Hearts Aflame Collection IV: 4-Book Bundle

by Melissa F. Hart

  “You cannot think of those things now,” her mother said, her tone becoming overly stern. “You must be strong for your baby. You need to be positive.”

  “You’re right.” Erin ran a hand over her stomach and smiled sleepily to herself. Her baby had ceased kicking, probably falling in to a perfect, restful sleep. Sometimes, she imagined how safe babies must feel, locked away from the outside world without any knowledge of darkness or evil. To her baby, the world must seem a pure and perfect place. How cruel life can be to steal that from the youth.

  “Are you going to bed soon?” her mother asked. “You need to rest. The baby will soon be here.”

  “I guess so.” Erin warily eyed the street beyond. She didn’t trust the darkness. With some effort, she stood up and waddled over to her window, pulling the curtains closed. Flicking on a light, the living room was immediately bathed in an artificial glow that offered her some comfort.

  “Is it weird that I sleep with the lights on now?” Erin asked absently.

  “Not at all, it’s whatever makes you feel safe.”

  “I’d feel a whole lot safer if you were here,” Erin admitted sadly.

  “But you wouldn’t be,” her mother replied ambiguously.

  Erin was too tired to pick up on the comment. Her body was aching, sending deep throbs down her back. Her eyelids had grown heavy and she suddenly longed for the release of sleep, even though she knew it wouldn’t come. It never did.

  “I’m so tired,” Erin declared, feeling that the statement had become her catchphrase of late.

  “Then go rest,” her mother urged from her home miles away, the phone line the only connection between them.

  Erin shuffled out of her chair and, keeping the phone to her ear, began to climb up her staircase with slow, methodical steps.

  “I’m heading up to bed,” Erin explained as her breathing deepened.

  “Good.”

  “I just…don’t feel safe here.” Erin reached the top of the stairs and took a moment to catch her breath.

  “You can’t think like that, everything will be fine.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Erin asked skeptically.

  “I just can be. Now go get in bed. I’ll stay on the line until you fall asleep if that will help?”

  “Thanks.” Erin smiled slightly at the kind gesture. During her pregnancy, she’d become closer to her mother than she ever thought was possible. Finally they had a joint purpose; the baby who would soon be born. It unified them in a way neither thought would ever happen.

  Before she climbed into bed, Erin peered out at the street from behind her curtains. Everything appeared normal. Cars were neatly lined up on driveways; the street was dotted with various pools of light dropped down from the streetlights above. The world seemed quiet and at peace.

  Satisfied, Erin turned away from the window and climbed into bed, leaving her bedside light on as she did so.

  “I appreciate you calling me,” she said sleepily into the phone, which she placed on the pillow beside her.

  “I just want to be there for you,” her mother answered.

  Rolling over, Erin dared to close her eyes, her body begging for the release of sleep. She hoped that this night she could be left to rest and dream.

  “Goodnight,” she called out dreamily to her mother as the world fell away.

  ***

  Erin jolted awake, as she did every night. Her eyes squinted painfully into the room, which was illuminated by her bedside lamp. Erin could no longer sleep in complete darkness. Within her chest, her heart raced madly. Something had woken her abruptly, and she already sensed that she knew what it was.

  Reaching across the bed, Erin retrieved the handset on which she had been speaking to her mother. Raising it to her ear, she could hear that the line was now disconnected. Her mother had listened until her daughter was sleeping soundly and then ended the call. But that was a couple of hours ago. Erin was now awake and alone and fearful that her home was once more under siege.

  Sitting up in bed, Erin ran a hand through her bedraggled hair before rubbing her protruding stomach in a gesture to sooth both herself and her baby. Since waking, she’d not yet heard the sound that she was convinced was responsible for breaking her rest.

  Barely daring to breathe, Erin sat and strained to hear the now familiar bloodcurdling sound. Around her, the house seemed teasingly stoic, almost mocking her. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Had she dreamed the terrible sound?

  No, Erin was certain that she must have heard it to have woken up. Tensely, she sat on her bed and waited.

  After a few moments, her patience was rewarded. Sounding as if it came from directly beneath her window, there was a low, plaintive howl, which immediately chilled Erin to her core.

  Night after night, the howling awoke her. Sometimes it sounded like there was just one animal howling into the night, other times there seemed to be many voices, stringing together in one long desperate cry.

  Biting her lip, Erin wrapped her arms protectively around herself and burrowed beneath her bed sheets.

  The howl pierced the dark night air once more, carrying up to her.

  Erin pictured some wolf or dog, beneath her window, crying out to her. The image troubled her deeply though she didn’t understand why. Dogs howling was hardly a new phenomenon, yet since she became pregnant, the howling had intensified.

  Initially there would be a single howling cry every other night, then it became a nightly occurrence before ultimately there were numerous voices crying out. At times, it sounded as though her home were entirely surrounded by canine creatures.

  In her more logical moments, Erin told herself that it was all nothing more than coincidence. She blamed Sean and his crazy theories for getting inside her head and making her question her own reality.

  But there was a menacing undertone to the howls that Erin couldn’t ignore. To anyone else, it would perhaps sound mournful; a wolf crying out for its lost pack, but to Erin it sounded sinister. A creature was calling out, not for others, but for her. Each time she heard the howl, she was certain that it was a warning. It was the reason she could not sleep through its terrible moaning.

  “Just go away,” Erin hissed the words to herself.

  She’d become so distraught about the noises at night that she’d even approached her neighbors about it, and their responses troubled her.

  “Have you heard all that howling at night?” Erin asked her neighbor, Frank, one morning when she went to retrieve her mail.

  Frank was divorced and in his mid-forties. His three children came to stay with him on alternate weekends. He was pleasant with a bright smile, crinkled eyes and a receding hairline. When Erin had first moved in, he’d invited her out for a drink and she’d politely declined. Not that Frank wasn’t handsome for his age, but perhaps he was too safe. As her mother would say, there was no darkness in Frank. He was a wholesome, decent guy. He worked in accounts, paid his mortgage on time and tried to be the best father he could be to his children.

  For Erin, Frank would have been a decent dating prospect, which was precisely the reason she turned him down.

  Gazing at him in the pale morning light, Erin wished she could yearn for someone free of darkness and danger. Frank was a good man. Why couldn’t Erin have fallen for him?

  “Howling?” Frank looked puzzled as he stood beside his mailbox in his sweats and white tee. Erin couldn’t help but notice that for his age he was in decent shape. She wished the same could be said for herself. With her swollen stomach, her entire body looked bloated and disproportionate. She missed her pre-pregnancy svelte physique.

  “Yeah, at night I keep getting woken up by howling.” Erin blushed as she explained, already feeling foolish for having brought it up.

  Frank looked at her and shook his head. “I’ve not heard anything. Perhaps there are some stray dogs about. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  He went to leave, to return to his house and his new girlfriend. While she was
n’t nearly as attractive as Erin, she was close to Frank’s age, also divorced and most importantly, available. Frank wasn’t the sort of man to pine after a woman who wasn’t interested in him.

  Erin sometimes wondered what he thought of her; pregnant and abandoned by the father. She wondered if Frank judged her, but he seemed too kind for that. She imaged he perhaps pitied her for ending up in such an unenviable position.

  “Your children haven’t heard anything?” Erin called after him, desperate for some acknowledgement that someone else had heard the infernal howling.

  “They’ve not mentioned anything,” Frank replied, sadness pinching at the edge of his eyes. He did pity Erin; she saw it then. He pitied her because she was alone in a house without anyone to make her feel safe.

  “Okay.” Erin smiled thinly, wishing she’d never brought it up.

  “It’s a difficult time, being pregnant,” Frank commented sympathetically. “You just need to rest and take it easy. If I hear anything strange at night, I’ll make sure to check it out.”

  Erin’s smile broadened. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.” Frank waved at her before disappearing back in to his house. Erin watched him leave as a sinking feeling avalanched through her.

  Frank was kind and chivalrous. He wouldn’t just leave the woman who was carrying his child. Not like Sean.

  Erin’s hands bunched at her sides. Every time she thought about Sean, her blood almost boiled over in rage. This tended to coincide with her baby kicking her, as though mirroring the agitation in her thoughts.

  ***

  In her bed, Erin tried to wish the howling away but it seemed to only grow louder. There were multiple voices now, all howling in unison. It felt like they were on every side of her house. How could Frank possibly sleep through it all? It was almost deafening.

  As the pitch within the howl intensified, Erin fearfully crept from her bed, desperate to peek from a window and catch a glimpse of one of the canine callers. She’d never yet actually seen anything around her house, which made her feel as though she were losing her mind. From the level of sound, she was certain that as soon as she peered from behind her curtains she’d see a circle of wolves all neatly arranged around her home, their heads bent back to the moon as they released their high, drawn out cry.

  Taking careful, quiet steps, Erin approached her bedroom window and the howling seemed even louder. Keeping one hand protectively wrapped around her stomach, she carefully peeled back her curtain and looked out in to the night.

  To her surprise, the world appeared as it should. There were cars neatly parked on driveways, currently dark and idle. Homes were cast in shadow as the occupants soundly slept. There seemed to be no one or nothing outside, yet the howling persisted.

  Erin strained to focus her attention closer to her house, to the wall directly beneath her bedroom window. As she lowered her eyes, she heard something move in the bushes by her front door. She caught a fleeting glimpse of something silver and then the howling suddenly ceased.

  Desperately, her eyes searched the point below her bedroom window, trying to find what she had seen, but now there was only darkness. At least the howling had stopped. Sighing wearily, Erin considered going back to bed. She yearned to creep back in beneath the covers and just sleep. But she knew that the moment she dared to close her eyes again, the howling would resume, it always did.

  “Dammit.” Erin moaned in frustration at her sudden desire to urinate. She felt that she spent half her life on the toilet now that her baby was pressing down on her bladder. Reluctantly, she stood up and walked over to her en suite bathroom, grateful for its proximity to her bed. Since seeing the glimpse of something silver, she didn’t fancy venturing out beyond her bedroom while it was still dark.

  Sat on the toilet and grateful for the relief, Erin tried to bring the brief image she’d seen outside to the forefront of her mind. Had it just been a trick of the light or had she actually seen something? The howling had certainly stopped, which made her believe that she’d spooked whatever it was that was so determined to keep a vigil beneath her bedroom window. But what was it? Surely it wasn’t a wolf? It all made no sense. Erin refused to believe Sean’s mad theories, even in her fragile state.

  Eventually, she made her way back to her bed. Still, the world outside remained quiet and peaceful. Erin felt relieved that the howling was now gone, at least for the time being. She looked eagerly at her bed. It looked so comfortable and inviting.

  As she lowered herself down and pulled the sheets tightly around her, she glanced uncertainly at her bedside light. She considered turning it off. A part of her thought that it signaled to whatever it was outside that she was still awake. If the house was plunged into darkness, the howling might not resume.

  But the thought of being alone in the darkness filled Erin with terror. Considering her mother was so certain that she desired the dark, Erin now cowered in its presence, unable to tolerate it even for a second. She yearned for the safe glow of light, to have no shadows to conceal any potential dangers. Within the light, Erin felt safe. The lamp would remain on.

  “Werewolves aren’t real,” Erin told the empty space around her. She was trying to console her worried mind. She kept fretting over what she had potentially seen. That flash of silver, it could have been the fur of something, the fur of a wolf.

  “Werewolves aren’t real,” she said again, like a child at bedtime repeating the mantra about there being no monsters in the closet or beneath the bed. She needed to reassure her fears, to remind herself of how ludicrous it all was.

  “You’re just tired,” she told herself, rolling over on to her side, which took her a couple of attempts to achieve.

  She lay awake, waiting for the return of the howling but everything remained silent and still. A peaceful atmosphere fell over her bedroom, which was a welcome respite from the feelings of terror and unease she’d been experiencing. Erin allowed herself to relax. Glancing at her bedside clock, she saw that it was only two in the morning. She dared to believe that she could actually get some sleep. The prospect was too delicious for words. Erin longed for sleep like a man wandering the desert longs for water.

  Just as Erin was on the cusp of sleep, her body jolted her back to a state of high alert. This time it wasn’t the howling beyond her window that had woken her but a sharp, persistent stabbing pain that fanned out from her stomach and consumed the lower half of her body.

  ***

  “Argh!” Erin called out to the emptiness in agony as the fire of pain burnt through her body.

  “Argh!” she cried again as a second surge of pain swept over her.

  Managing to sit up, Erin curled herself in to a ball, protectively running her hands over her baby bump. She had no idea what was happening, only that it was excruciatingly painful.

  She cried out again as a fresh batch of stabbing sensations ballooned within her. If the howling hadn’t managed to wake her neighbors, she had no doubt that her screaming would.

  Perspiration prickled on her forehead as Erin rocked back and forth on her bed, taking long, deep breaths, trying not to let the pain overwhelm her. A persistent, worried voice at the back of her head questioned if she was going in to labor, but she dismissed it. If she were going in to labor, her waters would have broken. Besides, she wasn’t due for another week yet.

  “Argh.” She winced in pain, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them again she fixated on the phone, still atop her spare pillow. As she eyed it, she considered calling her mother. But what good would that do? Her mother lived several hours away. Erin needed more than soothing words spoken through a telephone, she needed actual, physical help. The pain pulsating through her was so great that she doubted she could even make it off the bed unaided.

  She wished for Sean. In spite of everything, she wished he was there to offer a hand for her to hold if nothing else. If only she hadn’t been so quick to judge and send him away.

  ***

  “You’re going to be a
single mom?” the nurse had asked, raising an eyebrow, pity coating each word.

  Laid out on the bed in a most inelegant position, Erin could only nod.

  “You’re so brave, I can’t imagine how tough that would be,” the young blonde nurse continued.

  “I’ll be fine,” Erin replied curtly. She didn’t enjoy discussing the finer details of her personal life with strangers. But each time she attended a hospital appointment alone, she felt dozens of pairs of judgmental eyes upon her. She could just imagine what they were saying; wondering why she was alone and why the father wasn’t there.

  Throughout her life, Erin had felt strong and independent. She’d never felt like she needed a man to complete her. But there, in the hospital, carrying Sean’s baby, she suddenly felt like only one half of a whole and that she was inexplicably incomplete. It was a feeling that made her feel weak and vulnerable. She hated feeling that way.

  “What happened to the father?” the nurse dared to ask, not picking up on Erin’s cold demeanor.

  Erin never knew how to answer when presented with his question. Saying that he left painted her to be some poor, defenseless victim who had made some bad choices in life. Erin didn’t like being seen as a victim. As much as she felt weak and vulnerable in her present state, she didn’t want other people to view her that way too, else it risked sticking long after her baby had been born. No, she still wanted people to perceive her as strong and independent, even if she no longer did.

  “We broke up.” Erin kept her answer as vague as possible.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” The nurse sounded genuinely dismayed to hear this. “I’m sure you’ll be a great mom though.”

  Erin smiled at this. Throughout the drama of her pregnancy, she’d not taken the time to stop and query just how ready for motherhood she really was, but she felt comforted to know that even a complete stranger had faith in her capabilities to raise a child.