He snarled at me.
“What kind of wretched child kills his own parents? And tries to kill his brother over and over? What sort of scared, pathetic man tries to kill a defenseless, pregnant woman?”
Rain was pounding down my face, and lightning cracked overhead, the bright light illuminating everything: my husband’s life leaving him, the ferocious, bloody wolf in front of me, my dress and coat stained in mud and blood.
“You ruined my life!” I yelled at him. “You took everything from me! Maybe my marriage was a lie. You know what? I don’t care, because he took care of me. He’s a good man! And you came in here with your pathetic agenda, your selfish plans, and destroyed everything. You poisoned me and you made me sick. You attacked me and you stabbed me. You made me feel unsafe in my own home! But that’s not even the worst of it…”
I stepped forward. A stupid move, surely, but I didn’t care. I was already resigned to my fate. I would die here, in these woods, pregnant and wet and bloody. At least I would be with my husband. Maybe he hadn’t loved me the way I wanted to be loved, but I loved him. I was going to die fighting, for revenge and for love, and I was at peace with that.
I shrugged off my coat. It was heavy and wet and cumbersome. I spread it over Jasper’s body. I turned again to face Seth, brandishing the knife. My whole body was in pain. Based on the blood, the wound on my stomach had been torn open. My head ached, and I suspected I may have turned my ankle at some point in the night. I was in no condition to fight.
It didn’t matter.
None of that mattered.
Vengeance mattered. Love mattered.
“Let’s do this,” I told him.
He sprang at me, teeth flashing in the lightning. I sidestepped him easily; he had given me plenty of warning, jumping from so far away. I moved across the circle, drawing him as far from Jasper as possible. I wouldn’t last long, but I wasn’t going to let him desecrate Jasper’s body any further.
“Is that really your best?” I shouted over the lightning. He snarled at me, jumping again. I didn’t move quite so far this time. I held the knife out, and felt the pull as it tore at his fur. He landed hard on the ground, looking at me in shock.
“You fucked up everything,” I said, tears streaming down my face as I came toward him. “Maybe he didn’t love me. You’ve made sure that I knew that. But I loved him, and I could have been blissfully happy, fully unaware that he loved me. You are so selfish, so angry, all you could think about was taking your brother’s position away from him. You aren’t fit to be a duke! You aren’t fit to lead people!”
I came closer to him, the knife still in my hand. I was surprised he was still down. I couldn’t imagine that I had cut him that deeply.
He snarled again, launching himself at me. I darted away, but he rebounded, skidding across the mud and readjusting himself so he could chase me. I had no choice but to try to run, feet slipping along the ground. Yes, perhaps I was running in a circle; I didn’t want to go too far. If I was going to die, I was going to die beside my husband.
I wasn’t giving up without a fight. Seth would have to work his damndest to kill me. Maybe he would be successful in the end, but this was going to be a showdown he wasn’t going to forget.
I wasn’t a particularly nimble woman. Yes, I was slight, but that was about the only thing I had going for me. I was injured and faint from my head wound. Still, I darted between trees, trying to confuse Seth as much as I could. He had every advantage over me: faster moves, heightened senses, sharper teeth, but he seemed to be struggling to keep up as I wove my body between trees, twisting myself, changing directions, trying to continually keep him as on edge and confused as possible. I could feel him nipping at my heels as I rounded a turn, and I reached out and kicked him in the nose. He whined, falling backward, sliding across the mud and hitting a tree.
I approached him again, ready to strike. I didn’t care if he was down.
“Anytime anyone spoke of you, it was to tell me what a horrible person you are,” I said. “And I didn’t believe them. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, because you’re family.”
I laughed bitterly. “Well, that was a mistake, wasn’t it? You turned out to be even more horrible than they said. If anything, they undersold you. You’re a scared, pathetic, weak lunatic, and the world will be a better place without you.”
I had never spoken words of such scorn before. It was liberating. I brandished my knife, ready to attack, when he leaned back and sprang. His body, a blur of gray fur, flew at me.
I wasn’t ready, and the weight of his body knocked me back. I landed hard on the ground, the knife tumbling out of my hands, my head knocking back and hitting the earth. For once I was grateful for the rain; it softened the mud. Had it been dry and hard, I surely would have been knocked out. As it was I saw stars, for what had to be the eighth or ninth time that day.
Seth was sitting on my legs, his front paws pressing his full weight into my sternum. I was cognizant enough to be thankful that he wasn’t sitting on the baby, although at this point it probably wouldn’t have mattered. His snout dripped saliva onto my rain–soaked face, his sharp teeth just a hairbreadth from my neck. I struggled under his weight, but he was so much heavier than me, and I was getting weaker from my injuries by the minute. Every breath was a struggle as he pressed into my lungs, making it nearly impossible to inhale. Blackness swam at the edge of my vision, threatening to overtake me.
Lightning flashed, revealing Seth’s cold eyes boring into mine and his jaw beginning to open. That wasn’t all it revealed, however, as I saw a glint of something in my peripheral vision. My knife, lodged in the mud, just out of reach of my fingertips. I squirmed my body, moving little by little as much as I could under his crushing weight. He opened his jaw wide. I swore he must have dislocated it to do that, coming down slowly on my neck. He was drawing it out for his own entertainment. I could see the twinkle of joy and sadism in his eyes.
Finally, I felt something hard in my hand, the hilt of the knife. As his breath was hot on my throat, sharp teeth grazing at my skin, I grabbed the knife and sunk it deep into his neck.
He whined, falling backward, paws covering the wound. I climbed to my feet and moved toward him. This time, he was too injured to move. Blood was pooling rapidly in front of him, the red spreading through the puddles of rain on the ground, running through the mud. I stabbed him again, in the side this time.
“That’s for Jasper,” I said.
I stabbed him again. “That’s for the baby.”
I stabbed him again. “This one is from me.”
I kept going, the knife going in and out sporadically, never hitting the same place twice. I had lost all control of my emotions, and I was doing some sort of mix of screaming and crying and cursing and the blade, growing increasingly slick with blood, sank into his body over and over again.
I felt something on my shoulder and jumped, holding the knife up to fight off whatever this was.
It was Jasper. He had dragged himself over, and he looked awful. His face and lips were pale, and my coat was soaked with blood.
“That’s enough,” he said, his voice soft.
I broke, my body racked with sobs. I knew he was injured, but I couldn’t help but wrap my arms around him, holding him.
“Christine, Christine,” he murmured as I held him to my chest.
I couldn’t speak. My throat was choked with tears.
He reached his hand up and cradled my face. “I need to say something.”
“No,” I said, “don’t speak.”
“Christine, I need to say this,” he said. He tried to sit up, but his body was too weak and he fell back down, his head resting on my lap. “I needed a wife because I need an heir. However, the moment I saw you back in Wolf’s Peak, I knew you would be so much more than that. Our marriage was never a lie. I love you so much. Am I happy that you’re having a baby, and that I won’t lose my title? Of course I am. But had I lost my title, had I become des
titute, I would still have everything I needed if I had you.”
“Jasper,” I cried, pushing his hair from his face, resting my forehead on his.
“I have made so many mistakes in this marriage,” he said. “I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning, and for that I am so, so sorry. Could you ever forgive me?”
Could I? I wasn’t sure, but this didn’t seem like the time to tell him that. “Of course,” I whispered.
His eyes fluttered. “I need you to know, if I die—”
“Don’t say that,” I begged. Maybe things were rough, and maybe he had lied to me, but things couldn’t end like this.
He looked at me, and his eyes were the clearest I had seen since he had been stabbed. His gaze was sharp and deep. “Christine, if I die, please know that you are the very best thing that ever happened to me. The moment I saw you, I knew that you were going to change my life, and you have. In the few months we’ve been married, you’ve made me a better man. My love for you is deeper and wider than the ocean. I love you, Christine. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
His eyes fluttered again, but this time, they didn’t open. I placed my hand over his chest, but his heartbeat was so weak.
“Jasper,” I sobbed, throwing myself on his chest. He wasn’t his usual, warm self anymore. He was cold and wet. He wouldn’t last much longer out here.
I felt utterly helpless. I couldn’t carry him. I didn’t even know if I could get myself out of here to find help. How far was I from Wolf’s Peak? What direction could I even go in?
“Help!” I screamed, knowing it was pointless. I could hardly hear myself over the roar of the wind and the rain. No one was going to hear me, yet it was the only thing I could think to do, screaming over and over until my voice became hoarse and I became dizzy.
I didn’t know how I still had tears left, but I did. I rested my head on Jasper’s chest, feeling his shallow breaths and his faint heartbeat. My tears dripped down my face to his chest, resting there until the rain washed it away. I closed my eyes. I was at an utter loss for what to do. I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die here.
Thump.
I rested my hand on belly, cherishing the soft thumping of my baby’s feet against me.
No. I was not going to die here. Neither was Jasper. We had a baby that needed us.
I sat up and put my coat over his legs. It was wet and cold, but at least it would hold in some heat. I peeled the makeshift bandage off of his torso. I was surprised, looking at his wound, because it looked better than I expected. His ribs weren’t as exposed anymore, and he wasn’t bleeding nearly as much. He was still terribly wounded, and I needed to find help.
I pulled myself to my feet. The rain had started to slow into only a soft sprinkling now. The clouds were drifting away from the moon, bathing the forest in a soft glow. The thunder and lightning had stopped sometime while I was examining Jasper.
The storm had passed.
“Help!” I screamed, my voice ringing clear across the forest. “Help!”
There was the sound of crashing through the trees, and I braced myself for whatever was coming next. I stood up, waiting, my heart racing. I couldn’t breathe.
Through the trees came a pack of wolves. All different colors, all huge and hulking. My body tensed, waiting for whatever was coming next. The last amount of adrenaline surged through my body as I searched the ground for my knife.
Even after everything, I was still surprised.
Three of the wolves began to twitch and convulse before transforming into men. As they stepped forward, I saw that it was Stephen, Adam, and Roderick. They knelt down next to Jasper, and Adam gathered him up in his arms. They laid him across one of the wolves, and I saw Jasper shift as his hands clutched at the wolf’s fur. I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as I watched his body move, although it was slow.
Stephen came over and put his hand on my arm. “He’s going to be all right,” he said.
They ushered me over and lifted me onto one of the wolves, with Roderick steadying me. It was almost a relief, the warm softness of the fur. I held on tight as the group began moving through the forest. We were headed back to Wolf’s Peak.
We were headed home.
Epilogue
Jasper stirred in the bed beside me. I jumped up from my chair and sat down next to him, and gently reached my hands over to brush the hair from his cheek. He looked up at me, his eyes focusing on my face. He gave me a smile, his face lighting up.
“Christine,” he murmured.
“Hello, there,” I said, caressing his face.
He looked so frail lying there in bed. His face was pale and dark bags rested under his eyes. He had been asleep for almost a full day and I hadn’t left his side, waiting anxiously for him to wake up. Dr. Brighton had come and gone more times than I could count, but each time he proclaimed that Jasper was getting marginally better.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Jasper said, his voice hoarse.
I shook my head. “We can talk later.”
He struggled into a seated position. I tried to help him, but he waved me away. “I can do this,” he said. Once he was sitting, I propped a pillow behind him. “I want to talk now. I don’t want you to go another second without knowing the full truth of everything.”
I smiled, taking his hand.
“What do you want to start with?” Jasper asked.
“Well,” I said, looking down at our entwined hands, “you’re a…a werewolf?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “I mean, I knew it, but still seems strange hearing a confirmation.”
“That’s understandable.”
“How does it all work?”
Jasper reached over and grabbed his glass of water, taking a sip. “Well, lycanthropy is genetic. My father was a werewolf, and his father, and so on. It’s passed on the male gene. Women can be carriers, but unless they’re bitten, they don’t exhibit the gene.”
“So, a woman who had lycanthropy in her family could potentially have a son with lycanthropy?”
“Exactly. However, if she becomes a werewolf because she was bitten, she can’t pass it on. For example, the prince is a werewolf because Albert was one, not because the queen was bitten.”
“The queen is a werewolf?”
“The royal family has been for centuries. That’s how my family earned the title of duke. You see, in addition to being a duke, I’m also the alpha of the packs of England. So, in most legal ways, the prince is above me. However, in our werewolf politics, I’m above him.”
“That’s confusing,” I said, frowning.
“For the most part, we simply consider each other equals,” Jasper said. “Every country has an alpha, and we all report to the elders, our governing body that makes our decisions.”
“What do you do as a wolf?” I asked.
“Nothing terribly exciting. Mostly running, hunting animals if we like. My job is more that of governing, making sure that we stay secret. If there are reports of a wolf somewhere across the country attacking humans and threatening to expose us, it’s my job to go after him. That’s why I’m gone so often. Granted, I do go to London quite often. I need to, in order to keep our politics at peace with the politics of England.”
“How do the other men fit in to all of this? They’re wolves as well?”
Jasper nodded. “Yes. Those men are my council. They work with me to make the best decisions for the werewolves of England. One or more of them will often accompany me when I go track down rogue wolves or do any business.”
“Are any of the werewolves dangerous?”
He paused, taking another drink of water. “Sometimes. We’ve had men attack young women, or hunt down their enemies. We warn them that if they’re caught doing anything like this, there will be punishment.”
I looked down at my hands again. “My mother was killed by one though, wasn’t she?”
He nodded. “I wasn’t sure h
ow much you knew, so I had never wanted to bring it up.”
“Running through the woods, it brought back memories,” I said. “I saw her get attacked.”
“I remember.” He sighed. “It was one of my father’s councilmen. I never really understood his motivation. I think he thought that if he went after an innocent mother and child, he could incite enough panic to overthrow my father as alpha. He tried to blame my father for your mother’s murder. It was actually you that made sure the right man went behind bars.”
“Me?”
“You described the wolf. You said he was gray, with black—”
“Black paws. And a black stripe down his back,” I said, remembering my flashbacks.
“Yes.” Jasper nodded. “My father was a white wolf, like me. There was only one man in the council that looked like that.”
He shook his head. “It was so horrible. I remember them bringing you out of the woods. You were so little, so young, and you were crying and screaming. They had to give you something to calm you down. My heart just broke for you.”
“Did my father know?”
“That we were werewolves, or that one killed your mother?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“He was aware of both things. It was the only way he could properly treat us. As it turns out, your mother is from a werewolf family.”
I blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”
“Yes. Your grandfather was a werewolf. I’m guessing your mother had no brothers?”
“She was an only child, like me,” I said. “I had no idea.”
He chuckled. “You would be surprised how much of the local population has some of the lycanthrope gene in their system.”
“So my father moved me away to keep me safe,” I mused.
“Yes. I remember overhearing the conversation between our fathers. Your father wanted you away from this lifestyle, and thought you would be safer in the city. We generally stay out of the city unless it’s for business or work, so I can understand why he moved you to Ervine. I was very upset when I found out. I’m a bit ashamed to say that I threw a temper tantrum. I enjoyed your company.”
The Wolf's Wife (The Wolf's Peak Saga Book 1) Page 23