by Leia Stone
Kai winced, not sure what to say. “It’ll be okay.” I heard gun shots and growls all around me. We were at war, the world I knew was gone and I had just given fertility to a heroin junkie vampire queen.
Shit.
Pest
Sylvia had assembled the coven. We were all in a circle in the living room and Kai leaned up against a wall in the background. After Layla left, the vampires all around the country retreated into hiding. No use fighting and dying when you had what you wanted. I looked at Sylvia. “Layla bit me.”
She nodded and shared a look with Gretchen. Gretchen looked at me sadly and nodded to Sylvia.
“What? I hate when you do this. Just tell me.” They were always conversing with their looks.
Gretchen apologized, and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Healing can work two ways. You can give life or take it. I know of a way to make it so that your blood will no longer be fertile to the vampires.”
I grinned. “That’s great! Do it!” If my blood wasn’t fertile to the vampires anymore than I wouldn’t have to worry about them and RAIDOS wouldn’t be after me anymore either. Kai and I could live in peace.
Gretchen looked sadly at Kai and then back to me. “It would make you infertile. Forever. You wouldn’t ever be able to have children with Kai.”
I heard the breath go out of Kai from across the room. My stomach sank.
“No!” he roared.
“Kai, maybe this is the sacrifice we have to make. To stop all of this killing. To end the war. We can still take care of Layla, but then we can rest assured no one else will be coming for me.”
Kai’s eyes were yellow. He stalked toward me like I was prey. Patches of fur were dancing on his arms. “If you don’t want children with me, that’s one thing. But if you do, than no one will take that joy from me. No one!” Dominance came off of him in waves. I could see it like magical mist. For the first time ever, I lowered my head in submission. The witches nervously began gathering their things.
‘Do you want to have a child with me? I know you were hesitant when you first found out about all of this, but do you now?’ Kai asked. He had closed the bond. I couldn’t feel his thoughts. When I had first met Kai and he had told me that werewolves were all about reproducing, it scared me off. I wasn’t sure I wanted a kid that would be the next Matefinder and be hunted down. But when I had found out that I was infertile unless we mated, it awoke something in me. I did want a baby with him, I wanted to be called mommy. I wanted it all.
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
The mate bond burst open and I felt his feelings. He wanted children so badly, but he didn’t want his desires to cloud my judgment. He wanted me to make my own choices.
‘One kid, in a few years and then we do the infertility spell,’ I told him.
‘Three kids,’ he countered and I smiled.
“Two,” I said out loud and the witches looked at me.
Kai grinned. “Deal.”
Alexa burst into the room. She was panting and barely clothed. Kai stepped forward.
“What’s wrong,” he asked her.
“The vampires have completely retreated, but RAIDOS is coming full throttle. They have a dozen helicopters, weaponized drones, the works. They’re going to wipe out the mountain.”
Kai nodded and looked at Alexa. “Do you think you can handle this?”
Alexa’s black cropped bob was slicked back into a small pony tail, her mouth was set into a stubborn line. She nodded.
“Am I missing something?” Sylvia asked.
Alexa put her hands six inches from each other and took a deep breath. A blue crackle fire ball arose in her palm.
The witches stared at her hands in shock.
She smirked. “Time to make it rain helicopters and drones.”
I could hear helicopter blades in the distance.
Kai grabbed my hand and drug me outside. The witches filed out onto the lawn behind us.
Kai’s cellphone rang. He glanced at it and was about to put it back in his pocket when a small vision of the White House flickered in my head. What the?
“Answer it,” I told him.
“Now?” He gestured to the helicopters in the distance. The militia and our wolves were all retreating from the edges of the mountain and coming home.
I urged him with my hands. He picked it up.
“Hello, this is Kai.” I leaned close so I could pick up the call with my werewolf hearing.
“You’ve made quite the civil unrest with your announcement, son.”
That voice was familiar. Kai’s eyebrows pinched together. He recognized it too.
“Who is this?”
“This is the president of the United States of America.”
Kai’s mouth dropped open. I swallowed hard.
“I would like you to know that I have pulled the funding on RAIDOS. Any future actions on their part are not backed from the US government. In other words, they have gone rogue. There is no going back from what you did so we can only move forward into this future together.”
A chill ran up my spine. If they were no longer linked to the government than this would be a blood bath; they were here to kill. No one to keep them accountable.
“Well, your news is timely, sir. They are currently descending on my mountain in full force.”
“Well, then I guess I need to know where you stand. Are you an enemy of the humans of the United States of America?”
Kai stood stiffly. “No, sir. I am an enemy of the vampires and any human that tries to come after my pack.”
There was a pause. “Good enough. I will be contacting you again in the near future.” The president hung up.
Just then, we heard the roaring of jets. I looked to the sky and grabbed my ears. A group of fighter jets raced over our heads and approached the oncoming RAIDOS helicopters, attempting to push them back. There was a tense moment where RAIDOS didn’t move.
Alexa had her blue fire hands raised and ready, but the helicopters began their retreat. Kai leaned over to me. “Those are F twenty-two fighter jets. They would be stupid to engage them.” They were being escorted away. The militia cheered and we all joined in.
I looked at Kai, smiling, but my smile dropped when I saw his sullen face.
“What?” I asked him.
“The immediate threat is over. Now we bury our dead.”
Then it hit me. Devon, India pack, and some of the human militia had died. This was not a time for celebration. Layla was out there with my blood running through her veins and she was hell bent on getting pregnant. A small victory didn’t mean the war was over. My pregnant best friend had to put her mate in the ground because of me.
‘No,’ Kai said. ‘This is no one’s fault. Devon died with honor. Don’t take that from him.’
I held back tears and nodded.
Goodbye
It was an unusually sunny day on the mountain. We were all assembled in Emma’s backyard. Raj had arranged for the bodies of the Indian pack to be sent back home. The militia’s dead had been buried at the cemetery where Max’s wife was, but Emma insisted she wanted Devon closer.
Kai addressed the hundreds of people gathered. “No one takes the loss of a wolf harder than an Alpha. It’s my duty to protect all of my wolves and I couldn’t protect Devon. In the end, he died protecting my mate, an honor for which I will be eternally grateful. To honor Devon, I will make sure his mate and child are well taken care of for the rest of their long, long lives.”
I stared at the white painted casket that held Devon’s body. I glanced at Emma’s delicate hand which clutched mine and then to her large belly. Her eyes were swollen, but she held her head up high. I squeezed her hand and she returned the gesture.
“After Devon heard about my visit to the vampire nightclub and learned what was going on, he made me make him a promise!” Kai roared. “He said to me, ‘Don’t let my daughter or son grow up in this world the way it is.’ We need change. There must be justice!” Kai roared.
�
��Justice for Devon!” the pack echoed. “Justice for the humans!”
Max and Kai lowered Devon into the ground and placed the dirt over his body. Emma sobbed and turned to me. My heart ached. How was this happening? Death was such bullshit. Why did people have to die? This was not the world I envisioned when I found out I was a werewolf. I had bonded with my new family and I didn’t want to bury any of them.
‘No more,’ I told Kai. ‘No one else dies.’
Kai met my eyes. I saw so much pain there. Being an Alpha was a huge responsibility for anyone, but Kai took it all to heart. Every person in the pack was like an adopted child or sibling. He would carry this weight forever and I would carry it with him.
“Take me home. He’s not in that body anymore,” Emma told me as she pulled her hand out of mine and walked back into the house.
I watched my pregnant best friend waddle back into her home and I made myself a promise. The world would be a better place for Emma and her baby, free of heroin dealing vampires. It would definitely be free of little vampire spawn, even if I had to die trying. I owed her that much.
Emma’s parents, who were both wolves in a Utah pack were on a flight to be with her. I hadn’t met them, but I knew they must be worried sick. I waited with Emma until she fell asleep and then I went to find Kai.
He was in our backyard, topless and wearing sweat pants. He must have just got in from a run. My eyes rested on his damaged hand. The fingers were healing and growing back, much to our amazement. There was a thick scar at the base of each finger where it was severed but the new bone and skin was coming in. He sensed me but didn’t turn. I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his large chest.
“What now, Kai?” I whispered.
He turned to me with yellow, haunted eyes. Devon’s death haunted us all. Kai always had a plan for everything; I was hoping he had a plan to find and kill Layla. To stop the thing from growing inside of her.
“Alek contacted me. He told me where Layla lives and so I sent Max and a few others over there to scout it out.”
Hope bloomed inside my chest. We could go there tonight and take her out, but Kai’s face didn’t look happy.
“It was burned to the ground recently and because we can no longer smell them. Her trail runs cold.”
Genuine fear gripped me. Images flashed through my mind of what would happen now. Layla would get pregnant and …
Kai grabbed the side of my face.
“Stop worrying so much. We will figure this out. We need to regroup and deal with the humans finding out about us. The President wants me to join him in a press conference. To settle the humans’ fears about our kind. Besides, Sylvia can’t find Layla either, that dark witch is hiding her. It takes nine months to have a baby, right? We have time to make a plan to find her and kill her once and for all.”
If Kai thought I was waiting nine months while that thing grew inside of Layla because of me, he was crazy. But he was right. We had shaken up the human world when he revealed our race, we needed to contend with that first. I nodded reluctantly.
“We will lay low for a short time, help smooth over things with the humans. Stop the riots. Then we find Layla. We end this,” I told him firmly.
He swiped the hair across my forehead and tucked it behind my ear. “We end this,” he echoed, “together.”
But I felt the Devi stirring restlessly inside of me. We may end it together, but I may not live to see beyond it. I tried to hide that feeling from Kai, but the desperate look on his face told me I hadn’t.
“Together,” he said again, barely holding onto his humanity.
Acknowledgments
As always, I have many people to thank. To Patti Geesy, my editor, who keeps my writing polished and shiny. To my wonderful, supportive husband. Thank you for doing dishes and changing diapers while I write. You’re my hero. To my mother and my in-laws who tirelessly help with my 2 year old twins so I can have, “Office Hours”. To Dan and Ellen Nakano for beta reading and being awesome humans. To Ben Boomer for your Shaman consultations. To the creative force in the Universe that flows through me without effort. Continue to inspire me and I will continue to write. To every single reader, thank you for the support!