by Laura Del
“Kathryn said—”
“I know what Kathryn said,” he interrupted. “I just don’t like it.”
“Would you feel better if I said it?”
He smiled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe.”
I walked over to him, standing on my tiptoes, and wrapping my arms around his neck. “Despite everything, I still love you, my wolf,” I whispered against his lips. “And I promise I will be very careful.”
“Okay,” he breathed. “I’ll take your word for it.” He leaned down, kissing me, and I couldn’t help but think about how badly this might go. All I could do was cross my fingers and pray that I wouldn’t die trying to do the right thing.
chapter
THIRTEEN
I awoke in the graveyard.
The rest of the day had been relatively uneventful, and the next day—I had just realized—was Christmas day. After I’d done some much-needed last-minute shopping, I went back to Stag’s apartment. As soon as I walked in, I noticed it was about six-thirty at night, so I decided to go the bathroom and get ready for bed. Then I took the already-wrapped presents out of the bags, put them in the closet, and fell asleep, all before Stag could say two words to me.
Let me tell you, the graveyard was not a welcome sight.
As I looked around, I saw Kathryn sitting on one of the tombstones, motionless. Something about her bothered me and when I moved closer, I could see that she was not her usual self. In fact, she was almost in tears.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she looked up at me with a frown. Then she stood, giving me a hug. “Kathryn, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” I pushed her away, and she just stared at me with that disturbing look on her face. I didn’t say a word; I just stood there, waiting for her to respond.
“My dear, sweet girl,” she said at last, placing her hand on my cheek. “I have not been entirely honest with you.”
I could feel my brow furrow. “Oh. Okay. What haven’t you been honest with me about?”
“I have visions,” she said with a bittersweet smile on her face. “And last night, I sent one to you.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?” A flash of me behind Big Bears getting my throat ripped out went through my head, and I suddenly had to sit down. I found a nearby tombstone, and sat so fast that I almost fell off. “That was real?”
She frowned again. “Yes, it was one possible way that the encounter with the Lamia quod lupus could go.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay. So it’s not set in stone.” She looked down at the ground, and when she looked at me again, she placed her hand on my shoulder. My spine arched and my eyes closed as she gave me the second vision.
There I was with Mike, Herb, and Stag. We were all standing in the same positions as the last vision. I looked up at the moon again as Stag gave me the same speech before changing into that creature. The air shifted behind me, and I knew Mike was changing as well. Then Stag lunged at me again, but this time the sword ran right through him like a hot knife through butter. Cliché, but it didn’t make it any less true.
The force of his body pushed me back, slamming my head against the bolted metal door of the diner. Elliot’s dead weight was crushing me, and when Herb lifted him up, the sword came out as easily as it went in.
I staggered to my feet, raised the blade over my head, and sliced the beast’s head off. It rolled away but I focused on cutting open the chest in order to get the heart out. Finally, I looked down at myself, seeing blood drip onto my shirt.
At first I thought it was Stag’s, but then I began to feel dizzy. Blood, my blood, dripped onto the ground, and suddenly the sword felt too heavy to hold.
Looking up at the now-ravenous monsters, I watched Mike snarl, drool polling on the ground beneath his jowls. Then I glanced at Herb. He licked his lips and hunger filled his eyes. Before I could even attempt to scream, my knees buckled, and I was on the ground as my eyes rolled up into my head.
Everything went dark, and then there was nothing.
No sound. No breath. No pain. Nothing.
Gasping, I pushed Kathryn away from me, checking to see if I was still intact. I was.
“You die,” she sobbed without tears. “It is inevitable.”
I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “No,” I said, standing up from the tombstone. “Things change. I can’t die.”
“Patricia, you do,” she said, and when I opened my eyes she reached for me, but I moved away.
I kept shaking my head. “No. No, I can’t die. I just can’t.”
“There is no other ending.”
“There has to be,” I screamed, feeling hot, almost painful tears pour down my cheeks. “I don’t want to die. Kathryn, I don’t want to die!”
“You can’t stop it,” she said, as she began to float away into the mist.
“No. Don’t say that,” I breathed. “Kathryn, don’t leave me, please. I don’t want to go into that darkness, into that nothing. Please,” I begged, my knees buckling under me. “Please change it, Kathryn. Please!”
“I cannot,” her voice echoed, and she began to disappear.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, tears blurring my vision as I hugged myself.
“I am so sorry,” her voice faded away, and then she was gone.
“Kathryn,” I screamed, curling up into a ball. “Kathryn! Come back! Please, come back…” I rolled over onto my side, the damp grass making my hair wet. “I don’t want to die…” I whispered, and then screamed, “I don’t want to die!”
I bolted upright in bed again, but this time Stag was beside me, soundly sleeping. Then I looked at the clock, and it read four-thirty in the morning.
My body shook violently as I got out of bed, placing a pair of pants on underneath my nightshirt. Then I walked out into the living room, picked up my purse, and fished out my cell so I could call a cab.
Placing my jacket on, I could feel nausea overtake me and I prayed silently that I could make it to the taxi without throwing my guts up. It didn’t take long for the service to call and tell me that the cab was outside. I took the elevator downstairs, ran out into the cold, pouring rain, and had the driver take me to the one place that I wanted to be…with Mike.
About ten minutes later I was at the apartment building, and as I made my way inside, I realized that I had left my keys at Elliot’s, so I had to press the buzzer. Two seconds later, Mike answered with a very groggy, “Hello?”
“Mike,” I said, feeling my stomach churn, “it’s me.” The door buzzed open, but before I placed my hand on the knob, Mike was there. “I’m going to throw up.” I told him, and he carried me into the apartment as fast as he could.
Thankfully, he and I made it to the bathroom before the fun started. I knelt in front of the toilet and vomited so violently that Mike had to hold my hair back.
I took a deep breath, leaning my head against Mike’s chest. He knelt behind me, and I was so grateful for that. “Bébé,” he whispered, “are you all right?”
I shook my head, hot tears rolling down my cheeks from the sheer force of being sick. “No. Kathryn came to me in a dream again, but this time…” I paused, taking a shaky breath. “This time she showed me a vision that she had. Mike,” I said, holding onto him for dear life, “I die.”
“What?” he was almost panicked. “No, that can’t be. All of her visions are subjective.”
It would have been nice if he had mentioned to me that he knew Kathryn had visions, but I was too nauseous to care. “Not this time, Wolf. This time she had two, and both of them end with me dying.”
He shook his head, and I looked up to see tears in his eyes. “No. I won’t let you.”
“It’s not up to you,” I managed to say as I felt bile come up and settle in the back of my throat. I threw up again, and then I started to dry heave.
“That’s it,” Mi
ke said, as he wiped his eyes with his shirt. “I’m takin’ you to the hospital.” Even though I hate hospitals, I didn’t argue; I just let him carry me out of the apartment. And then I passed out.
I don’t remember how we got the hospital, but I do remember the needles going in my arms, and the bright lights above me before I passed out again. When I finally woke up entirely, I noticed that I had tubes sticking out my hand, and as I looked up, I could see the saline dripping slowly. Somehow, they had taken my clothes off and managed to get me into a hospital gown, which was the only thing I had on besides my panties.
Mike stood up from the plastic chair he was scrunched in, walked over to the bed, and held my hand. “Pat?” he whispered. “How do you feel, bébé?”
I tried to say something, but it seemed as if my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. Without a word, Mike picked up the cup full of ice chips from the tray by the bed. He put a couple in his hand and fed them to me.
When my tongue finally came unglued I tried to speak, but I had to clear my throat twice before any sound came out. “Where…” I cleared my throat again. “Where’s the doctor?”
Mike frowned, and I could see the worry in his eyes. Suddenly he looked years older, and the change in him scared me. “Why?” he asked, wiping the hair out of my face. “Are ya feelin’ sick again?”
I shook my head, and he visibly relaxed. “I just wanted to know.”
He smiled a little. “One of the nurses should be back any minute now. Are you sure you’re feelin’ okay?”
I nodded, and he kissed me on the forehead. Then it was time for the waiting game. After about ten minutes or so, Mike started to pace the room, mumbling to himself, “I can’t believe…not her…why?”
“Mike,” I groaned, and he rushed over to me. “Care to share with the class?”
“What?”
“You’re talking to yourself, my wolf.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, bébé. I was just thinkin’.”
“About what?” I asked as I reached for the ice chips, but Mike grabbed them, feeding me again. “I can do it myself,” I rasped.
He shook his head. “Don’t fight me, Patricia. Just take the help.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but I let him do what he wanted. Just then the door opened, and in walked a woman in blue scrubs. “Maryanne,” Mike said, standing up straight. “What’s the verdict?”
“Maryanne?” I looked up into her smiling face, and I couldn’t believe that she worked here. “Are you a doctor?”
She nodded. “Yes, I am. For over twelve years now.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “Connections everywhere.”
“Maryanne,” Mike said quietly, giving her a look that I didn’t quite understand, and she nodded. “Shit,” he hissed.
“What? Am I dying already?” I asked with a laugh, and Mike frowned at me. “Oh, lighten up, Wolf.”
Maryanne laughed with me. “No,” she answered. “You’re just pregnant.”
I nodded. “I figured.”
Both Mike and Maryanne’s eyes widened.
“How?” Mike asked, sitting on the bed next to me.
I shrugged. “Earlier I was thinking about how my life has gotten so complicated in the last two months. Then as you were pacing, I started counting days since my last period, and it’s been about that long since I had it.”
“An ultrasound would confirm it,” Maryanne said with a smile.
Two thumbs up. “Let’s do that.”
She left the room for a minute, and Mike got up, pulling the plastic chair right up against the bed. He held my hand when Maryanne walked in with the ultrasound machine. Then she had one of the nurses help her set it up, and we were good to go.
The most precious sound in the world is the sound of your baby’s heartbeat. As soon as she turned on the speakers, I fell in love. That’s when I looked over at Mike, and he started to cry. “Is it supposed to be that fast?” he asked Maryanne, and she nodded.
“It’s perfectly normal,” she answered him. “And you were right, Pat. You’re about eight weeks.”
I laughed. “I know when he was conceived. That night.”
“When we first…?” Mike asked, and I nodded. “Ain’t that a bitch,” he said with a laugh.
I would never forget the day when we had made love for the first time. It was the day that I knew that he was the wolf for me.
Mike leaned in, kissing me gently on the lips, and when he pulled away, I frowned. “What’s wrong, bébé?”
“How the hell am I going to tell Stag?”
“I already knew, girly,” Stag said from the doorway. Mike stood up and growled, still holding my hand. “Maryanne, leave us.”
She stood, shaking her head. “No.”
Stag glared at her. “That’s an order,” he hissed.
She narrowed her eyes at him as she walked toward the door. “If you lay one finger on her—”
“You’ll what?” he interrupted her with that cocky smile on his face. “Kill me? I’d like to see you try.”
Maryanne was staring daggers at him as she left, and I knew that if he hurt me, she would most likely take him up on his offer of killing him.
He shut the door behind him, and then turned his attention back to Mike and me. He tried to walk over to where I was, but Mike growled again and he stopped in his tracks. “You might wanna call off your dog, girly, before he gets himself killed.”
“I would rather not,” I replied, feeling something inside me start to burn.
He shrugged, his cocky smile never wavering. “It’s his funeral.”
“Enough with the small talk,” Mike hissed. “How the hell did you know about the baby?”
“I could smell it on ‘er. That’s the good thing about these new powers: I can smell hormonal changes.”
“So you admit that you’re this vamp-wolf thing,” Mike said in a low growl.
Stag laughed. “Yeah, Wolfman, I’m admittin’ it. I’m also admittin’ that I did it because I knew you were coming back. I had to secure my power somehow, especially since the pack always liked you better than me. So I found myself a vampire who shared my particular interests, and he turned me without any questions.”
“How did you know we were on our way here?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Let’s just say I have friends in high places. Friends that told me about you, girly. About how you made a vampire and a werewolf fall in love with ya, and how you slipped through the cracks when it came to the vampire turnin’ you into one of them. Let me tell ya, you pissed off a lot of people, Pat. So that got me wonderin’ what kinda creature you were. Then when Joey Stiles called askin’ me for a favor, I was very happy to do it. I wanted to meet you, and as soon as you walked into my office, I knew.”
“Knew what?” Mike asked, moving between Stag and me as the monster moved forward.
“That she was gonna be my mate,” Stag said matter-of-factly. “First, I had to follow the plan that we had worked out, but before long, you figured out what I was all on your own. You know, you’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”
“I get that a lot.” It was true; people were always underestimating my intelligence.
“You said we,” Mike pointed out. “Who else was involved in this idiotic plan?”
Stag wagged a finger at him, inching his way forward. “If I told you that, Wolfman, it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?”
The burning inside me began to move up into my chest, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Then it subsided, and I turned my attention back to Stag, who just stood there, smiling at me.
“Ya know,” he laughed, “when you came home with me, girly, I really thought that you and I were together. But when I heard you in the stairwell with Mike,” he shook his head, “I was really mad. I lost my temper, and I’m sorry about that, but I promis
e you that if you come with me now, we can raise that baby together, and you and I can rule this pathetic excuse of a world. We can create our own army of half-breeds and kill anythin’ or anyone that gets in our way.”
I shook my head. “You are a sick, twisted bastard, you know that?”
He laughed at that, long and hard. “I wouldn’t go that far, Pat. I might be a little insane, but not sick and twisted. Never sick and twisted.”
“Leave,” Mike roared. “Now!”
“This doesn’t concern you, Mike! This is between Pat and me. Besides, she’s the one who told Angel to spread the word about wantin’ to be turned into one of us.”
“Us?” Mike snapped. “There is no us anymore. You are not a wolf.”
“I’m more wolf than you’ll ever be,” Stag hissed in Mike’s face. “Did you tell her, Wolfman? Did you tell her why you really left?” Mike just glared at him. “That’s what I thought. You see, girly, your little werewolf went away because he couldn’t handle being chosen as Alpha. He left his pack to become a vampire’s bitch.”
“That’s enough,” I said, louder than I had anticipated.
“Oh, it ain’t enough for me, Patty,” he said, calling me that on purpose, and I just glared at him. “What? No witty come back or snide remark on how it’s Pat and not Patty?”
Mike finally let go of my hand so he could point to the door. “Get out!”
“Not without her,” Stag growled.
“You can have her over my dead body!”
“That can be arranged! That woman,” Stag pointed at me, “is mine!”
I’m not entirely sure what happened, but the next thing I knew I was out of bed, slamming Stag against the wall. My hand was at his throat, and I could feel my nails dig into his flesh. “I am no one’s,” I screamed, leaning up into his face as I tightened my grip. “I decide who I want to be with, not you! Do you understand me?” His eyes were turning orange, but I could tell it wasn’t out of anger. It was out of fear. “So get out,” I hissed. “Now!” I threw him aside, and he went flying.
When he hit the floor, it sounded like I had broken some bones, and then I realized that I could actually hear the bones break in his body. The sickening cracking sounds made me want to vomit all over again, but I stood my ground.