by Roxy Mews
Jake hesitated. Then the convulsions caused Amber’s head to smack the floor and another smattering of blood joined the horrible scene. He held her then. His grip locked firm. There was no room for a gentle stroking of his thumb, or a caress of his hands. He had to help her live first. Time for affection would be later. Right now, we were in a battle against her body.
I just hoped we would have the opportunity to repair it.
Chapter Forty
Rick
I was back in time. Lily had just harvested the green beans. I was excited for her to use her special spice mix that would coat them so well. She had the bowl waiting by the fire and heat made the earthy smell penetrate everywhere. My clothes reeked of it, and just walking around doing chores had my hunger spiking.
Then I heard her scream. Her scream. No. Not Lily’s scream. Amber’s. Amber was screaming.
Then I wasn’t with Lily. That time was done. I was Richard Paulson now. I had a Pack. I had a mate.
I had…to get someone to turn off the lights. The world was a wash of white. Then Amber screamed again. I realized I wasn’t breathing, and the instinctual inhalation brought the scent of my daughter’s blood across my senses. A lot of her blood. Far too much.
Pain and sluggish transition be damned. I erupted from the table. There were no buckles to hold me back any longer, and I lunged toward her sound. I had to stop as I neared the puddle of her blood that was slowly creeping my way. She was thrashing as her mate and her Beta held her to the ground. The witch was squeezing one blood bag into Amber’s arm, while the slit vein dripped into her mouth.
Amber’s scream was gurgled until she swallowed on instinct. Trevor was between her legs, and then the realization of what was occurring erupted pain inside my chest. The baby. My grandchild was in danger. Amber was surrounded and I took another step to try and do something, but a small voice stopped me.
“You should wait. Trust your Beta. It’s a critical point. Help me gather towels and water, you’re faster than me, and we need to be ready to care for the child.” Kari’s voice was weak. Her eyes appeared to have sunken further since she’d fed me.
It might have been selfish, but I wondered if I would have any ill effects from her blood. Instead, I got a flash.
An image of a tiny baby that resembled Amber as an infant was wrapped in a men’s button up shirt. The child squirmed and then looked up at me. Its eyes were Amber’s, too. The starburst in my daughter’s gaze was mirrored in the impossible infant.
“What happened?”
“I am fading. My power must have bled with my red blood cells. Now go. You stole my vision. You know the babe will make it. You get water first. It’s heavier. I will gather some towels.” Kari swayed, but she pushed herself forward.
My daughter wasn’t the only woman I was worried about, but as Amber’s gurgled cries filled the air, I didn’t have time to split my purpose. I went for water.
Chapter Forty-One
Shelly
I felt my heart beat on its own. It was a strange thing to tell it to stop and not have it obey. I couldn’t help it. There was pain around me. At first I was sure it was my own, but when I took stock of my body, there was nothing wrong.
I had the sudden urge to head outside. I needed the fresh air because it smelled bad in here. It smelled like death was close. I couldn’t ignore the illness even with all the blood.
The smell of death increased and then I heard Kari. “It’s time to wake up, Shelly. You are needed.”
Kari was dying. Why hadn’t I smelled it before? Because I hadn’t tried to figure it out? Or was it because I didn’t have the epic sense of smell I did now?
All of a sudden, I wasn’t alone in my body. Holy crap, I had a wolf. And she was pissed at me for staying asleep so long. She also wasn’t going to wait for me to use my human eyes. My body wasn’t up and running on full power. So my wolf decided that a change of tactic was in order.
The pain of the first bone snapping was sharp. I had endured pain before, and a broken bone wasn’t high up on that scale. I had broken a bone in my hand when I’d punched Amber in the nose. This was no small finger. The first crack caused a chain reaction that progressed through my body like dominos falling. Every bone shifted and crunched and my skin—which was usually as strong as armor—split with the amount of hair that sprung forth.
When I looked again, I was nearer to the ground. Pressed to the stone floor, my hands and knees had been replaced with light tan paws.
Then there was someone in front of me. Someone with a lot of water bottles. A quick snort to take in the air told me exactly who it was. Richard dropped the various water bottles and a giant soup pot filled to the brim on the floor. A bit of the water splashed out. I was thirsty.
I went forward and licked up the water on the floor before I was able to stop myself. I was really dehydrated.
“Shelly, you have to get this under control right now. Amber is having the baby. I have to help. I have to…do something.” Rick turned toward the smell of blood behind me.
In the corner a body shook. Trevor was between a pair of spread legs and blood was everywhere. Blood ran from her body. Blood drenched Trevor’s arms, and blood dripped from a witch’s vein into the horrible drowning cries from Amber.
They weren’t being hard enough. Her baby wouldn’t come without force. My wolf knew what to do. I had to add pressure to her stomach. It was either that or rip her skin open, and if I tried that in this form, everyone would assume I was eating her unborn spawn.
Rick looked into my eyes. He pressed his authority forward. I snorted my amusement. I make my own authority. Always have.
“I hope you have this under control, Shell. I can’t babysit right now.” As assured as he could make himself, he went back to moving the water toward the gorefest.
I walked around him and approached from the side Jake occupied. My brother was far more family than anyone who had raised me. I owed him everything. Letting his mate die was not acceptable. I approached her stomach.
“What is she doing? Stop her!” Mary’s words slammed against me, and I felt the wolfy witch invade my mind.
“Back off, Barbie. We are trying to save her life.”
You know what they say about assuming? It makes an ass out of you and me. I have been an ass long enough. It was high time I started working toward something that was about more than myself or my Family. Amber was important to not only her Clan, but to everyone who would someday follow in her footsteps. And I kind of liked her too.
Miasma would split. Word would spread. There were options beyond the traditional ways. Amber was the one to lead us. Now we just had to get the little critter out.
The convulsions intensified. We needed to do it fast. The miasma still worked in wolf form. Great. I was hoping for a bit of a reprieve. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Without normal vocal chords, I pushed back along the same path that Mary had forged into my mind. Were the situation different, I would have enjoyed watching the shock form on the little newbie’s face. Surprises should be old hat for her, you’d think. But no, all of her shock showed up in her expression like a blinking neon sign. Then she proved she was useful and spoke for me.
“We need to put pressure on the top of her stomach and help push the baby out. That’s what Shelly wants to do.” Her voice was almost lost among the screaming.
“If we push right now, Amber is likely to tear more than a little skin.” Doc was turning that little critter with everything he had. The baby was strong stock to withstand the stress. Its heart rate stayed steady.
“Shelly is going to push while you stretch her. She says that anything that tears can be repaired. The baby dying would kill…dammit, Shelly, is it really necessary to call her names. Fuck you, bitch! I can interpret however I damn well please, and I am doing it with you.” Mary leaned over the belly and spread her han
ds over the area of Amber’s rock hard stomach closest to her ribs.
I reared back and stood on my hind legs. I came down with force and the blood the witch was trying to feed Amber erupted from her mouth as the most horrible scream…was immediately followed by the sweetest. The baby.
“It’s a girl.” Jake’s awe echoed all of ours.
Then it became obvious that we wouldn’t get that sweet moment. Doc cleaned off the baby with the towels, then threw them to start soaking up the blood on the floor. “She’s going to be fine. The little one’s eyes and color are good we just need…” Doc grabbed a button down men’s shirt that was on top of the pile of rags. No baby clothes in here, but my mate wrapped her in the best we had. Then he handed the bundle off to Jake.
I had never seen my brother cry before. Ever. He was stoic in the most literal sense of the word. I saw twin streaks down his cheeks. One for the joy at his daughter’s life, and one for fear for his mate’s.
“Doc…” His voice cracked and my entire body ached at the pain.
The shift back wasn’t easy, but I needed to be able to talk. The naked thing would have to be worked with. Jake wasn’t paying attention to me, but I spoke anyway. “You take care of that baby, because Amber knowing you are doing that will make her concentrate on her own battle.” Heads turned to me.
I joined Craig in holding down the woman that had to live as Trevor went to work. It took far too long for the bleeding to stop, and none of us were sure she hadn’t been thrown into a stroke due to the severity of her seizures. The afterbirth was difficult to deliver, and it took quite a bit of suture work to get the blood to finally stop. Thank the gods the witches had been living here. We had some first aid material that would never have been found in a house filled with vampires or werewolves.
“Wrap yourself up for me. I don’t need to see that.” Mary handed me a towel and I tied a knot with the ends under my armpit to hold the rag in place. I was surprised we had any left that didn’t need wrung out or disposed of in a biohazard bag.
Looking around the room, a part of me wondered if anything non-lifechanging happened inside these walls. Transformation, life, pain and—I turned to Kari—and even more death was coming.
Amber was moved into the main house. Doc was tending to the baby, and Jake was washing Amber’s skin off hoping that his touch would help bring her back to consciousness. Rick was standing out back.
“Sorry your transition had to be such a bitch.” Mary was looking at me. Were it anyone else, I would have assumed she was sizing me up for some kind of fight, but being that it was Mary, she was either reading my aura or some other weird crap we didn’t have time for.
“Spit it out, Mary. I’d really like to go into the house now, and this stare-down shit is getting on my wolf’s nerves.” I stopped short after I said that, but yeah…it was my wolf. The things you do for love.
“When you were a wolf, I read your thoughts.” She obviously wanted me to say something.
“Are you expecting me to explain your witch stuff to you?” I waited for an answer, but she just pursed her lips and kept staring. Then I felt a poke at my conscious mind. We have a mind reader, folks. “I can feel when you do that, and so can anyone else you try it on. You might be able to get away with it in a human mind and have them dismiss it as déjà vu or some crap humans make up, but supernatural beings will understand and try and kill you.”
Mary took a step back as I started toward the exit.
“Can I hurt someone when I do that?” Her voice was worried.
“Glad to know you care about everyone else but me since you poked around in my head with no reservations.” At least she had the common courtesy to look down. “You understand this stuff, kid. It’s all about intent. If you intend to just relay a message or read a thought that can’t be said, that’s what you will do. If you intend to drop someone in their tracks and make abstract art with their squishy head goo…you have power, Mary. It’s all up to you how you use it.”
She finally let me walk away, and I made it outside for some fresh air.
It was when I entered the gardens that I realized I was the one who was not so fresh at this point. I would have headed directly for the nearest hot shower, but a tall tense back called to me. Rick was in the garden at the end of the stone path that led from the room we had just gone through hell in. He was standing guard.
I wasn’t really feeling the need for chivalry. “You should go somewhere you can be useful.”
“I am very useful making sure you have control of your wolf enough to not go eating the neighbor’s cat.” He talked tough, but I could tell by his stance that the fact I was walking out on two legs instead of four had him breathing easier.
“I am the epitome of control. At least as far as my body goes.” Or so I thought, until I got closer to him.
Rick had showered. He had put on clean clothes, and the scent he was throwing my way nearly doubled me over in orgasm. Seriously. What the fuck was going on?
My neck started to burn. The matemark he had given me pulsed with new life. This was what we had been missing. The scent of his arousal hit my nose next. He was more pungent. He was more alive. I was more alive. Only problem was, the other third of our lives wasn’t here.
“We need to get you cleaned up.” Rick grabbed my hand and then stopped. He stilled in a way I had never known him to do before. He didn’t breathe, and he didn’t blink. Then he shook himself and realized what he was doing. “That will take a while to get used to. But this…” He pulled me into his arms. “This reminds me that it was all worth it.”
I know I couldn’t have smelled right. I was dirty, I was covered in blood, but under his talented tongue I was washed clean. We didn’t breathe. We let our bodies warm, and even without our sense of smell, the mating pheromones pounded against us. There was more we needed to do, and one more player in the game that needed to participate.
As if our prelude to hot monkey sex called him, Trevor appeared. I held my eyes open and looked at him over Rick’s shoulder. I licked down Rick’s neck and watched the lust flare in my other mate’s eyes.
Trevor was hard. He was holding his body back, but part of him would not be contained any longer. Mating pheromones filled the entire garden, and suddenly I knew that we would never make it into the house. The sound of the water feature was the only thing that entered my consciousness. Time for a shower, and I knew just the men to do the scrubbing.
“Come on.” I said the words while grabbing Rick’s hand, but kept my eyes on Trevor. Both men followed me. I saw Trevor’s nose twitch and a slight grimace go across his face before he turned off the air flow to his sense of smell.
Their eyes lit up when we reached the water feature. There was no need for Mary’s mind tricks in this group. They had minds that flowed into the gutter right alongside mine. The water feature was a large glass-tiled wall. The blue and green pebbles caught the brief waterfall that cascaded down from a short ledge about seven feet off the ground. I dropped the towel, and the heartbeats of my mates began to pound.
We had been together, but now wasn’t the same. Not only were we completing the bond my new wolf demanded, but we were celebrating. A new baby was alive and thriving. Amber was stable—not conscious, but stable. We were all worried about her. Yes, even me. I needed someone who understood where I was. Although I got there from the opposite direction, Amber and I were standing as freaks of nature.
I realized I hadn’t looked in a mirror yet. I took a step and then another into the small pool of water at the base of the glass wall. The pump whirred against my foot. I looked at the water and wished it was a smooth surface. There was no way I would get a good look at myself this way. I thought of running into the house to investigate what had happened to me. I doubted I had changed much. Rick and Trevor didn’t even flinch when they had seen me after everything settled down. Then again, they hadn’t flinched when
I was a wolf either.
“Here.” Trevor reached beneath my feet and pulled the pump from the water.
The ripples began to settle and I couldn’t breathe as I began to see my new self. I was right. Not much had changed, but with my new eyes, the details told a different story. My hair was still blonde, but it was fuller. I leaned down and looked at my eyes. I felt for the wolf and when she pushed forward, I was riveted as the image I saw became bathed in gold light. My matemarks were vibrant against my slightly less pale skin.
I opened my mouth to tell them that I needed to get to a mirror, but then Trevor kicked the pump back under the surface. Their hands were on me, and my skin began to erupt with desire.
Broad flat palms pressed against my stomach and my womb contracted as if they were already inside me. They pushed me into the blessedly heated water. My back pressed to the glass tiles in the feature, and the liquid began to slide over my head and down my body. Even though the water was warm, it wasn’t anywhere near as hot as I was. The difference in temperature had my nipples peaking. They poked through the cascade of liquid and they called for a touch. They got a kiss instead.
I stopped breathing as a warm mouth closed over one nipple. Then I nearly choked on the water pouring over my face as another mouth began to torture the second peak. They sucked at different paces. I couldn’t concentrate on any certain rhythm because both men kept me guessing. One would suck me hard to the roof of his mouth, while the other would retreat and let his tongue dance around the outer edge of my pleasure zone only to have them both change and pull my skin between their teeth.
Then there were the hands. The hands that had pushed me back under the stream were now stroking me. They scraped and scrubbed away all of the evidence of the bad things on my body. I would never be able to completely erase the awful scene I had burned into my miasma, but when I was with these men, my mind turned off. I wished I could always be having sex with them. This attention and this lack of an internal catalog was heaven.
