The whole thing was infuriating. Attacking this witch might not truly solve anything, but it would have made me feel better for a minute. I wasn’t even sure she was feeling my weight, the force field keeping me slightly above her, as if I were levitating.
Goddammit.
The whole thing was useless and infuriating, yet it took me a while to give up. I kept scrambling to claw through that invisible shield, the two of us wrestling around in the snow as I tried to maul the witch who was now softly smirking at me and whispering her spells. I tried to go for her mouth. I tried to just scare her. Nothing worked and finally she pointed at me and shouted something that sounded like nonsense. But it was powerful. I could feel the magic of the spell engulfing me and then I was rising off the ground. I was terrified for a moment as I hovered there, a helpless lion stuck in mid-air, at the mercy of a witch. I wondered how much Blake was paying her. He wasn’t rich. He must have really hated me to shell out big money for someone this talented. Or perhaps they were related somehow.
I thought she was going to kill me but all at once I was human again. It was a forced shift so it felt different than usual as my fur became human skin and my back legs moved forward; muscles and sinew and bones transforming themselves. Shifting usually happened in the blink of an eye. This was more like a werewolf’s shift and it was painful.
When it was over, I couldn’t breathe. I bent over and grasped my knees, just trying to catch my breath. The bitterly cold air stung my throat but at least it told me I was alive. I stared down at my boots in the white snow. I was alive. I felt like I could feel the baby still alive within me but it was still so tiny, who knew?
“I don’t want to kill you,” the witch said, just now getting to her feet. She looked like an ordinary suburban mom type but she didn’t sound like one. Her voice was deep and slightly accented. Eastern Europe, if I had to guess. “But I will if I have to. You and your child to come.” She nodded down at my stomach.
It wasn’t exactly eloquent but all I could manage to say was, “Fuck you.”
“I understand why you did what you did,” the witch said, sticking her hands in her pockets. “You are trying to survive. Blake is a ruthless alpha and he would be a worse mate and father. But if you were smart, you would leave both prides. Leave them be. You had your reasons. But you’ve done enough damage now.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst into tears. I was so embarrassed, I covered my face. The witch neared and seemed almost apologetic. “I have no loyalty to Blake. I tell you this to help you.”
But I love Luca.
The thought seemed crazy. We were still getting to know each other. Yet I knew it was true with every fiber of my being. Maybe it was being in such close proximity to magic that made me realize the truth. Luca was my mate and I loved him. If I had to be away from him while he was still breathing, I thought I might die. Maybe not all at once. But over time, slowly and painfully, I would become a dead person.
“If you love him, set him free,” the witch said.
“But-”
“Blake will kill Luca,” the witch said flatly. “If Blake gets his claws into you, he will wait until you bear his child and then he will kill you too. Maybe he will keep you around to be his little toy.”
I looked up at her, wiping away my tears. She squinted at me. Her eyes were gray. She seemed to pale just then. I wondered if witches traded a bit of their lives away for the power of magic. “Can you see the future?” I said.
“I can see what’s obvious,” she said. She smiled then as if she was my friend. Just an old friend giving advice on a snowy afternoon, as if the two of us were going to go have coffee in her breakfast nook. As if she wasn’t telling me to leave my one slim chance at happiness for a life of exile and loneliness.
“You know I’m right,” she whispered. “I can see that too. You’re a good person, Chloe. You did that awful thing you hated doing to help your brother and you lied to survive, to try to give your unborn child a better life. Now you’ll do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Because it will save you but more than that, because it will save Luca.” I started to open my mouth and she rested a palm against my cheek. “You are a lion. You are stronger than you know.”
I felt a kind of warmth through her palm and it wasn’t that she was imparting strength to me, but I felt she was drawing the strength already within me to my attention.
I guess she wasn’t a totally evil witch. But she was rather amoral anyway.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
It seemed like a terribly stupid thing to do to close your eyes at your enemy’s behest, putting yourself at their mercy. Then again, I supposed I already was at her mercy.
So I closed my eyes.
She didn’t tell me to open them again but I felt that her presence was gone and when I did open my eyes, I was alone in the snow.
St. Dominic’s hospital was a small building that didn’t look much like a hospital from the outside. It was brick and in the snow with a few small pine trees at attention along the cobblestone , it looked so quaint, like a scene from a Christmas card. I walked there like I was walking to my own execution.
The witch had done me a favor. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she was on my side, by any means, or that she could be trusted at all. But that didn’t make her wrong. I had tried this thing with Luca, this terrible lie. It was blowing up in my face and if I let it go on any longer, somebody was going to end up dead. I couldn’t let it be him.
I watched my breath puff in the chill air. I’d fetched my parka from the lost and found and I tugged it more snuggly around me.
It was time to face the music.
I signed in as a visitor at the window and the desk clerk directed me to Luca’s room. I’d been hoping his injuries weren’t bad enough to warrant more than outpatient but when I found his room, I peeked through the window and saw him looking pale in bed, unconscious. Dylan and Charlie were sitting in chairs that looked too small for them, chatting casually as they ate burgers; loyal friends, by his bedside. I’d been counting on finding him bandaged up and looking healthy. He was a shifter. He’d heal quickly and the shifter nurses and doctors would wink and let him go, fixing his chart up to disguise such an inexplicable recovery.
But this…
“He’s not in a coma,” Miguel said quietly.
I jumped a little and clutched my chest, stepping aside as he walked up. “Hi,” I mumbled.
He didn’t look like he was going to throw me out. That was something anyway.
“He was awake before,” Miguel said. “It’s not dire or anything. They’re just keeping him for observation since it’s a head injury. He’ll be alright.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and took a breath. “I thought… I thought maybe because of the hex…”
“Sorry, I yelled before,” Miguel said sheepishly. He scratched the back of his neck, scrunching up his nose. “I got a temper. Comes out pretty hot when somebody I care about is threatened, and Luca’s as good as a brother to me. Truth is, I don’t know shit about-”
“You were right,” I said, shaking my head. I stared through the little window. I’d gotten lucky, or Luca had. But the next time… “You were right about everything. He got hurt because of me. I lied to him. I thought… I felt like I had to, I just…”
“Listen,” Miguel said. “I’m sure whatever it is, you can work it out-”
“Blake is the father of the baby,” I blurted out. I looked at him steadily now. I hated the thought of admitting all this out loud to somebody who would judge me for it. But I felt as if I deserved that too. “I had this one night with Luca. It was like...we were magnets. As soon as we saw each other. But I never guessed it could be more than that. I’m Stone River, he’s St. Dom’s… A few weeks later, I slept with Blake.”
Miguel curled his lip and I felt as small as I’d ever felt in my life. I felt like I was beneath his shoe. “Why would you?” He said. “Blake is-”
“My bro
ther,” I said. “Gabe Perkins? He’s on The Fangs now? All he wants to do is play. Blake wouldn’t let him on the team because of an old grudge. Gabe was going nowhere, he was depressed… I felt like my brother was disappearing in front of me. So I told Blake I’d sleep with him if he put Gabe on The Fangs.” I swallowed and my eyes were wide when I said, “I wish I could forget that night and I can’t. I wish I could forget that feeling. But I did it for my brother. When I got pregnant, I knew if I said Luca was the father I could claim asylum with St. Dom’s and Blake couldn’t do anything about it. But…” I laughed bitterly and looked down at my hands. They were so dry in winter. I remembered being so poor in winter I couldn’t afford to buy even the cheapest hand lotion. It had seemed like such a small thing too. “I should’ve known Blake would find a way to…”
“You should’ve told him,” Miguel said.
I nodded at that. “Would it be easier coming from you or me?” I looked up at Miguel and stood up straight. He was a few inches taller than me but I still felt a sense of strength and power from the witch’s touch, even if it was giving me the courage to leave my every chance at happiness behind. “I’m leaving,” I said. “He won’t have to worry about any of it. It was all...wrong of me and… I’m leaving. It’s not his baby and...”
I’m not his mate, I was going to say. But that felt like a lie.
“Are you sure?” Miguel said, but I could tell he was relieved. I only nodded and he said, “Then I’ll tell him. He’ll try to stop you.”
“Tell him that I said I love him,” I said. “And I’ll never forget his kindness.”
Then I left.
Chapter Eleven: Luca
I had the dream again and this time I felt a kind of desperation as I searched for my lioness in the woods. There was no pretending it wasn’t Chloe now. This time the crispness of the air was real. I could smell the trees and the freshly fallen snow. I could smell every rock and every animal and insect in the forest. But most of all, I could smell my mate. She was hiding from me and she was afraid as I approached the waterfall. But as I neared, I saw the moonlight shine down on her and when she turned her head, I saw the love in her golden lion’s eyes.
But now the dream that had always been the same since childhood changed a little. I followed her behind the waterfall and we lay down with each other and she nuzzled me as I licked her fur and grunted approvingly when she bared her neck and let me bite her gently. We fell asleep together and it was cold but our warmth and our thick fur kept us safe from all the elements and from all dangers. We were together and more than that, I could feel the little cub inside Chloe as I pressed against her.
My mate. My cub…
When I woke up in the morning, I expected to see Chloe but she wasn’t there. I was alone in the hospital room. The injury had not been so bad, at least for a tough alpha like me. My head hurt and my fingers were bruised up where Blake had skated over my gloved fingers. But that would all heal soon enough. I sat up in the hospital bed, gritting my teeth, eager to get out and find Chloe if she wasn’t here in the hospital somewhere.
“Whoa whoa!” That was Charlie, rushing in. He looked startled. That was probably because I was ripping out my IV. “Slow down, boss.”
“Where’s Chloe?” I demanded. “Is she okay?”
Dylan and Miguel entered in after him and they looked at each other knowingly. I rolled my eyes. I tended to get impatient when anyone knew something before I did.
“Is she okay?” I said, louder and more slowly, as if they might have been hard of hearing. “Where is she? Is she here?”
“Sit still for a minute and we’ll tell you,” Miguel said, leveling me with a grim stare. That made me stop, not because I was particularly used to taking orders from Miguel (I wasn’t) but because he looked too serious. Something had happened. “She’s not here.”
I took a deep breath. I should have been calm. I was riled because of that whole confrontation with Blake and because of that dream. It had never changed before. It had to mean something that suddenly the dream had changed.
Chloe was my home and now I’d found it. The part of me that could dream, the primal part of me that came from the shifters of old who’d used magic like breathing knew it, could feel it in my blood. I wanted my home.
I stopped moving and clasped my hands, meeting Miguel’s gaze. There was a bandage at my temple and across part of my forehead. The fingers on my bruised hand were bandaged and I was just a little foggy due to some pain killer. If I’d been human, I would have been laid out. But I felt strong enough now to run a hundred miles if it was for Chloe.
“Tell me what happened,” I said. I was using the alpha tone. My voice had dropped and there was a low growl behind it.
I’m a kind and laid back guy but when I turn on my alpha presence, you better not fuck with me.
Miguel’s eyes flashed and he looked nervous; a rare occurrence. “Okay. Listen…” He stroked his chin. He’d fucked up and was only realizing it now. He was practically dripping sweat. “Chloe told me this and I said I should tell you, um…”
“What?” I snapped.
“Blake is the father,” Miguel said. His voice shook a little. Dylan and Charlie were standing around, looking equally as tense, but my own shoulders dropped and I let out a breath.
“Is that all?” I said. “Jesus. You scared me. I mean… I wish she hadn’t lied but-”
“She- she slept with Blake to get her brother on The Fangs,” Miguel said. His voice had pitched up a little. He explained the whole thing to me and yeah, I supposed it was scandalous or something. All I saw was a woman trying to get by and I sympathized with her. She clearly despised Blake (I didn’t trust anyone who didn’t). That she’d done that for her brother…
“Miguel,” I said. When he was done, I found myself laughing. All this drama. She hadn’t known me well enough. If she’d just told me the truth… But she was used to a certain kind of man, a certain kind of lion, a certain kind of alpha… Oh, Chloe. “I think we both know you’ve done some questionable shit yourself trying to survive?”
The corners of Miguel’s mouth turned down and he ducked his head, unable to look at me. I didn’t bring Miguel’s shit up if I didn’t have to. I knew it really cut him up. He hadn’t even dealt with his own guilt for his past sins. But he could at least have some empathy for somebody who wasn’t so different from him.
He didn’t respond. He just absorbed the remark. That’s how I knew it got to him. He just nodded and said, “She ran off, Luca. She said she had to leave. She felt bad about you getting hurt, she blamed herself-”
Now I was moving again, all but jumping to my feet and grabbing my clothes, neatly folded on the nightstand. “Where did she go?” I bit out.
“I don’t know-”
“And you all just let her go?” I looked at each of them. They all seemed pretty sheepish. Charlie shrugged, grimacing. Dylan just stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at me.
I was disappointed in them and I hated being disappointed in them. They were my brothers. I needed to rely on them.
“If...you want to find her,” Charlie said. “I’m sure you can…”
“We’ll help you,” Dylan murmured. “We didn’t mean-”
“They’re covering for me,” Miguel said. He glared at them and drew himself up. “But I can take the heat. Chloe talked to me, not them. It’s not their fault. She told me the story and that she was going and at the time...I thought...it was best-”
I had my jeans on, the hospital gown in a pile on the floor and now I grit my teeth, my every muscle flexed as I lunged forward and grabbed Miguel’s collar in my hands with a grip that said I wasn’t joking if the wild look in my eyes didn’t.
“You thought it was best,” I hissed. “You thought it best?”
Miguel was a guy who was full of piss and vinegar but I knew him as well as I knew myself.
He didn’t like it when I was upset with him. Charlie and Dylan he could take. But if he thought he’d dis
appointed me, it cut him to the core. Even now he was wilting. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He sagged in my grip. He was a few inches shorter than me; compact but full of muscle and strength. Now he seemed too small, almost weak.
“I’m sorry, boss,” he murmured. “Luca. I’m...sorry. I thought I was… I blamed her for you getting hurt. I was just-”
“You just thought you knew best,” I said.
I shoved him back and he fell into Charlie and Dylan who looked as alarmed as if I’d just turned into a dragon and not a lion. That was fair. I’d never been this angry over a woman before. I think the last time I was even a little upset over a girl at all was ninth grade.
“She’s my mate, Miguel,” I said. I felt raw. My skin tingles like the top layer of it had been peeled off. “She’s mine. But I’m hers too.” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to get my thoughts in order. I was all over the place. I knew that. I guessed that was falling in love after all. “Blake would treat her like a thing. But she’s a person, she’s a beautiful...person. I have to find her.” I threw my shirt on and sat on the bed to pull on my socks and boots. “I’m finding her and telling her I understand and if she still wants to take off then whatever but…”
The very thought of it made me feel sick.
“Then I’ll figure it out,” I muttered. “But I have to find her.”
“You don’t know where she went?” Dylan said.
“She’s a shifter and she has very little money,” I said grimly. “She went to the woods. I’d bet on it.”
I grabbed my parka and I was on my way out, fully intending on shifting in the middle of the hospital and making a run for it if anyone tried to stop me.
“Luca, I’m sorry.” Miguel was weeping.
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