Sawtooth Spire Will I ever be more than I've always been?

wylla split him from the base of left eye to his chin, a series of jagged wounds that sent the man reeling backward from the den. the ragged remnant of a stifled growl flared to life in his throat, but mahler quelled it, grunting beneath his breath and sending tall ears back against his broad skull. he had expected it, after all; that made the pain no less great.
tongue lapped blood from his lip as he cast his gaze first over poor wylla, who was not destined to have peace in any endeavor, it seemed, and then fixed to the small mooncolored parcel the woman lay between her paws. she.
a daughter.
mahler swallowed. the agony of discovering his children hot with fever now swept over the man, setting his jaw with a brief tremble before he reached forward resolutely. the tension in wylla was palpable; he was as unwelcome as any father would be, but he took upon the tiny girl and lay her over the hard arch of his wrist. muzzle lowered, turned; mahler pressed his lips against her tiny chest.
"she lives, vylla," he breathed after a long, eternal moment, unable to keep the tremour from his voice this time. relief, fear. the man pulled back, readjusted their daughter's positioning, and began to nudge her with a controlled roughness along miniscule shoulderblades, hoping to provoke a cough or a squall.
his blood smeared her velveteen fur as he worked in grim silence.
there were many reasons a child ceased breath upon entry into the world. perhaps she had swallowed a piece of the caul; perhaps the waters of birth had found its way into her tiny new lungs. perhaps those themselves were ill-formed, unfit to inhale the cold brash air. 
many reasons, and mahler found a singular dark comfort in running through possible diagnoses, refusing to entertain the possibility that in this very moment, he would lose another child.
a daughter.
atme, verdammt!