. "It’s nice. But no."

Mia scrolled further. She stopped. Her eyes widened slightly.

"Luka," she said.

The room went very quiet.

I looked at her. "Luka?"

"It’s derived from the Latin word *lux*," Mia explained, her voice soft. "It literally means ’bringer of light’."

Luka.

I looked down at the baby.

He had turned his head toward the sound of Mia’s voice. He was looking at us.

*Luka.*

It wasn’t a harsh, growling mafia name. It was soft. It was simple. But it had a quiet, unbreakable strength to it.

"Luka," I whispered to him.

He blinked. The corners of his tiny mouth twitched. He kicked his little legs, making a soft, happy gurgling sound in the back of his throat.

My wolf stretched in my mind. She approved. The name settled into my bones, fitting perfectly. It felt right. It felt exactly like him.

Tears immediately flooded my eyes. They spilled over my lashes, tracking hot and fast down my cheeks.

I reached down and carefully picked him up. I pulled his small, warm body against my chest, burying my face in the soft crook of his neck. He smelled like heaven.

"Luka," I sobbed quietly, rocking him back and forth. "My sweet Luka."

Mia let out a shaky breath. I heard the scratch of a pen against paper.

"Luka it is," she whispered.

I closed my eyes. I held my son tight. The fear, the past, the Mad King—none of it mattered in this room.

He was Luka. And he was completely, beautifully mine.