by Noelle Marie
Part of me wanted to do just that. I wanted to open the door and throw myself in Derek’s arms, accept the comfort he was so clearly offering. But the other part of me was frozen in fear… because it knew doing that meant I would have to explain.
“What’s going on?”
I tensed at the sound of Abram’s voice joining the conversation, not quite certain if I was disappointed or relieved by his timing.
I had an inkling I knew Derek’s feelings on the matter, however, when I actually heard him grind his teeth through the door. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he muttered lowly.
“Really?” Abram pressed. “Because Thane and I heard screaming.”
A yip confirmed Thane’s presence, and an embarrassed flush licked at my cheeks. (Though I was relieved the dog had been with Abram instead of Derek and I when I’d woken from my nightmare.)
Abram’s tone wasn’t particularly critical, but Derek obviously took it as an accusation. “I said that it’s none of your goddamn business,” he bit out angrily.
The floor creaked against the weight of approaching footsteps.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Derek snapped at what was obviously Abram coming closer to the bathroom door. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll back off. Now.”
“Wisp?” Abram called through the door, apparently ignoring Derek entirely.
I froze at the sudden sound of scuffling, of flesh colliding with flesh. Thane began barking wildly.
“Jesus Christ,” Abram spat, “I’m just trying to make sure she’s okay.”
“I’m already doing that,” Derek insisted, voice half-snarl.
“Well, it looks to me like you’re doing a pretty shitty job of it,” the other man shot back.
“You think you could do any better?” Derek snapped. There was more scuffling. “Fuck, I bet you’d just love a chance at that – at her – wouldn’t you?”
I couldn’t stand listening to them fight, especially when I knew that I was the cause of their quarreling. I didn’t ever want to be responsible for creating a rift between the two men. After all, they were all each other had left of their families.
With that thought in mind, I took a deep breath before forcing myself to unlatch the dead-bolt with shaky hands and open the door.
Just as I suspected, the men were tussling. Abram had Derek by the scruff of his shirt, pressed up against the hallway wall. Abram’s nose was trickling blood, and their faces were mere inches apart as they snarled, showing each other their teeth. Thane was a few feet away, growling.
“Stop!” I yelled, beyond relieved when both men stiffened at the sound of my voice. “Both of you, stop it. Please.”
After a tense moment, Abram none-too-gently released him.
Derek immediately rushed to me – Thane not far behind – cornering me where I stood in the bathroom doorway, using his huge body to block me from Abram’s gaze. He carefully ran his hands down my arms, gently fingering the red scrapes. “Wisp,” he muttered, before swallowing, dragging his eyes to mine. “What’s going on?”
“It was just a nightmare,” I mumbled, intimidated by the intensity of his stare and allowing my gaze to drift down to the ground.
“One hell of a nightmare,” Abram muttered.
“What’s it to you?” Derek spat, whirling around to snarl at the man.
“Please don’t fight,” I begged weakly, and I must have sounded pretty pathetic because Derek immediately listened, turning back around to face me.
“What was it about?” he asked carefully, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Your nightmare?”
“It… well, I-I…” I stuttered, unsure what to say. The truth was stuck somewhere in the back of my throat, but I couldn’t bring myself to outright lie either, and I found myself subconsciously wrapping my arms around my stomach.
I could tell the exact moment the strange gesture caught Abram’s attention. He froze, understanding dawning in his eyes. “You need to tell him.”
Derek and I both tensed at the man’s stern interjection – but for very different reasons. Derek glanced back and forth between the two of us. “What’s he talking about, Wisp?” he asked. “Tell me what?”
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Abram urged. “For all his flaws, Derek is a good man. He’ll take care of you.”
“Of course I’ll fucking take care of her,” Derek spat at the man. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but if you don’t get out of here sometime in the next three seconds, I’m going to-”
But there was no need for Derek to finish his threat because Abram was already backing out of the hallway, hands held up in the air in surrender. “Tell him,” he advised solemnly, glancing my way one last time before disappearing from the room.
Derek waited for the sound of the front door slamming shut to echo through the hallway before turning back around to face me. Much like he had in the bedroom, he carefully took my face into the palms of his hands. “What’s he talking about Wisp?” he asked quietly, worry lines etched into his brow.
Tears sprang into my eyes at the sight of them. (Because I had caused them.) “I’m sorry!” I blurted.
Derek, clearly startled by the sudden outburst, immediately backtracked. “Hey now, you don’t have to be sorry, pretty girl,” he soothed. “Don’t cry. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” The fingers holding my cheeks twitched. “Abram’s just an asshole who doesn’t know when to shut his-”
“No,” I interrupted, gently prying his hands from my face. “No, Abram’s right. I do have something I need to tell you. It’s just, I don’t want you to think that Abram and I were purposefully scheming to keep this huge secret from you. I mean, I didn’t even know about it until he told me, and even then, I didn’t believe him right away, which is why-”
Derek placed a hand over my mouth, stopping me mid-ramble. “Shh,” he shushed, “relax. I know you’d never plot against me with Abram, okay? Now, just one thing at a time.” He released my mouth, taking my hands in his. “What did Abram tell you?”
I grasped onto his hands as tightly as I could, his responding squeeze giving me the courage to answer. “He told me I was pregnant.”
The hands around mine froze.
“What?” Derek whispered after a moment.
“He claimed he could smell it on me – the pheromones or something – at the motel,” I rushed to explain. “He said the only reason you couldn’t – smell it, I mean – was because you never have before – at least, not recently. Anyway, I didn’t believe him, which is why he took me shopping: to buy me a pregnancy test… which turned out to be positive.”
“You’re pregnant?” Derek repeated slowly, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard a single word that had come tumbling out of my mouth after the p-word.
I bit my lip. “Yeah,” I confirmed weakly.
Derek ripped his hands from mine, and I tried not to take it personally when he began pacing back and forth down the tiny hallway, pulling agitatedly at the roots of his hair.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted, desperately attempting to fill the uncomfortable silence that had befallen us. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you as soon as I found out.”
But Derek wasn’t even listening. He turned on me, abruptly grabbing me by my shoulders, and I barely withheld a flinch. Thane growled at the man where he sat, observing us, but neither of us of acknowledged him.
“Who did this to you?” Derek demanded, all but snarling the words at me.
I blinked.
Who... who did this to me?
Confusion and a hint of irritation broke through the guilt I was practically drowning in. Surely Derek wasn’t accusing me of… well, that.
“What do you mean, who did this to me?” I asked, the incredulity I felt leaking into my voice. “You know!”
Derek stared at me for a long time, almost like he was searching my face for some hint of deception – which was ridiculous, consider
ing if I had been lying, he would have heard it in my disjointed heartbeat.
He must have realized it, too, because after offering me a jerky – almost spastic – nod, he spun on his heel and walked away.
For a moment, I remained frozen in shock. Then I sprang into action. “Derek!” I called, hurriedly following after him, Thane not far behind. “Derek, where are you going?” I demanded.
But the man didn’t answer me, and my heart sunk when I realized he was heading towards the front door. He reached for the door knob, and in a desperate bid to stop him, I grabbed hold of the end of one of his sleeves, clutching at the frayed hem of his shirt.
But he merely jerked the fabric out of my hands.
“Derek, please,” I begged. “Don’t go.”
But he didn’t even turn to acknowledge me, and I felt a horrible kind of numbness fall over me when he jerked open the door before promptly slamming it back shut behind him.
Moments later, a jumbled sort of half-howl, half-roar reached my ears.
The sound echoed in my head as I stared at the door.
Thane, as confused by his owner’s behavior as I was, whimpered near my feet.
I stood there for an indeterminable amount of time, only snapping out of the fog I’d fallen into when the door jerked back open and Abram entered the room.
“Where’s Derek running off to so fast?” he demanded, a bewildered frown painted on his face.
“I told him,” I admitted, voice as hollow as my insides felt. “Just like you said I should. I told him about… about the…” but I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Abram’s frown deepened. “About the cub?” he finished for me.
I managed a miserable nod.
“And he left?” Abram demanded, voice as gruff as I’d ever heard it.
I managed to move my head up and down in another shaky confirmation.
I was vaguely aware of the way the man clenched and unclenched his jaw at the revelation, his hands curling into fists at his side. “Stay here,” he intoned sternly, marching towards the door. “I’ll be back in an hour, at the most. Don’t leave the house, do you understand?”
I swallowed. “I understand,” I repeated impassively.
Abram paused half-way out the door. “I… I’m sure it’s only a misunderstanding.”
I pressed my lips together. “Right,” I mumbled.
A moment later, Abram was gone, leaving Thane and I alone.
As soon as he disappeared out the door, I allowed myself to sink down onto the nearby couch, bringing my knees to my chest. Thane jumped onto the other cushion, nuzzling me, and I grasped at the dog, burying my face into his fur. “He left,” I mumbled, the numbness slowly lifting, giving life to the aching pain underneath.
It was like I was trapped in another nightmare, except this time, I was awake.
I screwed my eyes shut. “He left.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I left.
I didn’t have a choice. If I would have stayed, I’d have shifted right in front of Wisp – transformed into an enraged animal, easily three times her size and desperate to sink my teeth into the nearest thing with a pulse.
I never would have hurt Wisp – the thought was so repugnant that it didn’t even cross my mind – but the extent of my fury surely would have terrified her.
He – the bear – was incorrigible. I was incorrigible.
Wisp was pregnant.
Someone – and I had a pretty good fucking idea of who – had raped her, violated her in the worst way possible.
It shouldn’t have shocked me. That bastard – Felix, I thought viciously – had left her shackled to the wall for weeks on end. He’d made her eat from his fingers. He’d bruised her, caused her to bleed.
Why wouldn’t he do this, too?
The worst part was that I had known something was wrong. Ever since we’d rescued Wisp from that hellhole, she had been so jumpy, flinching away from me whenever I moved too quickly, tensing, even, when I touched her sometimes.
Regardless, I didn’t think… I hadn’t thought that…
But looking back on the evidence, I should have.
And as a result of my stupidity, Wisp had been left to stew in the horrible knowledge of what that bastard had done to her – dealing with the proof of it growing in her belly – all on her own.
I thought of all the ways Felix could have committed the vile act. I wondered if he’d held her down with his hands or if he’d let those damn metal cuffs do the work for him. I imagined the way he’d pried her legs apart, and how scared she must have been as he tore into her.
I remembered the red that had been smeared between her thighs after I’d taken her virginity and knew she’d probably bled for him, too.
Images of her crying and begging for him to stop filled my brain until it was all I could see. Rage overwhelmed me, and releasing a vicious roar, I uprooted a nearby sapling and threw it clear across the glade.
It wasn’t enough to quell the white-hot fury rushing through my veins – nothing would be until I had Felix in my clutches, the taste of his sour flesh on my tongue as I bathed in his blood.
I immersed myself in the bear’s thoughtless fury, embracing it with open arms. I tore apart trees, ripping branches off their trunks and slashing my claws into papery bark. I sank my teeth into whatever innocent animals were unfortunate enough to cross my path.
I had to, because I knew when – if – I ever allowed the anger to lift, it would only make room for a much more difficult emotion to invade my being: devastation.
Because not only had I failed to protect Wisp, I’d practically hand-delivered her to her would-be rapist. I was disgusted with myself, and every creature that dared scurry in my line of sight paid the price.
I was busy gnawing on the raw hide of one such rabbit when I heard it. A challenging growl resounding through the trees. It was followed by the tell-tale sound of dried-out autumn leaves crunching under the weight of an animal much larger than the one trapped between my teeth. The noise grew louder as it loomed nearer, and I spit out the rabbit, gearing for a fight.
I was thirsting for it.
Then it – he – came lumbering through the trees on two legs.
Abram, in his bear form.
The sight of him ignited my rage all over again. I recalled what he’d said to Wisp in the hallway: “You need to tell him.”
Abram had known.
This whole time, he’d known that Wisp had been brutally violated, and he hadn’t told me.
I was oblivious to the blood dripping down my fur-covered chin as I bared my teeth at him and snarled.
Instead of cowering, Abram had the nerve to flick back his ears and gnarr at me.
Releasing a monstrous roar, I charged.
Bounding forward on all fours, I launched myself at him, and we clashed together, pushing and shoving at each other as we fought like the ferocious predators we were. Abram served as the perfect target for my pent-up aggression, and I dug my claws and teeth into whatever inch of him I managed to connect with.
He responded in kind, not holding back as he tore his claws into my hide, spittle flying everywhere as he snapped his mammoth jaw.
I sliced my nails into the sensitive skin of his snout, and he released a wounded yowl before knocking me to the ground with a brutal shove.
Instead of pouncing and taking advantage of my vulnerable position, however, Abram chose to transform, fur shrinking as he shifted into his much more fragile human skin. He stood over me, blood running down his face, chest heaving.
I followed his lead, allowing bones to fracture and muscles to tear as my body remolded itself into its human form.
I pushed myself to my feet, spitting blood-tinged saliva out of my mouth, but otherwise ignoring the fact that I was covered in the sticky, red substance. It was a mixture of the buck’s and rabbit’s I had slain, Abram’s, and my own.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Abram barked, wiping irately at the blood dri
pping into his eyes.
My eyes flashed black. “What the hell is wrong with me?” I repeated incredulously, taking a threatening step towards him. “How could you know and not tell me?”
For a moment, Abram seemed thrown by the question. Then he shrugged. “It wasn’t my place.”
“Not your place?” I gnashed my teeth together. “Wisp has been walking around, fucking hurting, and you didn’t see fit to tell me?”
“As far as I can tell, the only reason she’s hurting right now is because of you,” he snapped. “You left her!”
Guilt welled in my chest, and I knew he was right. I had left her. I shouldn’t have, but I just wasn’t strong enough to sit there calmly and attempt to comfort her. Not when he was clawing beneath my skin, burning with rage and demanding release. I swallowed. “I couldn’t let her see my anger,” I mumbled.
Abram scoffed, letting me know what he thought of that excuse. “What the hell are you so angry about, anyway?” he demanded. “Do you know how long it took Fiona and I to conceive? You should be grateful, fucking dropping to your knees and thanking whatever piece of shit God is up there for a chance to be a father.”
“Grateful,” I repeated disbelievingly, a growl reverberating deep in my chest as I processed his words. “That animal, Felix, rapes Wisp, and I should be grateful that the result is growing in her belly?”
Abram’s entire countenance changed, some of his anger fleeing from his stance as a confused frown pulled at his mouth. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about that sick fuck, Felix, holding Wisp down and filling her belly with his little bastard-”
“That ‘little bastard’ is yours!” Abram interrupted, voice sharp.
I stared, blatant disbelief filling me. Denial sat like a rock in my stomach. “No,” I disagreed. “Wisp said… she said…”
“What did she say?” Abram demanded.
“Who did this to you?”
“What do you mean, who did this to me? You know!”
