by Noah Harris
Adalaide started forward, arms at her sides, chin lifted and posture proud. Her magic still crackled around her, the barely visible flames of her aura glowing in the lengthening shadows of the evening. Abel saw her coming, and through Dylan’s enhanced vision, he could see the witch’s eyes widen, suddenly fearful and panicked. He rolled onto his back, pushing himself back and away from his sister. It was clear that he was too weak to get to his feet.
Dylan could see their mouths moving, but he couldn’t hear what they said. He could see the gist of it though. He could see Abel’s frustration and anger in the face of his defeat. He could see Adalaide’s righteous fury, her power, and her strength. She looked every inch like a victorious leader, whereas her brother looked like a spoiled child.
Adalaide continued to advance on him, slow and steady, and he continued to scramble backwards, unable to stand.
When it became clear that the witches’ quarrel was over, Arulean started toward the side of the building again. Movement caught Dylan’s eye, and he turned to see Rajiah hurrying towards Arulean, as quickly as he could on shaking legs and with Remi clutched in his arms.
A smile found its way to Dylan’s face as he watched them draw near. The other shifters and witches who had been with them trailed after Rajiah. Blake especially stayed close. It was clear from all of their postures that they believed the fight to be over.
Thoric was dead, and Abel had been defeated by Adalaide.
They had won.
Dylan watched his mate with a proud reverence, his heart fluttering. He hadn’t meant for that feeling to flow through their bond, but enough of it must have slipped past his defenses. Blake turned his head, turning to walk backwards as his eyes raked the hillside where Dylan’s team was hidden. With the danger gone, they stood, coming out from the shadows of the trees. Blake raised a hand to wave, and Dylan lifted one in response, smile widening.
Then the sound of crackling energy broke the silence, and everything happened at once.
Adalaide shouted, words lost to the wind. Blake spun around, gaze searching for danger as Dylan’s eyes snapped to where Abel was still on the ground. His hand was thrust out toward Rajiah and Remi, and he watched in surprised horror as a ball of crackling red magic shot out from the witch’s hand. It left him a mere second before Adalaide’s blue magic clamped down in a barrier around him. It was too late. His spell had already been cast.
Rajiah whipped around, face twisting in fear. He turned his back to the magic, body hunching over Remi to protect him.
And then Blake was moving, a sprint far too fast to be human, blocking the spell with his body.
Dylan watched in mounting horror as the spell hit him, ball disappearing into his body and magic crackling around him. His back arched, limbs going rigid, and head thrown back, mouth open in a silent scream. Pain flared through their connection before Blake cut him off from it, but it was enough for Dylan to feel the horror, fear and pain.
A scream ripped from his throat. He could feel it vibrating in his throat, raw and inhuman, but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears, the pulsing of his heartbeat. It drowned out everything. It drowned out the other shouts around them. It drowned out the voices as his team hovered near him, reaching for him.
He stumbled forward, losing his feet as pain clenched at his gut. But this time it wasn’t coming from Blake. It was his own pain. Sharp and jagged, like someone was cutting him open from the inside. His stomach twisted, unnatural heat flaring through his system. His vision blurred, turning gray at the edges, blurry from the tears that formed.
He shouted again, this time in his own pain, as he fell to his knees. It was too much. Too overwhelming. His insides felt like they were on fire, like shards of glass were in a whirlwind inside of him. He wrapped his arms around his middle, protective and scared. He fell to his side, curling in on himself. He felt hands on him. He saw Kara and Jesse in his peripheral vision. He heard their voices but couldn’t discern their words.
His head was twisted, eyes locked onto Blake’s form as he fell, limp and lifeless.
Tears ran hot and wet down Dylan’s cheeks, and he felt a similar heat gathering low, leaking, staining.
Blood. He knew he was bleeding. He knew it couldn’t be good. There was no way this pain could be good.
Distantly, he realized what was happening, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept it, to absorb the fact. His mind and body and heart rejected it. Like a dream. Like a nightmare. It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be real.
He couldn’t lose his mate.
He couldn’t lose his baby.
“No…” he cried, voice raw and quaking, breath coming short and fast. “No, no, no, no, no…”
He watched as Adalaide ran to Blake’s side, his vision fading as his mind slipped away, blissfully into the void of unconsciousness.
13
Dylan drifted in and out of consciousness, only picking up bits and pieces of the action around him. His vision was dark and muted at the edges, fuzzy and white in the middle. His eyes didn’t want to focus, unable to fully grasp one thing for too long. Voices were muffled, like he had cotton shoved too deep in his ears.
He realized, distantly, that Jesse was crouched in front of him. Her hands were on his belly, and it took him a moment to distinguish that the glow emitted from her hands was different from the general white fuzziness of the world. Where her hands touched felt soothingly cool, but the rest of him was on fire.
He slowly became aware of a touch on his shoulder, and he tilted his head, world tilting and spinning as it slowly caught up. Kara was there, crouched behind him. He could see her face, contorted and frantic. It was strange to see her normal calm demeanor so distraught. Her mouth moved quickly, exaggeratedly. It was almost comical and he watched, fascinated, until the pain became too much.
Then he closed his eyes and let the darkness take him again.
_______________________
He opened his eyes as the fire receded somewhat. He was lying on his back, and he blinked up at the night sky. Distantly, he realized he was further from the trees than he had been moments ago. Or perhaps not? It was difficult to tell.
There was movement all around him in his peripheral vision. People hovering over him. Faces that were contorted and blurred. Features swirling until they were indistinct. He tried to identify them, but matching a name to a face seemed like trying to grasp water as it flowed through his hand.
People. Faces. A white light that was soft and glowing in the darkness. It was bright. Too bright, but it was cool. Cool enough to quell the fire raging in his veins. He closed his eyes, and drifted.
_______________________
When he woke up again, he smelled the smoke first. Smoke and fire. Something floral. Something muted, without being too sharp. Plants on fire, but not like a forest fire. Not like a campfire. Herbs. Herbal fire. Smoldering.
He cracked his eyes open, watching with detached awe as different strings of smoke curled above him. He saw light refracted off of them, giving them vague shape and form against the black vastness of the sky. They curled and coiled, playful and innocent, calm and flowing. They felt as detached and as distant as he did. He watched the tendrils of smoke rise, rise, rise, and disappear into the night, amongst the stars.
He stared at the stars, mere pinpricks of light above him, peeking through the clouds. Distant and cold. Humbling. Peaceful.
There was movement all around him. He slowly became aware of it. He could feel the changing air pressure. He could feel pressure on him. Hands on his body, ranging from light and tentative to rough and tight. He could see them in his peripheral vision. Bodies moving. Heads turning, hair whipping, featureless faces.
He could smell them, beneath the calming scent of smoldering herbs. He could smell their worry and concern, their anxiety, their nerves, their panic,and their frustration. It was sharp and sour, bitter and metallic. It sat like bile on the back of his tongue. It burned. He longed to rub his nose, but his
arms felt like lead, heavy and useless at his sides.
He was vaguely aware that he should probably be worried about that, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
So he tried to ignore their scents, and instead he focused on the pleasant neutral scent of the smoke. Let it curl around him. Relax him.
Their voices were muffled, as though he were hearing them through a tunnel. They echoed and blurred. Their words were indistinct and vague. He recognized pitches, rises, and falls in conversation. He recognized tones. They mixed and mingled, coiling together into a general din, fading into background noise until it was inconsequential.
Vaguely, he was aware that his body hurt. He could tell that the fire was still there, the heat raged through his veins. He could feel the sharp pangs from his belly. He could feel the ache in his limbs and the tightness of his chest. But it was all so distant, and he felt so detached. It was like he was feeling it in a dream. Like every pain, poke and prod was felt through thick layers of rubber. He was in a bubble, floating above himself, aware of his body but not quite feeling it.
It was strange, and he was aware that it was strange. He found it interesting, even amusing.
He felt like smoke, curling and coiling upward, upward, upward, until he closed his eyes and disappeared into the darkness.
_______________________
He awoke again to pain.
Sharp and agonizing. No longer distant and drifting, he was thrust firmly back into his body, into the storm and chaos, feeling every pain and every ache as his nerves were set alight. He felt like his insides were twisting, trying to tear themselves out of his body. He felt like a fire was trying to consume him from the inside out.
He heard a scream, loud and raw and primal, and it took him a moment to realize it came from his own throat. He tried to curl in on himself. He tried to wrap his arms around his middle. He felt the overwhelming need to curl up, to protect, to keep himself from falling apart.
But no matter how much he struggled, he couldn’t move.
It took a while for awareness to fight its way through the pain. For him to realize that he couldn’t move because hands held him down.
He opened his eyes, unaware that they had been closed in the first place.
He turned his head, staring hard at the people around him, mind desperately working through the pain to put names to faces. He felt more aware of them this time, even if his brain was having a hard time focusing for too long.
Kara sat behind him, and he realized his head was in her lap. Her hands were on his head, keeping him from thrashing about too much. Her wrists were deliberately positioned near his face, her beta scent strong and prevalent. He breathed it in, letting its calming properties wash over him. Crisp. Clean. Neutral. He knew her job was to use her scent to keep him from panicking, and he couldn’t even bring himself to feel indignant about it.
Two other shifters pinned his arms to the ground, their weight heavy and comforting, but inconvenient as they kept him from curling in on himself, from protecting—protecting—himself? No, that didn’t seem right. He had to protect something. Hide something from the pain. He vaguely recognized the sharp features of one shifter as Benjamin, and the other, with small and angular features as Viv.
His eyes trailed further down his body, head propped up on Kara’s lap to help him see.
Adalaide and Jesse were crouched on one side of him, hands hovering over his bulging belly. Their hands glowed white. Not a harsh white light, but one that was soft and warm. No, not warm. It was cool. Like a soothing balm, chasing away the fire where their hands hovered over his skin. His shirt was pushed up to his chest, exposing his naked stomach to the chill of the night. He didn’t feel it.
Rajiah and Cynthia crouched at his other side. Both of their hands joined the others. Cynthia’s glowed, but Rajiah’s did not. Still, despite his lack of magic, Dylan could feel power emanating from the weredragon. Power, raw and ancient, focused on him. Power that felt far more familiar to him as a fellow werewolf than the witches’ foreign magic.
Despite the cooling touch of their magic, the pain didn’t recede. It still raged through him. They soothed the surface fire of his belly, but he still felt as if a knife was thrust in deep, twisting and clawing inside him. He struggled, but his protests were weak. He could feel the pressure of more shifters holding his legs down.
Pinned and in pain, tongue thick and throat raw, unable to find, let alone form, words. All he could do was listen.
So he listened. Focused on the voices until they started to form words. Focused on the words until they started to make sense.
There was a general din of chanting, a monotone note that hummed through the air from the witches. There were whispers that came from further away.
Then Rajiah spoke, and Dylan latched onto the familiar voice. Firm and authoritative, sturdy despite the panic was that bubbling just beneath the surface. “It’s not working.” Rajiah’s hand was a warm weight on his stomach. The only welcomed warmth, a pleasant one, as the rest of his body burned. He focused on Rajiah’s face, on the way his features pinched, brow furrowed and frown deepened. “I can feel it. The child—it feels twisted, restless, it won’t calm.”
“It’s dying,” Adalaide said, voice grim. “We may need to let it go.”
“No!” Rajiah snapped. “We can’t!”
“Rajiah,” Adalaide snapped back, eyes flaring. “I know how you feel, but at this rate—Dylan’s body may not—”
His understanding went hazy as his mind was sent reeling. Child. Dying. Child. Dying. His child. His child was dying. His child was dying inside him. He had failed his child. His body was killing his child.
The pain from the knife inside his belly increased tenfold as the knowledge hit him.
He groaned, low and pained, desperate and primal as he struggled again, only to have the pressure on his limbs increase.
He was vaguely aware of the hot tears that coursed down his cheeks.
There was a distant shout, and he felt the bodies around him stiffen. He tilted his head, lifting it a fraction to look down the length of his body. Through the tears and the haze, he saw a small body press up into Rajiah’s side. A small boy. Tanned skin. A mop of dark, curly hair. Eyes wide and fearful, morbidly fascinated as he gazed at Dylan’s belly.
Remi.
His small, plump lips and chubby cheeks were relaxed, confused and awed. He turned to Rajiah, whispering something. Rajiah whispered back, and when he turned to look back at Dylan, his small lips were pursed, tiny brows hilariously furrowed.
He squared his tiny shoulders and stepped forward, out of his father’s warmth and shelter. Rajiah said something, but made no move to stop him. His face was slack in surprise, awe shining in his eyes as Remi stopped at Dylan’s side, leaning forward without hesitation to put his tiny hands flat against his belly.
Dylan’s insides recoiled, flipping and twisting, but he still couldn’t move.
The witches’ light began to fade as they leaned back, giving the little boy room. Room for what, Dylan didn’t know—
He watched as Remi’s own hands began to glow. His eyes were backlit with light, pupils slit. He was still many years from his first transformation, but the small boy was tapping into his inherited dragon power. Dylan could tell from the look on Rajiah’s face that it was abnormal and unheard of.
Remi breathed in deep, entire tiny body moving with it, and when he exhaled, he pushed down. Dylan’s back arched. The pressure should have hurt, but it didn’t. Instead, he felt a rush of relief flow through him. A cleansing fire, a welcome heat pushed through his belly, spreading out through his torso and limbs, burning away the wildfire, calming it to mere embers, leaving a cool relief in its wake.
His back arched higher, a small gasp escaping his lips.
And then it was gone. All the pain. All the sharp, twisting pain. All the fire. All the aches. He was left cool and numb and exhausted.
He collapsed back to the ground, breathing heavily, tryin
g to figure out what was happening.
He could hear voices, a chaos of emotions behind them. He couldn’t pick them out. Couldn’t understand them. Couldn’t read them.
The numbness had its own appeal. Relief flooded through him, relaxing his body, making him feel boneless and lifeless on the cold ground. He closed his eyes, letting the cool night air dance across his heated skin.
He felt at peace, and he embraced it, letting sleep take him.
_______________________
From then on, his moments of consciousness were scattered and vague, barely remembered through the fog. His mind lifted from unconsciousness briefly, never fully able to shake it, before falling back under again. It left him with fractions of memories and sensations that were difficult to piece together.
He remembered the sensation of being carried, body limp and heavy, but oddly weightless as he was moved, cradled in arms that had an unfamiliar scent.
He remembered voices, whispers, murmurs. They were no longer panicked and frantic, but they were no less worried. Some of them sounded confused, perhaps even awed, but there was still uncertainty there, even if Dylan couldn’t quite grasp the words.
He remembered the scents of his pack, the Shadow Pack. He remembered the scent of the witches. He remembered the scent of smoke and herbs clinging to all of them, lifting from their clothes and brushing against his nose whenever a breeze rolled by.
He remembered being set down, laid down on something soft. He remembered feeling people moving constantly around him. He remembered hands on his forehead, on his belly. He remembered the sensation of wet rags cleaning him.
He remembered the stomach-dropping sensation of movement, of a plane taking off, and briefly realized they must be leaving. He remembered a small body huddling close to his, small hands occasionally resting on his belly, gentle but firm, protective. He remembered the tiny energy, fierce, even as it was slight.
