“Katey! Katey, can you hear me? Stay with me!” Logan wailed.
She cracked open her eyes, sacrificing all the strength she had to keep them open. Her dull eyes glanced around and saw Logan, Dustin, Ben, and Michael all had rushed to her aid. The others stood behind them, watching for any sign that she would be all right.
She could feel a warm, heavy liquid seeping onto her shirt and pants. The suspected cold she thought she would feel, gushed over her. Katey could feel the blood draining from her face and her body was given to tremors.
Logan shook her, urging her to keep her eyes open, even though they felt to weigh a thousand pounds.
“We need to get the bullet out!” She could hear Dustin’s voice as he looked up and around for anyone’s help. Michael gave an order to a vampire that was standing around to go into their infirmary to get necessary tools for extracting the bullet.
Katey blinked hard as she tried to hang onto that spark of life she still had left. She could barely breathe, but she knew she had to say something before she left. Katey turned her face up to Logan, whose cheeks were stained with tears as he kept trying to coax her to stay awake.
Katey reached up her hand and touched the warm cheeks with her fingertips. She gathered her last breath together and uttered those words she had been scared to say to anyone in her life. But now, there was no fear. She was ready for this, even if he wasn’t.
“I love you, Logan,” Katey whispered.
He took her hand and pressed it against his cheek, his hands trembling. “I love you, too. Please stay with me,” he begged, his sobs choking in his throat.
Katey gave him a weak smile and let her eyes close one last time.
Just as darkness took her and she could feel her consciousness slip away, Katey heard a chorus of mournful howls that echoed through her mind. She would never forget their sad and grief-stricken tune. She realized then that she would be missed.
31
It’s been said that people see their whole life flash before their eyes just before they die. For Katey, that’s wasn’t true. She saw the highlights that forever branded the memories in her mind. They were the moments of her life that meant the most.
She saw the time when a strange lady had given her a piece of candy for being a well-behaved child when she was only three, and when she was placed with her first foster family. Katey wouldn’t have given these events a second thought a week ago, but the excitement and happiness that she felt when they first occurred was rekindled and filled her soul with warmth as her body went cold with death. Some things were even beyond her remembrance, like the blurry images of Michael handing her over to the maidservant when she was just a week old.
Katey relived the moment when she first met Logan. Love and joy burst within her silent heart as she saw everything that had happened over the last few weeks. She thought of everything, from their first date in the cemetery, seeing him for the first time in the school hallway, and learning who the teachers really were.
She remembered the pain of Logan changing her and saving her from her mother’s totaled car just before it exploded. She recalled the thrilling times when they danced at the studio and when she played paintball with him and the guys. She recalled saving him from Erik at the fight, lying with him in his bed that night, playing on the ice back at the lake, their first kiss, his proposing; every scene that ever meant anything to her concerning Logan, replayed in her mind in exact detail, as if she were there all over again. He was that much more handsome, the feelings that much stronger, and the pain of separation that much greater.
In the last scene, Katey saw Logan smiling down to her with incalculable tenderness. She wished she could have looked on that face for the rest of eternity, but it soon faded into white and disappeared.
All she could see was a bleached void and there was no feeling in her body. She looked down and saw she was wearing the same outfit that she had just died in, but there was no blood or hole in her chest where the bullet had entered.
She looked around in the pure white, but saw nothing and no one. Katey wondered where she was, if this was some form of heaven.
Then, something caught her eye as she spun in place, searching for an answer. Two people were standing off at a far distance, mere figures against the blaring white backdrop. She could distinguish they were that of a man and a woman, their heavenly garments blending in with the void.
She began walking on whatever it was that supported her and hurried toward the two. There was no floor, and no clouds either, just whiteness in all directions and no shadows.
The longer she stared at them, the more she came to realize exactly who they were. Katey had seen the woman so many times in her dreams, and she smiled at her so lovingly, like a mother should. The man with the tanned complexion and squared jaw, she suspected to be her father. His long, dark brown hair was tied at the nape of his neck and piercing green eyes locked with hers in a moment of surreal bliss. They were both beautiful and achingly familiar.
When she saw that they weren’t getting farther away like the woman always seemed to do when she chased after her in her dreams, Katey bolted into a run toward them. Both met her with open arms and they embraced for the first time since they were parted by fate eighteen years ago.
Katey didn’t cry, but beamed, feeling a wholeness she had never experienced before. It was like her soul was complete once more; finally acquiring that one thing that she had always felt was missing in her life. Not even Logan could have filled this hole in her heart that belonged to her parents.
“We are so proud of you, Katey,” her mother said softly into Katey’s hair. Her voice was musical and gentle, angelic in every way.
“We knew you would do great things,” her father added. His wise voice was deep and rumbled against her ear.
Katey pulled back from their hugs to look at them together. “I missed you both so much... I wish things could have been different.”
The man smiled down on her. “If they were, then you wouldn’t have grown up into the amazing young woman that you are,” her father said, placing a tender hand upon her cheek. “Things happen for a reason and you grew up fine despite everything, not because of it.”
“And we still were able to watch you grow from a distance.” Her mother cradled Katey’s other cheek in her warm hand and petted it soothingly with her thumb.
Katey gave her mother’s hand a squeeze and grinned. “I’m just glad we can be together now.”
Both of them donned a look of dismay, as if they knew something that they didn’t want to confess so soon. Her father’s eyes lowered and her mother looked to him for strength.
Panic gripped her chest.
“What? Can’t we be together now?” she asked, the alarm plain in her voice.
Her father hugged her tightly, his strong loup-garou arms enveloping her. “It’s not your time yet,” he whispered.
“But I just died! I got shot! How can it still not be my time? I want to stay with you!” Katey gripped his shirt and refused to let go, loving the fatherly embrace that she had gone without her whole life. She didn’t want the loneliness to return, not now that she knew what she had been lacking all along.
“There are so many more things waiting for you,” her mother began. “You have more people who are going to turn to you for guidance. You have a new responsibility now to werewolves and vampires all over the world.”
Katey balked at the injustice of it. She had done her part and ended the feud. She even appointed the ones who would carry the torch in her place. What more could she possibly do? What more was there to fulfill? Her life was over and now that she knew exactly who she was, Katey was satisfied to stay in the white void for eternity.
But even in death, the wolf within her was very much alive. With a guiding nudge, she told Katey that her parents were right. It was not her time and there were many more years to live before she could be released from her new responsibilities. She resigned to the unfairness and nodded.
&n
bsp; “How much time do I have left?” Katey asked, pulling back from her father with tears at the creases of her eyes.
“Not much. They’re calling you back right now.”
Logan’s voice could be faintly heard in the distance, calling out for Katey to return to the living. Her name echoed in the void like faraway church bells.
“But always know,” her father said, “that we love you very much and are proud of you beyond what words can express. We wish you could be here with us, too, but we know you’re needed. This just gives you more chances to honor us and make us even more proud of you than we already are.”
They hugged one last time, knowing it would be a long, indeterminate amount of time before they would see each other again. She held tightly to her vampire mother and her loup-garou father, knowing she was their child.
“Never forget,” her mother told her, “that love is what binds us together for eternity.”
Her words echoed in Katey’s ears as the whiteness faded to black.
And in place of her voice, Katey could hear Logan’s calling out her name in the darkness, drawing her back to consciousness. His voice gradually became louder and louder until it sounded like he was screaming in her ear.
Pain rushed back into her and it was almost too much to bear. She could still feel Logan’s arms wrapped tightly around her and many voices were mingled in with his. She could hear Dustin shouting for the vampire who had run off to get medical tools, Ben trying to tell Logan that she was gone and Logan denying him over and over.
Katey could even hear the whispers of other vampires and loups-garous as they discussed the vision they had seen in the ceiling produced by the white wolf.
Her senses seemed to explode and she became acutely aware of every detail down to the breath of everyone in the room and the trace of the metal from Yaverik’s gun. Her ears ached with how loud they perceived the heartbeats of those around her.
Then, she felt something peculiar, a watery coolness dropped into her chest where the bullet had imbedded itself. It filtered past the warm blood and dispersed through her veins, filling her with an airy lightness that shattered the pain and chill of death. Katey began to feel warm again and strength returned to her muscles.
Then Katey could steadily feel her lungs expand with air, her heartbeat thundered to life. Her eyes shot open wide and her mouth gaped to gasp for oxygen. Logan was hunched over her, his golden eyes reddened from crying. Dustin and Ben looked down to her in amazement, both changed back into their human forms.
“She’s breathing!” Ben cried out. Almost everyone in the foyer ran to where Katey was lying. Her fingers groped in the vacant space and reached for Logan.
He gripped her hand tightly and pressed it against his wet lips. She could feel the remnants of cold tears. Michael appeared in her field of vision and she watched him breathe a prayer of thanks to a deity she didn’t recognize.
Every breath Katey inhaled was rasping, her body starved for air with such intensity that she began to hyperventilate. The pain was ebbing away, but she felt exhausted and fatigued beyond imagination. Every muscle in her body felt strained, as if stretched beyond their limits and then snapped back into place, and she could hardly move. There was a new level of perception with her wolf spirit, like the bond was even stronger now, if that were possible. She could have sworn that she felt it breathing with her, giving her life as she gave to it.
The vampire arrived back with the medical kit, but when he came in with his long tweezers to extract the bullet, he found that the wound had completely closed in on itself and healed perfectly, leaving no scar.
“Where’s the bullet? There’s no hole here,” he exclaimed.
Katey thought she had felt something cold slide down the skin on her side. She reached under her shirt and touched something that stung her fingertips. She recoiled her hand and hissed at the unexpected burn.
Before she had a chance to touch it again, the vamp reached through and pulled out the silver bullet that had been caught in her chest, coated with her blood.
Katey stared at it and realized that the silver had burned her skin. Somehow, the change was complete and she was full loup-garou. If her chest didn’t feel as if a heavy weight were pressing down on her, she would have laughed in hysterics.
“It was silver, it should have killed her,” the vampire marveled, examining the bullet to make sure it really was silver.
Logan pulled Katey up tighter to him, cradling her against him. A new and unfamiliar sense came that alarmed her. She knew that Logan was overjoyed because she could feel it in her own body. The racing heart, the pulsing adrenaline through his veins, she experienced all of it, but she knew that it wasn’t her own elation. It was solely his.
“Give her some room, Logan!” Ben admonished.
Dustin seconded him and laid her flat onto the cold marble floor. Katey closed her eyes, her mouth still hung open so as to allow the air to flow freely through.
“We’ve got to get her to the lodge’s infirmary,” Dustin said. “How far are we from where you found us?” he addressed Michael.
“Just over the mountains,” the old vampire replied. “It’s awhile to walk.”
“I’ll carry her on my back myself and trek across the mountains if that’s what it takes!” Logan exclaimed.
“It’d be easier to have her ride on one of us,” Ben added. “We can last longer than you can. Darren and the others must be halfway there already.”
“Perhaps we could fly her across?” Michael smartly suggested. “We have a helicopter.”
“I think your people have done enough for one day,” spat Erik, who had changed back to his human form and was standing with the other onlookers.
“Erik, watch yourself,” scolded Gregory.
“I’d like you to take what help I can give, please?” the old man pleaded. He turned his gaze down to Katey with caring eyes. “She’s my granddaughter after all.”
Everyone’s eyes went wide in shock and disbelief. “What?” Dustin shouted.
Michael chuckled. “I can explain it all on the way there. The helicopter is out on its landing dock. It has special tinted glass that can enable me to accompany you,” he said.
“I know how to pilot,” Forrest chimed in.
Logan swiftly lifted Katey up into his arms and started to carry her toward the stairs. The rest quickly followed after them, knowing that there was no time to lose.
“You’re going to be okay, Katey,” Logan whispered sweetly, kissing her forehead. Katey leaned her head against his shoulder and let herself drift into a deep and restful sleep.
When Katey awoke, she found herself covered in itchy blankets and lying on a cot in the middle of a humble clinic. Her spine tingled with the presence of loups-garous. As her senses returned, she could hear their conversations above and below her, but the clinic was silent.
Cots lined the walls with carts of medicines and other medical supplies stationed between them. The beds were empty and neatly made, but she could smell the distinct traces of the loups-garous that had occupied them.
The expansive window on the far wall was darkened, telling her that night had come. A few of the overhead lights illuminated the other side of the clinic, but her part of the room was dark, probably so she could sleep more soundly.
The fatigue she had felt before passing out was gone, and in its place was the common soreness from lying in bed for too long. She took a deep breath, thankful for the air in her lungs. After such an intimate experience with death, she realized what a gift life could be.
She turned her head and her eyes fell on Logan, who was sitting next to her cot, holding her hand firmly in his. His body was bent over the edge of the bed so he could rest his head on his folded arms. There was a peace and fullness to his face that gave him a healthier glow. He must have eaten well and was now dressed in his usual jeans and black shirt that stretched across his muscled back.
The corners of her mouth tilted up and she stroked the back of
his hand, watching him sleep. Their mating bond was strong, probably stronger than it had been before she died. But she recalled how he had consumed her final dying moments. In that white void, he was what she remembered with the most fondness.
Logan was her reason for living, her whole world, and happiness. That was why she took the bullet for him. Her love for him went beyond the ambiguous line between life and death. If given the chance, she would sacrifice herself for him all over again. He was worth it.
A familiar scent drifted through the clinic. She turned toward the window and saw a shadowed figure take a step forward into the light.
“You look to be doing very well,” Michael said softly, almost in a whisper as he approached her cot. If any loup-garou knew he was here, they might not have been so tolerant to his presence, despite everything that he had done for Katey and her pack.
“Thanks to your help, yes.” Her voice was weak and crackled.
“My help?” He stood beside her cot, his fingers restless on the blanket.
“You offered the helicopter.”
Michael smiled. “It was the least I could do after what Yaverik did.”
Katey reached out and took his hand. His grip was warm, just as her mother’s, but not like Martel’s or Yaverik’s. “And for telling me about the prophecy. At least I had a fair warning.”
They both chuckled a bit, but both knew that it was true. Katey was the one from the prophecy; there was no doubt about it now and everyone who had witnessed now had the duty to spread to word across the world. There was to be armistice now and a new council was to be created to orchestrate that peacetime.
“So, I guess that means we’re related,” she said as one shoulder lifted into a half-shrug.
“I guess it does... I’m glad to have finally met you. You did your mother proud.”
Becoming the Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 2) Page 45