Phases of Passions (Trilogy Bundle) (Werewolf Romance - Paranormal Romance)

by Hart, Melissa F.

  She didn’t want him to return.

  “Once you’ve had time to think about what I’ve told you, to let it sink in, I’ll come back and we can start preparing for the arrival of the baby,” Sean told her.

  Erin frowned in annoyance. There was no baby just as there was no curse. Sean was mentally unbalanced and believing the unbelievable. If Erin wasn’t so angry and scared, she would pity him. She considered calling the police when he left, to tell them the identity of the killer, but would they even believe her story? That a guy she’d slept with confessed to all the murders but said that he perpetrated them when he had been transformed in to a wolf due to a curse? It was crazy. She would sound crazy to retell it.

  No, once Sean left, she would distance herself from him and his madness as much as possible.

  “Just rest and think about what I’ve said. I’ll return soon.” Sean delivered his parting words before finally leaving through the front door and dissolving in to the darkness of the night. As the door slammed shut, Erin hurriedly got to her feet and securely bolted the door behind him, leaning wearily against it as she did so.

  He said he would return. Erin felt sick at the prospect. Sean was a dangerous man; she didn’t want him in her home again.

  With uncertain steps, she made her way back into the lounge. Her body ached with fatigue and she felt compelled to sit down. The intensity of their encounter and ensuing argument had drained her.

  She didn’t know what to do or who to call. Besides, who would believe her? With no one to turn to and desperate for consolation, Erin dialed her mother, aware that despite the late hour in town, it would only be early evening where her mother lived.

  “Hello?” her mother answered after the fourth ring, her voice croaky and unsteady. She must have been sleeping.

  “Hi, Mom, it’s me, did I wake you?” Erin asked anxiously.

  “Yes,” her mother confirmed in her hoarse voice, “I was sleeping.”

  “Sorry to wake you up, I just…” Erin’s voice trailed off. How would she explain why she was calling? That she’d had an unpleasant encounter with a dangerous man and now needed reassurance? The whole set up made her feel weak and pitiful. She was a grown woman; she should be able to handle herself.

  “He found you, didn’t he?” her mother queried intuitively, sensing what was wrong despite the physical distance between them.

  “Yes,” Erin breathed in to the phone, glancing nervously at the doorway where Sean had previously been standing, half expecting him to be back there, listening in on her conversation.

  “I told you to be careful.”

  “I know.”

  “I told you to avoid the darkness.”

  “I know,” Erin was in no mood for a lecture. She wanted to be told that everything would be all right, that all her mother’s archaic fears were just the laments of an old woman and that she had nothing to actually be afraid of.

  “But you let him in anyway,” her mother continued, her voice low.

  “I made a mistake. I know that now,” Erin admitted tersely.

  “He’s gone, but he will return,” her mother said with certainty.

  “I don’t want him to!” Erin declared passionately. “I want him to leave me alone!”

  “But you have something which is his.”

  Erin gripped the phone tightly to her ear, wondering if she’d imagined the last part her mother had uttered. Was she referring to a baby? How could she possible know that? How could Sean have known that? They’d been careless and had unprotected sex, but it was still far too early to tell if she was pregnant.

  “No, I have nothing of his,” Erin tried to sound confident, but her voice was small and meek.

  “Yes you do,” her mother said coolly. “You were foolish and now you have something of his, something which binds you.”

  “Mom, please, don’t talk to me in riddles,” Erin demanded, her fear making her patience grow short. She wanted answers, logical ones which would make sense to her.

  “You’re carrying his child, I can sense it,” her mother stated.

  Sitting on her sofa, Erin stiffened upon hearing the words. It was impossible. All of it was impossible.

  “Mom, there’s no way anyone could know that,” Erin stated, wishing she believed her own words.

  “Did he tell you about his curse?” her mother asked, stunning Erin in to silence. How could she have known about that? What was going on?

  “Do you know him? Did he put you up to this?” Erin demanded, her tone accusing. Her nostrils flared in anger as she spoke. Someone was withholding information from her and she was determined to find out who it was.

  “Your father suffered under the same curse,” her mother explained. “When you were born, we thought you might too, but you never did. Yet you continued to be drawn to the darkness, to their kind, and I was determined to spare you the life of being a part of their pack. It’s a cruel life, dictated by animal desires. I wanted more for you than that.”

  Erin felt a single tear drop down her cheek. Now her own mother was conspiring against her in Sean’s web of lies. Could she not trust anyone anymore?

  “I thought I could trust you,” Erin spat angrily in to the phone.

  “I tried to warn you, to turn you away from this path.”

  “Why is everyone lying to me?”

  “Yours will be a child ruled by the moon, make no mistake about that. A dangerous life awaits you, Erin. A life I didn’t want for you.”

  “Mom, stop it, there is no curse! Can’t you just be a mother and speak some words of comfort to me for once!”

  “To survive, you must accept him and his pack or they will kill you both.”

  “Mom,” Erin sobbed, wishing her mother would stop with the lies, with the talk of darkness and now the mention of more curses. There was no curse, yet her mother and her lover had some sick intent to try and get her to believe otherwise. She felt utterly abandoned by them both.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” her mother accepted, her tone softening. “I struggled at first, until I saw your father turn.”

  “What are you talking about? Stop bad-mouthing Dad!”

  “I’m telling you the truth, so help me, I should have done so years ago! Perhaps if I had, you’d have been spared this fate but if you don’t believe me now, you’d never have believed me then.”

  “I’m going,” Erin stated sadly. The call had gotten her nowhere and not given her the comfort she desperately sought. It had only spiraled her further into despair.

  “You need to be strong now, Erin. The darkness has arrived and you must find a way to fight it.”

  “Bye, Mom.” Erin hung up the phone and wiped away some stray tears from her cheeks. She looked in disbelief at the handset she was now holding, unable to comprehend the conversation she’d just had with her mother.

  How could she possible have known about the curse? And now she was saying that her father had it, too? So did he believe himself to become a wolf during a full moon? It was all such utter madness.

  As Erin tried to make sense of her tangled web of thoughts her hand subconsciously began to rub her stomach. Both her mother and Sean believed her to be pregnant, which was crazy. No one could know at this early stage. Still, their words had spooked her so she vowed the following day to go into town and get a pregnancy test; that way she’d know for certain what was going on.

  She didn’t want Sean to return, didn’t want to face his crazed beliefs again. Her mother had always been crazy and speaking of darkness.

  Feeling terribly alone in this mess of it all, Erin continued to absently stroke her stomach when she suddenly felt something kick from within her, knocking against the palm of her hand. Shocked, she released her hands from her stomach and looked down at her middle in disbelief.

  What had just kicked her?

  Tentatively, she placed her hands once more on her stomach, feeling around for whatever it was. She felt fine; she didn’t feel sick or out of sorts. Emotionally, she
was exhausted, but physically, her earlier symptoms had abated a little. The sickness, the improved sense of smell, either she had adjusted to them both or they had died down over the past twenty-four hours.

  With her hands back on her stomach, she waited. After a few moments it came again, a movement from within, pushing out, like something kicking inside her.

  Erin panicked and lifted her hands away from her stomach, staring down at her herself in terrified disbelief. What could possibly be kicking her like that? Could she really be carrying Sean’s baby? And if she was, how could they be able to move and kick already? It was impossible.

  Looking down at her stomach, Erin finally listened to the small voice that had been calling from the back of her mind, the voice which spoke on instinct and relied on her gut for guidance. Erin listened to her conscious and accepted that both Sean and her mother were actually right, that she was indeed pregnant. But if they were right about the baby, what else had they been right about? Erin wasn’t sure she was ready to learn the full truth about it all.

  TO BE CONTINUED...