by Laura Del
He got up slowly and half-smiled, half-sneered at me. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.” He laughed, and I growled at him. I actually growled. What is wrong with me? “I’ll go, girly. For now. But you and I will be together sooner or later, even if it’s in hell.” With that, he limped away with his tail between his legs.
Mike placed his hand on my shoulder, and I turned around in order to snarl at him. “Bébé,” he said quietly, “he’s gone. You can relax now.”
I felt my legs go weak, and then my knees give way. Thankfully, Mike caught me before I hit the ground, and I noticed that my left hand was bleeding. “What happened?” I asked as he placed me back on the bed. I felt nauseous and the room started to spin.
“It’s okay,” Mike whispered, pressing the call button next to the bed. A nurse came running in and Mike turned to talk to her. “My friend,” he pointed out the door, “tripped and pulled out her IV by accident.”
“Oh,” she twanged. “I’ll fix that right up for ya.” She walked over to me, found another vein in my arm, and attached me to more tubes. After she bandaged my bloodied hand, she smiled, told me to relax, and then walked out of the room, leaving Mike and me alone.
“What happened?” I asked Mike again, but he just shook his head. “Mike?”
“Sleep, bébé,” he whispered, kissing my cheek. And it was almost as if he willed my eyes to close, because the next thing I knew, I was in the blissful darkness of a dreamless sleep.
chapter
FOURTEEN
As I was lying on our comfy purple couch, Mike knelt beside me. He still hadn’t explained why I had gone ape-shit on Stag. In fact, he was so quiet in the taxi on the way home that I thought he might never speak to me again. So I just let him be. That is, until he put his head on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” I asked, and he nodded. “You sure?”
He shook his head, taking a deep breath. But before he could speak, the buzzer rang.
Mike got up and headed out of our apartment. It took him all of two minutes to come back in with my overnight bag and the presents I had left at Elliot’s.
“Who brought them?”
“Angel,” he said, as he closed the door, putting the bag on the floor by my computer desk and placing the pile of presents down on my chair. Then he walked back over to me, kneeling again. “How’re you feelin’?”
I shrugged. “Besides the fact that I had to take those horse pills, I’m feeling much better.”
“Good,” he sighed, “I’m glad.”
We were silent for a minute, until I asked, “Are you going to tell me what happened or am I going to have to guess?”
“It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Where do I begin?”
“Let’s start with what happened in the hospital with Elliot.”
He cleared his throat. “Well…ya see…how do I explain this?” he asked himself. “The baby took over.”
“How?” I asked, really confused.
“You know that whatever you do, he feels, right?”
I nodded. “I got that part.”
“Well, whatever he does, you feel.”
“Are you trying to tell me that little squiggly line on the monitor is controlling me?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, kinda.”
“So why didn’t it happen before?”
“It did,” he said, and I cocked an eyebrow. He must have sensed the silent question, because he pointed to his face. “You broke my nose.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering the woods. “Is that hard to do?”
“Yup. It’s a very hard thing to do to a werewolf.”
“Well, this is just fucking brilliant,” I hissed.
“Don’t be angry, bébé. It’s not like he can help it.”
“You’re right,” I breathed. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Well…” he paused, looking down at the floor. “There is one more tiny, insignificant thing.”
“And that would be?”
“Um…well…do you remember when we first moved here?” he asked, and I nodded. “And remember when I said that I didn’t want to rejoin the pack?” I nodded again. “Well, the reason behind that was because of us,” he pointed between himself and me.
“You said that you were afraid that they would hurt me.”
“That wasn’t entirely true,” he admitted.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So what is the truth?”
“The truth is…” he paused, taking a deep breath, “we entered into this territory without permission. But that wasn’t our worst offense.”
I could feel my brows knit together with confusion. “Offense?”
He nodded. “The worst thing that we did was be together. It’s against pack rules to date a flesh…” his voice trailed away, and he looked up into my eyes. “Human.”
I felt my throat go dry. “Why?”
Mike placed his hand on my lower stomach. “This. We’re not allowed to breed with non-werewolves.” A headache started to form right between my eyes, so I closed them.
“Bébé,” he whispered, “you okay?”
I nodded, opening my eyes so I could look into his. “I’m fine,” I reassured him. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”
He looked endlessly sad. “I didn’t think I had to. I thought we could fly under the radar.” He laughed a little. “Boy, was I wrong. That first time when Stag took you to Big Bears, I knew we were in serious trouble. He took you over there to be judged, and to stake a claim on you.”
My mouth dropped open. I didn’t know whether to be horrified or angry. “Judged? Stake a claim?” I repeated. “What the fuck does that mean?” I chose angry.
“Stag took ya there so that the pack could meet you, and then judge on whether or not they would kill you. And the reason he took you there himself was because if they voted for ya, he would make you his mate.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t be with a…” my voice trailed off as I realized what he was saying. “Oh, I see. So telling Angel that I wanted to change was unnecessary because Stag was going to do it anyway.”
He shook his head. “No. He’d only be allowed to turn you if ya wanted it.”
“And if I didn’t?”
“You wouldn’t have to.”
“Would he still have wanted me as his mate?”
Mike nodded. “The Alpha can call for a vote in order to make a person an honorary member of the pack. It’s rare, but it does happen.”
“But they’re still not allowed to have children?” I asked trying to get all my facts straight.
“When the Alpha gets his mate pregnant, that rule is null and void. But when a low-ranking wolf does it,” he shook his head, “both the human and the wolf are supposed to be executed.”
I sighed. “This is really confusing, Mike. We weren’t allowed to ‘mate,’ but if Stag was the father of this baby, it would be fine?” It was my turn to shake my head. “So does that mean that you could have mated with another werewolf?”
“Yes and no,” he answered. “Female werewolves have a hard time carryin’ a baby to full term because the change is so violent, and even when they give birth, the baby is usually stillborn.”
“Oh God,” I breathed, placing my hand over my mouth. “That’s awful. That means that the only way you can reproduce—”
“Is through humans,” he finished my sentence. “And even that’s a tossup. It’s very hard to carry a baby that makes ya want to kill every time you or your mate is threatened. I’ve heard that some human mothers have gone insane.”
“It’s a good thing I’m going to die. Otherwise, this would have been a pain in the ass.” It was a very dark and cynical thing to say, but I couldn’t help it. This was all too much for one
measly mortal to tolerate.
Mike frowned deeply. “Don’t say that, bébé. You don’t mean it.”
He was right; I didn’t. “I’m sorry, my wolf. It’s just…” I paused, trying not to scream. “Why can’t I have a normal life like everyone else? Why can’t my biggest problem be what to wear in the morning or what color to paint the nursery?”
He petted my hair. “Because you’re Patricia Anne Wyatt. You don’t do normal.”
“You mean that I don’t do normal well,” I corrected. “I’ve always had to be different, ever since I was a little kid. My mother used to say that I was a collage.”
Mike laughed. “Why?”
“Everything about me was different. Like the pieces of paper that make up a collage. Separate they’re trash, but together they’re art.” She used to say “together they’re beautiful” but I would always roll my eyes. Besides, I didn’t want to make myself anymore upset by having my mother’s voice in my head.
He kissed my cheek. “That’s really nice.”
We both stayed there in silence for a while, and my eyes started to close.
“Pat?”
“Uh-huh?”
Mike placed his head on my shoulder again. “What would you think about me challengin’ Elliot?”
“Why?”
He sighed. “So that I could be Alpha.”
“Is this something you feel strongly about?” I asked, and he nodded. I thought about it for a minute. After all, it wasn’t a bad thing that he wanted to protect me from all of this drama. Then again, he was only challenging Elliot because he didn’t want me to die. “Okay,” I finally agreed. “If it will make you feel better about the situation, I will be behind your decision one-hundred percent.”
He let out a long breath. “Thanks, Pat. I needed to know that.”
I laughed. “You are such a—”
“Girl?” he interrupted me. “I know. I also know that you’re not gonna die on me, not if I have anythin’ to say about it.”
“It’s not up to you.” I told him quietly. “Kathryn had not one, but two visions, Mike. She said that there is no changing this fate.” I closed my eyes to the tears that began to form, but suddenly, I wasn’t sad anymore. I was angry. No, I was furious!
I started to shake with rage, and Mike pulled his head away from my shoulder. “Pat, are you—?” He never got to finish that question, because just then I leapt off the couch, tackling him to the ground. I clawed at his t-shirt, tearing it to shreds. Then I ripped his jeans open, making them unwearable. Once he was down to his bare flesh, I began to tear at my own clothes. My body felt foreign to me, almost as if I was having an out-of-body experience, as if I was just observing what I was doing instead of actually doing it.
When I had us both naked, I found myself aching for him. I leaned over, biting the flesh of his shoulder, and he took a sharp intake of breath. Then I pulled back to see his face, and noticed that his eyes were bright yellow. We both growled, kissing and biting at one another. Then I thrust myself down on him, and his head propelled backward. He screamed wordlessly as I dug my nails into his chest.
We had carnal sex on the floor between the coffee table and the couch three times before Mike screamed, “Enough!” But I couldn’t stop. I needed to have that last time, so I pinned his wrists to my waist, making him stay with me. I hadn’t made a sound the first three times, but this time a growl ripped from my throat as I climaxed, and then I collapsed.
I rolled off him, closing my eyes to the pain that began to form in my lower stomach.
“Pat,” Mike said, and I looked into his now normal face. “Oh, thank God,” he breathed. “Are you all right?”
“Pain,” I managed to say through my clenched jaw, as every part of my body pulsed with fire from within. “So…much…pain.”
“It’s gonna be okay, bébé,” he soothed as he lifted me off the floor, taking me into the bedroom.
He placed me down on the bed, and I started shivering, my teeth chattering. “Cold,” I managed to say as the burning was replaced with an icy chill that went right down to my bones.
He took the quilt, and tucked it around me. “Better?”
I nodded. “What’s happening to me?”
“You’re comin’ down from a high,” he explained, lying next to me. “You’ll be all right in about ten minutes or so.”
“Is this,” I swallowed, “how you feel?”
“Yeah,” he said, with a gentle smile as he pushed the hair out of my face. “But it gets better.”
Pain shot through me like a jolt, and I screamed as my body went rigid. It felt like someone was running a knife up and down my spine. “Shh,” Mike comforted. “It’ll be over soon. Just relax.” Easy for him to say. Shattered glass in my arm would have been less painful. Then suddenly, it stopped. There was no pain and no feeling, just a numbness all over.
“Feeling better?” Mike asked, and I managed to nod.
“Much better,” I answered. “But why am I numb?”
He sighed. “Don’t worry. The feelin’ will come back soon. It’s what happens when your body goes into overdrive. First your muscles contract, and then they relax to the point where ya can’t even feel ‘em. It’s kinda like when your foot falls asleep, but it’s your entire body.”
He was right. The numbness was slowly replaced by a tingling sensation that started in my feet and made its way up my legs until it was all over. When I could finally feel again, my arms and legs felt too heavy to lift or even move.
“How can you stand this?”
He shrugged. “It gets better when you get used to it, but since you’re not really a werewolf, I don’t think you’ll have to get used to it anytime soon.”
I smiled a little. “That’s good to know. So…” I paused, trying to figure out a way to ask him, “is lycanthropy a virus?”
“Why do ya ask?”
“Just curious.” The truth was I had wanted to ask him about it for a while, and now felt like as good a time as any to bring up the subject.
He rubbed the back of his neck, and I could tell he was thinking. “I guess you could say that, but I never actually thought of it that way. It’s more of a genetic mutation, kinda like we have one more set of chromosomes than your average human does. I guess in the beginnin’ it’s like a virus, but there’s no cure for it. Trust me, I’ve tried to find one.” That I believed. Mike wasn’t exactly thrilled to be what he was, and since I learned that he was actually supposed to be the Alpha, I could understand why.
“What about wolfsbane?” I asked, turning over onto my side so I could face him. It took all my strength just to make that one small movement, and I knew then that I wouldn’t wish this kind of fate on a dog.
“Myth. Wolfsbane is actually an agent that brings on the change. It’s really dangerous if you ingest too much. It causes you to change so rapidly that it can kill ya in the process.”
“So, it’s just silver that can really hurt you?” I asked, looking down at his hand with the cross-shaped burn that had never truly healed.
“Yup,” he answered, showing me his palm. “That’s why it’s all red like that. Silver, when touched, won’t kill us. But in bullet or a knife,” he paused, shaking his head, “there’s no way we can survive that.”
I traced the scar with my index finger. “Why is that?”
“Because if the silver goes directly into our internal organs or nicks an artery, it’s like a fast actin’ poison. It causes an extreme amount of pain, and eventually death.”
“That’s terrible.” I frowned, as I turned over onto my back again. Suddenly, I was exhausted, and keeping my eyes open was becoming a challenge.
“Maybe you should sleep,” Mike suggested.
I yawned. “I’m sorry for what I did out there.”
He laughed, pulling back the covers so he could lay his head
on my stomach near my womb. “Sorry? Bébé, there is nothin’ that you have to be sorry about. I mean, it sure as hell wasn’t your fault. It was this little mister in here.” He poked me, and it was my turn to laugh.
Mike sighed. “I still can’t believe we’re gonna have a baby.”
My eyes started to well up with tears, but I fought them with all my might. I was not going to cry. Not yet. “Mike, please don’t talk that way. Just be with me here and now. Don’t think about the future.”
“What should we name ‘em?” he asked, completely ignoring what I had said.
I smiled, running my fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“How ‘bout Benjamin?” he suggested, and I felt a tear land on my flesh.
I shook my head. “No, that’s not quite right.”
“Alex?” his voice came out choked.
I laughed a little. “Too common.”
“I know,” Mike rasped, as his tears soaked me, “Daniel. Daniel Wolf has a nice ring to it.”
“Daniel Ray Wolf,” I whispered. “I like that.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For using my middle name,” he breathed. “It was my father’s and his father’s before him. I like the fact that my boy will have that same name.”
“What if it’s a girl?” I managed to ask without crying.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“How about Samantha?”
He gave a sad little laugh. “Hell no.”
“Mike?”
“Yeah, bébé.”
“I’m so scared,” I whispered, and he tightened his grip on me.
“Me too, Pat,” he sniffed. “Me too.”
“Will you remember something for me?”
He nodded. “Anything.”
“Remember that I will always love you, even in death.”
“Don’t talk that way,” he almost sobbed, moving upward so that we were face to face.