by Sam Crescent
She pressed a hand to her stomach and tried to settle her nerves, but nothing was happening.
“Here, you’re not going to relax until you can watch.” Caleb handed her a pair of binoculars.
Lucy took them, pointing them at where the witches and warlocks were advancing. They had gotten through her first two barriers, and now they were coming for her. She saw Matthew at the head of the pack with Emma, Guy, and her parents behind them.
They were all risking their lives for her, and she couldn’t handle it.
Rubbing at her chest, she gasped as Matthew pounced, and the attack started.
She felt Caleb’s wolf tense up, wanting to be out there.
Lucy couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sit here watching as the pack that was her family, regardless of how they had treated her, fought. She cared about them.
Dropping the binoculars, she rushed down the steps of the clock tower.
“Lucy!”
“I’m not going to put them at risk, and not be with them, Caleb. You would never forgive me.” She ran out of the tower and closed her eyes, transporting herself in front of Matthew and the pack, between the witches. “You wanted a witch. I’m right here.”
She shot them with magic, sending them rushing away.
Lucy watched in horror as Caleb came charging at the other end.
Closing her eyes, she quickly arrived at Caleb’s side. He was shaking a warlock in his jaw, and the pack was back to fighting.
“Lucy, get Caleb out,” Matthew said. “Please, save him.”
She sent fireballs at warlocks and witches, fighting them as her pack fought them.
Witches and warlocks were stronger than the wolves, and it wasn’t long before she saw a fireball shot at Guy, and he went down.
“No!”
Lucy couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t see the pack die because of her.
Staring around the pack, she saw them all falling. She wasn’t going to let the only family she had ever known to die.
At her feet, a fallen warlock and witch lay dead. Their dark souls were evident in their veins and their eyes. Reaching out, she grabbed the blade that she saw within their cloak, and slit both of her wrists. Opening up their wrists, too, she connected them all through blood, whispering the incantation that bound both covens. To rid herself of magic, she had to give the ultimate sacrifice through blood. It was dark magic, and why most witches and warlocks would never do the spell. She didn’t care about her magic, and it had never defined her as a person. Lucy had lived more of her life without magic than she had actually using it.
Getting to her feet, she held onto their hands, and watched as they all connected to each other in one unique cause, to kill her. This was what bound the warlocks and witches—they wanted to kill her, and their mission would help her to kill every single one of them.
She closed her eyes, opened them, and drew to the fore the magic that she’d been given. Lucy rushed it through the connection with the witches and the warlocks.
Their enemies stood in horror as they saw what she was doing. They were frozen, and Lucy wasn’t going to stop. She was going to make sure their kind of evil was sent straight to hell.
“Lucy, baby, stop.”
“They’re dark souls, Caleb. I love you, and I won’t let you kill yourself for me.” She whispered the words that made him stay in the same spot.
“Lucy, no!”
“I’m sorry.”
She forced her magic, letting it take over. Even as it started to burn her, she kept on doing it. The magic was too much, and she’d never asked for it. She’d only ever wanted to be part of the pack, never be this magical witch whom people wanted to kill. By the end of this day, she would be human. She hoped her parents were right, and she’d still be breathing at the end of it all.
****
Caleb screamed her name even as the power had him covering his face. He struggled to watch as her wrists bled. The life of his mate drained from her, the magic being forced into her fellow witches and warlocks, consuming them by their evil.
“I love you, Caleb.”
A large explosion broke the spell that had him frozen and threw him across the ground, and he crashed into a house, gasping.
It was the house that Lucy had lived in with Adele and Kyle.
He heard Bianca screaming, and then she was in the room.
“Caleb?”
Getting to his feet, he gasped out as some wood had splintered and entered his body. “Ow.”
Getting to his feet, he made his way outside with Bianca close behind him. The houses were a mess. Windows were smashed, and roofs caved in. The devastation would take them time to repair. He rushed toward the town square where Lucy had been.
Grief tore him apart as he saw his father, holding her body.
Rushing to him, he grabbed a lifeless Lucy in his arms, and sat on the ground, holding her. “Baby, what did you do? No, no, no, no, no, no, no! This wasn’t supposed to happen. You’re supposed to be alive.”
“The witches and warlocks, they’re all gone, Caleb.”
“Gone?”
“No bodies. They disappeared into ash, and Lucy smiled and crashed to the ground.”
He pressed his fingers against her pulse, and felt nothing. “She’s supposed to come back to me.”
“I guess it’s not true, son. I wish it was. I believed she’d come back to us.”
“No. I’m not going to accept that. She’s my mate. She’s my life. Her parents wouldn’t have told her that to just die! She’s not dead.” He placed her on the floor, and started to compress her chest, and breathe into her mouth.
“Caleb, man,” Guy said, coughing.
He looked up to see his friend was holding his arm against his side. Guy looked like shit. Bianca wrapped her arms around him, and the wolf inside Caleb howled at the unfairness of it.
Breathing into Lucy’s mouth, he pressed her chest. “I’m not going to stop. She didn’t ask for this. She was only trying to save us. She gave up her magic for the pack, and I’m not just going to let her die.”
“She is dead,” Matthew said.
“No!” He screamed out the words, cupping Lucy’s face. “Baby, come on. Remember what I told you, don’t be the heroine. You’re coming back to me, and I won’t accept no for an answer. I’m not going to let you do this to me.”
He pressed his face against her neck, holding her close.
His wolf howled in pain.
Every part of him hurt for the loss of his mate.
Don’t go, Lucy. Don’t leave me. We’ve got to have ten kids, and live happily ever after.
He squeezed her tightly against him, hoping, praying, and wishing for a miracle.
It came.
Lucy took a deep breath, coughed, and gasped.
He leaned back, and watched as her chest started to inflate and deflate.
She reached up, rubbing the back of her head. “Ouch!”
“Lucy, baby.”
Her blue eyes opened, and she looked up at him. “Are you mad at me?”
“You died. You weren’t breathing.”
“Clarissa and Andrew failed to mention that it was going to hurt like hell. I felt the magic leave my body.” She held her palm out, and nothing happened. Lucy smiled. “It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
Lucy looked around at the debris. “They’re gone, and so is my magic.”
“What the hell happened?” Guy asked.
Lucy dropped her hand. “I saw what was happening, and I couldn’t let them kill you, any of you. My magic is not natural. A witch and warlock together are too powerful, and I used that power, only I fed it through to them, binding them together. I believe it took them straight to hell—all of them were evil, as they’d even sacrificed children in their search for power. Doing that stripped me of my powers. I never wanted to be a witch. I was happier before I got my powers. This is who I am.” She touched her body, tears shining in her eyes. “This is me, and I feel whole again.�
�� She touched his cheek.
“You’re not a witch anymore?”
“God, no. I’m so damn happy about that,” she said. “I was doing some weird poltergeist stuff in my sleep. You’re not mad are you?”
Caleb hesitated. “Yes, I’m fucking mad.” She was in his arms, but she could have died completely.
Caleb helped her to her feet and held her close. He wasn’t the only one who was happy to have her back. His parents, then her own, and their friends, embraced her. The pack each gave their thanks, even Patricia who’d been in the back.
“Thank you.”
He took hold of her hand, and they moved around the small town, assessing the damage that had been caused.
“I did all this?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Caleb didn’t let her go as they made their way around the village.
His emotions had been torn apart and brought back together in a matter of minutes. The pack spent their night out in the main square. He didn’t let her go. He wasn’t ready for that.
Caleb sat with her between his legs as they ate some food.
“And you’re really angry with me?” she asked.
“Yes. I asked you not to be a heroine,” he said. “I almost lost you today, but…” He seemed to think. “Seeing you with your powers, they were going to kill you anyway, and I couldn’t live without you.”
“You didn’t lose me. We’ve got time together now. My powers, they were going to kill me.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s all a bit surreal right now.” She lifted her hand, and he covered hers with his.
“Do you miss them?” he asked, kissing the top of her head.
“The powers?”
“Yes.”
“No. They scared me. I couldn’t control them, not really. They were always growing, always getting stronger. I’d never be able to truly control them. I’d be at their mercy.” Lucy looked up toward him. “I couldn’t let anything happen to you. I saw Guy go down, and I freaked out. He was my best friend’s mate, and you’re mine. I wasn’t going to let anything happen.”
Cupping her cheek, he stroked her flesh, wiping away some of the dirt that still remained. They needed to get washed. In fact, they all needed to get washed, but they’d been dealing with the cleanup of the disaster.
There wasn’t time for them to mope around about what needed to be done.
“You scared me.” He stared into her eyes.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Are you okay with me being just human? I’ll need you to take care of me now.”
“You’ve earned the respect and love of the pack. I think you’ll do okay.” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “Besides, we’ve got years before we need to worry about taking over the pack. We’ve got enough time to find that house of ours, and for me to finish my training with my father. I’d take you anyway I could get you, babe, human, witch, demon—I don’t care.”
“Thank you,” Bianca said, moving to stand beside them.
She and Guy lowered down to the ground, sitting opposite them.
“What for?” Caleb asked.
“For saving him. If you’d not done what needed to be done, I wouldn’t have a mate by now.” Tears spilled from Bianca’s eyes. “I kept attacking the shield that you’d placed on the basement in your house. I felt the moment you died as it just ceased to exist.”
Caleb had felt his heart torn in two when she sacrificed herself.
“Please, Bianca, Caleb’s going to struggle to forgive me for what I did.” Lucy left his arms and held onto her friend. “I couldn’t let anyone hurt you or your mate, and that was exactly what was happening.”
“I’m thankful for what you did, but I couldn’t lose you,” Bianca said. “You’re my best friend.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, you can spend weeks making up for it.”
He felt Lucy laugh. “I can live with that.”
“Good.”
An hour later, he took Lucy back home. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight, so he bathed with her, never leaving her side.
Only when she was tucked up naked in his bed, did he relax.
“We’re going to need to repair the town.”
“It’s already being organized.”
“I can’t believe we woke up this morning wrapped around each other, and after everything that has happened, we’re here again.”
“I’m just so fucking thankful that we’re together. I can’t live without you, Lucy, and I don’t ever want to find a reason to not be with you.”
She looked up at him. “You’re the one that made me want to be better.”
“You’re a good person, Lucy. You even lost the black strands from your hair.”
Lucy chuckled. “I’d make it up to you tonight, but I’m exhausted, and you’re hurt.”
She had bandaged him up earlier from the splinters of wood that had been inside his body.
“We’ve got a lifetime.”
Epilogue
One year later
They had their new house, which was set back onto the forest, and near Bianca’s and Guy’s place. The pack did accept Lucy as one of their own, and they didn’t make her fight for her place. Being human once again was refreshing. Her powers had always scared her as she never truly knew how to control them.
Caleb never treated her any differently. His love surrounded her, and she never once felt anything less than what she was. She was his mate, and he devoted many hours to showing her how much he loved her.
“You’ve got to push, Bianca.”
“In a couple of weeks this is going to be you,” Bianca said, screaming.
Her best friend had gotten pregnant before her, and they were in Guy’s and Bianca’s home as she gave birth to their first child.
Lucy patted her stomach. She’d had a rocky pregnancy, throwing up during the first trimester, pain in her back during the second, and being nothing but horny during the third. Caleb liked the third trimester better than the others.
She loved the whole pregnancy.
Currently, Caleb was keeping Guy downstairs as whenever he heard Bianca in pain, he tended to lose his mind, and go a bit crazy. A crazy Guy was not what Bianca needed right now. Emma was between Bianca’s legs. As they were wolves, they couldn’t go to a human hospital, and Emma was a trained midwife, and had helped to birth most of the babies in the pack.
Lucy was terrified. They had talked many hours about what to do with her. She didn’t know if she was going to a human hospital or doing it at home like Bianca. Now that she could no longer turn her pain off, she wanted drugs, lots of them to numb the pain.
Bianca wasn’t allowed to hold Lucy’s hand as she wasn’t strong enough to take the wolf strength, so they were using metal grips.
“Come on, honey, push.”
The push was long, hard, and they were rewarded with a very healthy scream.
“You have a son, Bianca,” Emma said.
Emma finished preparing him, and then handed Bianca a little bundle of screaming baby.
“He’s so beautiful.”
They heard Guy and Caleb rushing upstairs, and seconds later, both men were inside the room.
Kissing her friend’s temple, Lucy waddled toward her husband’s side. Caleb had married her in front of the pack. She had a ring on her finger and a mating mark on her neck. She belonged to him in the eyes of the law, and the pack.
“How are you holding up?” Caleb asked, placing an arm around her shoulders, and then one across her stomach.
“I want to go to the hospital. I want lots of drugs, nurses, and doctors who can take the pain away.”
He chuckled. “Okay, you’ll get what you want.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. They stood together, watching their friends as they welcomed their little bundle of joy.
She was so happy. The happiest she had ever been.
Right then, her baby kicked, and Caleb chuckled. “He’s going t
o be a little fighter.”
“He? It could be a girl.”
“We’ll find out.”
“I say we make a bet. If it’s a girl, you become my slave for a month,” she said.
Caleb kissed her neck. “If I win, and it’s a boy, I expect you at my beck and call for two months.”
Her pussy grew slick, as either option was appealing to her. She loved having sex with her husband, and she had even grown out of being conscious about her nakedness. Caleb didn’t like the pack seeing her naked, which helped a lot.
“Deal!”
Two weeks later, to Lucy’s fear, her waters broke, and she didn’t have time to make it to hospital. Within twenty minutes, her mother-in-law helped her to give birth to a baby girl, and helped her to win that bet.
Abigail was their first child of ten.
The End
www.samcrescent.wordpress.com
Other Books by Sam Crescent:
www.evernightpublishing.com/sam-crescent
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