***
The ambulance ride to the hospital was a blur. Paramedics frantically hooked Erin up to various IV drips and monitored the vital signs of her and her baby.
“Baby is almost here,” a blond paramedic yelled to his colleagues who were driving.
“It’s okay,” they told him calmly, “we’re pulling to St. Jude’s now.”
Erin was wheeled away from the ambulance on a gurney and taken straight to the maternity ward, where she had no time to catch her breath; the time had come to push.
Sean had accompanied her in the ambulance and beneath the fluorescent glow of the strip lights above her he held on to Erin’s hand, delivering words of encouragement.
“You can do this,” he told her certainly.
“I’m so tired,” Erin gasped, feeling defeated.
“You can do this, Erin. I know you can.”
“Just listen to your boyfriend.” The nurse who was with them smiled in a friendly manner. Normally Erin would be quick to correct her, stating that Sean was not her boyfriend, but suddenly it didn’t seem to matter. If anything, she was quite happy to exist beneath the façade that they were actually a legitimate couple.
To anyone looking in, they seemed the picture of happiness. Sean was holding her hand, his handsome features twisted with concern as Erin gasped and panted, trying to deliver their child in to the world. No one would guess what had transpired before their journey to the hospital. They appeared perfectly normal.
***
Just before dawn came creeping over the horizon, Erin gave birth to a baby boy. Sean was on hand to cut the umbilical cord and both he and Erin openly wept upon the arrival of their new son.
“He’s perfect,” the nurse proudly told the new parents as she handed the small bundle to Erin. “Ten fingers and ten toes.”
“He’s so tiny.” Erin smiled. Her entire body sobbed with exhaustion but she ignored it. Meeting her little boy made her feel renewed.
“He’s amazing,” Sean cooed, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. Erin looked up at him and smiled fondly. In her most desperate moments, when she’d truly needed him, he’d been there for her. She still couldn’t explain how that happened, but he’d done more than just saved her life, he’d saved their son’s too.
“I’m just glad he’s here, that everything is alright,” Erin breathed, her shoulders finally lowering in relaxation.
Sean’s body language remained stiff and rigid, even in the face of the euphoria he felt over meeting his newborn son.
“We can’t discuss anything, not here,” Sean told Erin, his voice low.
“Why not?”
“It’s not safe,” Sean disclosed, moving to the door and glancing nervously along the hospital corridor.
“It’s a hospital,” Erin objected. “Of course it’s safe.”
“Trust me, it’s not. They can get anywhere.”
“Who can?” Erin asked as she felt her heart sink like a dead weight within her chest. Sean might have been back, but so were his paranoid delusions.
Erin was still struggling to make sense of what happened back at her house, the last thing she needed was Sean fearing some ominous ‘they’.
“What shall we call him?” Sean came back over to Erin, wearing a large, proud smile, his paranoia suddenly gone.
The question caught Erin off guard and made her forget her previous anger toward him. Looking down at her little baby boy, she tried to think of the perfect name for him.
He already had his father’s dark, intense eyes and a generous covering of dark hair upon his head, courtesy of his mother. He looked to be the perfect symmetry of their best features.
“He’ll grow up to be strong and bold,” Sean whispered, looking down on the small baby who looked back at him with confused yet curious eyes.
“He’ll be handsome,” Erin cooed. “Just like his father.” She surprised herself with the compliment, which Sean seemed to like as he placed an arm around Erin. Even though she was still angry with him, it felt good to feel him so close to her. She’d missed his scent, how his body felt against hers.
“Why don’t we call him Jack?” Sean suggested. “That was my grandfather’s name,” he added as explanation.
“Jack.” Erin said the name aloud and looked down at her baby and he gurgled contentedly upon hearing it.
“He seems to like it.” She smiled.
“I think it suits him,” Sean agreed, drawing closer to mother and baby.
“Well hello then, Jack, welcome to the big wide world,” Erin whispered to the gurgling baby. “I’m your mommy and this is your saddy.”
It felt good to say the words aloud, to be able to let Jack meet his father. For so long, Erin doubted she would ever see Sean again yet here he was.
“I’m surprised you came back,” Erin admitted.
“Came back?” Sean echoed in confusion.
“For so long I thought you’d never return, that you were gone for good.” Erin thought of the countless nights she’d wept out of loneliness, the sense of abandonment cutting through her like a knife.
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“Sean, you left. You told me all that…stuff.” She kept her description vague only to avoid agitating Sean, not out of a belief that there was some evil ‘they’ out to get them and possibly even at the hospital.
“And I sent you away. I thought you’d never return. But you did, you came back, right when I needed you most.” Erin looked up at Sean and smiled gratefully. He leant down and kissed her softly one the cheek.
“So you think I left?” he asked her, smiling slightly as though enjoying a secret that only he knew.
“Yes.” Erin nodded.
“Erin, I never left you,” Sean told her. “I was there all along, watching over you.”
“You were?” Erin couldn’t hide her disbelief.
“I never left,” Sean confirmed. “How could I?”
Erin had so many questions dancing through her head, so many things she needed to know but sleep finally caught up on her and, as Sean carefully lifted Jack from her arms, she let her eyes fall shut and fell in to a much needed deep and dreamless sleep.
TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK FIVE: Birth Right - Volume 5
***
Birth Right
***
Opening the front door and stepping inside her home with her newborn baby in her arms, Erin felt incredibly contented. With Sean following behind, they were almost the perfect family.
Erin couldn’t help but smile and coo to baby Jack as she held him and began showing him around the place he would come to call home.
“This is the living room,” Erin explained, her voice soft and melodic. “And here is the kitchen were Mommy cooks,” she continued, making her way through the house.
She retraced her steps and came back to the hall and paused at the base of the staircase. It was the scene of so many dramas. It had become more than a connection between the upper and lower halves of the house. It was upon the stairs where she and Sean first made love.
The memory of their passionate union made Erin’s cheeks briefly flush. She placed a foot on the bottom step, preparing to ascend and then stopped herself as the memories of the night Jack was born came flooding back to her.
As she went into labor, a wolf had burst into her bedroom and then tried to attack her, but then a second wolf had entered and killed the first. It was all impossible, and yet it had happened. And the corpse of the first wolf would still be upstairs, on her bed, festering away.
Repulsed, Erin recoiled slightly, shielding Jack with her arms. This wasn’t the perfect homecoming she’d hoped for. Everything suddenly felt tainted by the presence of the dead wolf upstairs.
“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it all out,” Sean said soothingly, sensing her misgivings. He ran a caring hand down Erin’s back and smiled fondly at his son.
“Do you have a washing machine in the kitchen?” he asked as he began up the stairs.
“I want al
l the sheets burned,” Erin replied curtly. “I don’t want a single trace of that…thing, in my house.”
“Okay.” Sean nodded solemnly and then headed upstairs to commence the unpleasant task of clearing away the remains of the intruder.
Idly, Erin wandered back in to the kitchen and headed over to her laundry room. As she pushed open the door, she heard the broken glass shards skitter across the floor. A sharp breeze blew out from the small room. It was in here that the wolf had smashed through a window and initially entered her home.
The thought sickened Erin, especially now that she had Jack to consider. Protectively she held him tightly to her.
“Mommy will keep you safe,” she promised, though she wasn’t sure she could. She had no idea what she was up against, still unable to make sense of any of it.
***
When Sean was done cleaning upstairs, he found Erin in the living room with Jack now in a mobile crib, sleeping soundly.
“It’s all sorted upstairs,” Sean told Erin, noticing how she was staring blankly into space ahead of her. “Do you need to put some new sheets on or something?” he asked, stepping closer to her. “Erin?”
Erin suddenly snapped out of her spell and turned to look at him. He could immediately see that she had been crying.
“If you don’t mind, there’s a broken window in the laundry room that needs taping up,” Erin stated, sniffing slightly as she spoke. “I’ll call someone out tomorrow to replace the glass. I just don’t want to leave it open overnight.”
“Are you alright?” Sean asked, lowering himself on to the sofa beside her.
“There’s some glass to clean up too.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll sort it all,” Sean confirmed, reaching out and taking her hand in his. “But I’m worried about you. I know that this is all a lot to take in, it’s okay to be scared.”
“What exactly am I taking in?” Erin demanded, her voice trembling. She wanted to shout but she was careful to control the level of her voice, not wanting to wake Jack. “I have no idea what happened to me the other night. Something broke into my house, into my bedroom and then tried to attack and probably kill me but then something else broke in and killed it!”
“I need to show you something,” Sean declared, his voice soft yet stern.
“Show me what?”
“Just come with me, it won’t take a moment.”
Erin glanced doubtfully at Jack.
“He’ll be fine,” Sean reassured her. “Just let me show you something.”
He led Erin from her kitchen, out to her shed. He opened the door, and she saw numerous black bin bags arranged across the floor.
“What’s in those?” she asked.
“All the bedding from upstairs,” Sean explained, briefly opening one for her to glance inside for confirmation.
“But there is also this.” He directed Erin’s attention to a long, rolled up blanket that wasn’t soiled.
“I had to borrow a blanket from your closet,” Sean explained, reaching out and partly unrolling the bundle.
Erin watched him do so and gasped when she spotted the unmistakable pinkness of human skin.
“Sean! What the fuck!” she shrieked, backing out of the shed.
“When we die as wolves, we revert to our human form,” Sean explained logically.
“I wasn’t attacked by a person.” Erin began trembling. Having a dead wolf in her home was one thing, having the corpse of a person was completely different. She could go to prison for murder or at the very least accessory to a murder.
“I know, you were attacked by a wolf,” Sean consoled her. “But I needed you to see this. You need to believe that everything I told you is true.”
“You can’t just leave it there.” Erin pointed toward the bundled up body, unable to look directly at it.
“I won’t. Some members of my pack will come by tonight and help me dispose of it properly. It needs to be done under cover of darkness.”
“Your pack?”
“Erin, there is much we need to discuss.”
“I need to get back to Jack.” Erin headed back to the house, her mind is a medley of unanswerable questions. None of it made any sense. She’d been attacked by a wolf, she had seen it with her own eyes, yet someone had returned to her home and swapped the body of the wolf with a body of a man. It was the only explanation, yet it was ridiculous. Why would someone even do such a thing?
Back in her living room, Erin looked down on Jack, who was still sleeping contentedly, and felt some of the tension within her ease. Seeing her son filled her with a warm glow that she’d never known before. He made her feel at peace.
“Look, Erin, I don’t want to scare you, but you’re not safe here,” Sean said as he appeared behind her in the doorway.
Erin ignored him and continued to focus on Jack.
“The wolf who attacked you had been stalking your home for months. I did my best to keep him away but he seized his final desperate opportunity when you went into labor. He was from a rival pack and he wanted to kill both you and Jack before you could give birth to my heir.”
“Your heir?” Erin declared incredulously, turning to face Sean, her face contorted with anger. He was speaking as though he were some sort of king.
“Yes, my heir,” Sean repeated softly. “I’m the leader of my pack. When Jack grows up, he will inherit that role. It’s his birth right to be pack leader.”
“I’m tired of all your mad talk.” Erin tried to hold back tears as she spoke. This wasn’t what she wanted. She had hoped that once Jack was born, Sean would become more…normal. That his talk of werewolves and curses would stop.
At the hospital, he had been so loving, so reassuring toward her, she’d almost let herself believe that they could have a real relationship. But now he was proving that he was just as crazy as ever.
“There are no werewolves,” she stated bitterly. “Someone swapped out that wolf from my bedroom for a man. Maybe you even did it to help offer some credence to your crazed theories!”
“Erin, please, I did no such thing.”
“And now you’re bringing our son into this!” Erin’s voice rose slightly. In her fury, she was losing her control over its pitch.
“You’re in danger, can’t you see that?” Sean snapped, his voice deepening. “Whether or not you believe that a switch of the bodies was made, you can’t deny what you saw with your own eyes. You saw a wolf come to attack you and a second wolf stop it. That second wolf was me. Why do you think I was bare naked when I found you? There is a rival pack that is stalking both you and now Jack. They would stop at nothing to destroy my legacy and my pack.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, Erin, it’s not,” Sean implored. “We are born of both man and wolf. Our animal instincts often guide us. The pack mentality is strong within us, as is our desire for territorial dominance. Wolves will kill for their pack. It is brutal and very real. As long as you are here, you are in danger. They will keep striking until they’ve killed both you and Jack.”
“You’re crazy,” Erin whispered but there was a flicker of fear in her eyes. If ever his words were true, then she truly was in danger. As much as she wanted to doubt what he said, she struggled to deny what she had seen. A wolf had broken in to her home and tried to attack her, she knew that for certain.
“If you come and live with me and my pack, we can protect you and Jack. You will be safe.”
“And where’s that?” Erin demanded. “Because when I last checked, you supposedly lived in some run-down apartment. I’m not going to raise my son in that kind of squalid environment!”
“We have a ranch out in the countryside where we live as a community; I never disclose the address to anyone. We own apartments across town, which we use periodically as a cover when we need to work for money.”
“This is my home.”
“Erin, please,” Sean pleaded.
“I’m not going to leave my own home to go and live in some commune wit
h a load of fanatics!”
“You’d be family to them.”
“Why? Because we slept together?” Erin spat angrily. “It’s not like we are even together! You can’t expect me to just up and leave with you.”
Sean appeared hurt by her words, which made Erin regret saying them, but it was the truth.
“I’m staying here,” Erin said with certainty. “This is my home, this is where I will raise my son. I don’t want him around all the crazy talk of wolves and packs.”
“But that’s who he is,” Sean countered. “His heritage is that of the wolf, whether you like it or not. Just because you denied your own ancestry doesn’t mean he can. On his thirteenth birthday, he will turn for the first time and he will need me, he will need his pack.”
“I’m staying here, Sean. I don’t know what happened the other night. It doesn’t make sense, but I refuse to believe that the answer is some mythical werewolf and that I need to go and live in some ranch out in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m trying to protect our son.”
“So am I!” Erin cried. “I’m trying to protect him from your madness.”
In his cot, Jack awoke to the raised voices and began to cry. Erin picked him up and began to rub his back and pace with him in her arms but he continued to wail, his lungs working frantically to emit his woeful cry, his voice becoming hoarse.
“You should go.” Erin looked coldly at Sean.
For a moment Sean considered staying, considering reasoning with Erin further but he knew it wasn’t the right time. He left the house, but not before stealing into the backyard and quickly boarding up the broken window. He would keep Erin and Jack safe, even if she didn’t want him to.
***
That night, Erin triple checked the locks on her front and back doors, determined that nothing would break in. As she secured the dead bolts, she thought again of Sean’s warnings. He told her that she and Jack weren’t safe in her home. She refused to believe; or rather she didn’t want to. He was proposing that she abandon her life to live out in the middle of nowhere. He was asking her to sacrifice everything she had worked so hard to achieve.
Phases of Passions II (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance) Page 4
