“Is IVF an option?” Derek ground out, his mind going the same place as hers.
“Only if you know a clinic you feel you can trust with something this…important,” she replied. Her tone was acerbic, but there was something else in her voice. Understanding? Frustration? “My uncle’s operation doesn’t extend to foetus creation. That’s a very specialized field.”
“How do you even know I…” Kyle was staring at his clenched fist on the table. He cleared his throat.
“That you’re fertile?” Riley drawled with one neatly plucked eyebrow raised. “We don’t. Not for sure. But the chances are very high; the virus fixes anything…broken in the body. The only reason Werewolf males are generally infertile is because of the way the virus affects the adult host’s body. In my case, and hence probably in your case, the virus is so well embedded in my DNA that it doesn’t affect my body in the same way it does to a made-wolf, whose body is still treating the virus like a foreign invader. If you want the exact scientific data, you would have to speak to Uncle Chase. Those details fly way above my pay grade.”
The world began to spin a little, growing hazy around the edges of Trish’s vision. She rose from the chair abruptly, knocking it over in her haste, and blindly headed towards the door.
“Sorry, I…I need some air,” she whispered.
She slammed through the door, using her sense of smell to aim for the sanctity of the outdoors.
“Trish?” Sicarius’s voice echoed down from the far end of the corridor. He sounded mildly concerned.
“Let her go.” Kyle’s voice was edged with tension. “Can you arrange someone to escort Ms Sanders back to her hotel? And a protection detail to watch her for the next couple of days.”
“Of course.”
The voices faded into the distance as Trish found the front door handle and stumbled out into the glaring warmth of a summer’s morning.
CHAPTER 7
Gabi, Julius and Alexander arrived late in the afternoon. Bringing them on board with Riley’s proposal was inevitable. Who better to help them consider this objectively? Deciding that their problem didn’t really qualify as an emergency, Trish had chosen not to send out an alert, waking them during the day when they would be catching up on sleep. She’d left a, hopefully reasonably calm, message on Gabi’s phone, knowing that her friend usually woke by mid-afternoon. As Master Vampires, Julius and Alexander would also usually be awake well before the sun set.
The wait had been interminable for Trish, and probably Kyle too, though they had dutifully gone about their normal day, replying to emails, making calls, checking and rearranging rosters and ordering supplies. Checking in on Breanna at lunchtime had been tough on Trish, trying to keep her expression cheerful and her tone light. Casey and Adriana picked up on her troubled mood and quickly distracted Breanna with promises of a trip to the forest to find squirrels straight after lunch. Trish even dutifully sent a text to Sicarius warning him about Flora’s plans with Deshane and her request for a little privacy, knowing the ex-assassin probably wouldn’t take the suggestion to heart; if anything, it would drive him to be even more protective. Derek left to run some classes but arrived back at Haven after lunch.
The six of them now gathered in the war room; for once Trish felt the men’s nickname for the conference room actually was appropriate. It was the largest fully soundproofed room at Haven, as well as one of the few without windows to the outside, making life easier for the Vampires. While both wore long-sleeve shirts, they’d walked from the car park into the Hive through full sunshine without showing any signs of being scorched; Savannah’s newest sun-blocking spray was apparently highly effective.
As usual, Trish found it difficult to be around Julius and avoided making eye contact for more than a few seconds. Alexander was easier, though he also exuded that intangible energy that Trish had come to think of as Master Vampire aura. His just wasn’t a shade on Julius’s. Julius was devastatingly attractive, if you could look at him long enough to actually see him, but Alexander was even more so, his face shape so symmetrical it would fit perfectly in the infamous golden ratio. Still, he was the less intimidating of the two, perhaps it was that he wasn’t as tall or as broad-shouldered, or perhaps it was the less-than-uppercrust British accent and his proclivity for casual sarcasm.
There was no hint of humour in any of their expressions now. Gabi released Trish from a bone-crushing hug and pulled her into a chair as the rest of them took seats around the table.
“Fergus came with us. He’s at the house to watch over Breanna in case the girls need to go,” Gabi said to Trish with a reassuring smile, though a worry line creased her forehead at the same time.
Trish felt a tiny easing of the tension inside her at the mention of the Scotsman. The tall, broad-shouldered Vampire, with the ugly scar running down one side of his face, was the one person she knew of who could actually calm Breanna’s tornado-like tendencies.
When Trish was first introduced to the supernatural community, she’d known Fergus as a somewhat morose, though highly capable, member of Julius’s protection detail. He was a close friend of Gabi’s, one she turned to whenever she needed fatherly advice, but few others got close to the man.
And then Breanna had stormed into their lives.
Fergus had been the one who ran into the burning medical centre and pulled the hours-old baby to safety. At incredible risk to himself. There wasn’t a lot that killed a Vampire, but fire was one of those things. They had shared an inexplicably close bond since that day, and the Scotsman was the one person who could calm the baby girl under any circumstances. Now that she was older and didn’t sit still as long as her eyes were open, Fergus was the one person who could get her to sit quietly. They could spend hours sitting together, Breanna always touching him in some way, on his lap, or with a hand on his arm, a foot against his leg. Sometimes reading books or doing puzzles, but other times just silently watching the stars out the window before bedtime. It never failed to move Trish to see them together.
When Kyle and Trish had been presented with her adoption papers, they realised she needed a name. After several false starts, they had chosen to combine Kyle’s mother’s name, Brenda, with Trish’s mother’s name, Anna, and it immediately seemed right to call the baby Breanna. When it came to a second name, they’d offered Gabi the honour, but she’d respectfully declined, suggesting Fergus instead.
Their request initially left him speechless, but Trish had, for once, been able to read the emotions as they played out over his face. She knew in that moment that he had lost a child in a truly horrible way. She knew that he blamed himself for the death and had punished himself for decades, possibly centuries, over it. She knew that, in his saving of Breanna, he had finally begun to heal his very deepest wound and was trying to forgive himself. This baby girl had brought him some kind of redemption.
There had been tears in his eyes when he said, “I would be honoured if you would give her the second name Emily.” He had gone very quiet before continuing, “In remembrance of my daughter, Emelia.” A smile had lifted his mouth, and his eyes had softened. And Trish had had to fight back tears.
“You’ve got us a little worried.” Gabi interrupted Trish’s meandering thoughts. “What’s going on?” Julius had taken the seat on the other side of Gabi, which meant Trish didn’t have to look directly at him. She wondered if he’d done it on purpose. He did seem to be aware of the effect he had on most people, and though she’d seen him use it to his advantage more than once, he never went out of his way to make her uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, in fact.
When neither Kyle nor Trish broke the silence, Derek sighed and leaned forward, threading his fingers together in front of him on the table, the paleness of his knuckles the only betrayal of his stress. He related what Riley had told them just a few hours ago. He was clear and concise, sticking to the facts, if that was what they were, in a deceptively calm, even tone. As he got to the part about a baby being conceived between Kyle and Riley, Gabi reached out
and grabbed Trish’s hand in her own, squeezing hard in a show of understanding and support. Surreptitiously watching Gabi’s profile, Trish saw the myriad of emotions flit across her friend’s face, a mirror of the emotions she felt herself as she heard the words again. Shock, horror, hope and dawning realisation of the full implications.
“We’re thinking we should probably call a meeting with the other Pack Leaders,” Derek finished off his recount. “This isn’t the kind of decision we can make on our own.”
“Perhaps more than just the Alphas here in the City,” Trish added. “This doesn’t just affect us.”
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourselves,” Gabi said, recovering a little from the initial shock. “Your first decision is whether you are prepared to do what she’s asking. If you can’t, then the rest is moot.”
“I’m…” Kyle spoke for the first time, but he was struggling to get the words out, the muscles along his jawline ticcing. Trish put a hand on his arm. “I’m…not sure I can do this, even if we do decide it’s the right thing to do,” he got out at last. He shook his head. “I don’t think I could…”
Trish squeezed his forearm. She understood. In fact, her wolf came surging forward in a wave of possessiveness just at the thought of Kyle being touched, and touching, the beautiful young woman. But if they decided it was the best option, she would convince him to do it, she told herself firmly. She could do that for the greater good, and her wolf would just have to deal with it.
But what would it mean to her relationship with Kyle, a niggly little voice at the back of her mind asked snidely. What if he found Riley had something she didn’t? What if the girl appealed to Kyle and his wolf on a level she couldn’t? Would he even want her afterwards? Would he dutifully come back to her, but still want Riley?
She tamped down the voice, thrusting it into the deepest reaches of her brain and slamming a door closed on the stomach-churning doubts.
“It may not be as simple as that, Hellcat,” Alexander cautioned, breaking through Kyle’s stuttered words.
Gabi threw him an annoyed glare, but Trish squeezed her hand, wanting to hear the Vampire’s take on the matter.
“You have to consider the possibility that she finds another male born-wolf. If there are two of you out there, why not more?” he pointed out. “Do you want this kind of decision made by others, possibly less altruistic than you? If you take this on now, you would at least be assured a measure of control over the situation.”
Trish hated the fact that he made a whole lot of sense.
“You know we can bring Jonathon in on this,” Julius suggested, his voice inscrutable. Trish liked Jonathon, the good-natured Vampire doctor. He had patched Kyle, Derek and Gabi up more regularly than Trish liked to think about over the years. “He has some expertise in the field of genetics and—”
He was interrupted by a familiar noise. It took a moment for Kyle to pull out his phone, but they all knew what it meant already. It was another code one alert. Sure enough, a second later, Derek’s phone began the same urgent buzzing.
“Shit,” Derek muttered, checking the screen.
“More Ghouls, you think?” Trish asked.
“We don’t have to respond,” Kyle said, his tone sharper than usual. “It’s Red Shadow Pack’s roster. Natalie and Harrison can deal with it.”
“I doubt they’ve ever come across Ghouls before, Wolf,” Gabi said to him. “I know Natalie is tough and good in a fight, but I don’t think we should be leaving these things to amateurs. I know you’re in a tough spot right now, I really do, but we’re still not sure what’s up with this influx. A second attack is seriously bad news. We can pick this up in a few hours. Riley isn’t going to go rushing off now that she’s made contact with you.”
Kyle sighed. “I hate it when you’re right, Hellcat.”
The two of them rose as one, Kyle stretching over Trish to try to ruffle Gabi’s hair. She blocked his hand, dancing to one side, and made a move to punch him in the ribs.
“You should be used to it,” Gabi growled, pulling her fist free from his grip. “I’m always right.”
They fell back into sibling-like comradery with such practiced ease that she doubted either of them even realised it. It was times like these that reminded those around them exactly how long these two had been friends, and how well they knew each other. She glanced at Julius with a sudden frisson of unease, but a wry smile pulled at one side of his mouth, and when he caught her looking his way, he shook his head the same way Kyle did when he and Trish watched Breanna get up to something amusing and slightly dangerous. For the first time that day, the terrible, hard knot in Trish’s stomach unravelled a little, allowing her to breathe more easily.
These were her friends. Her family. Together they had faced horrific things, things that had the capacity to destroy humanity, and they had won. They would deal with this thing that Riley had brought to them, and they would deal with any repercussions. And they would get to the bottom of the Ghouls. And everything would go back to being good. Not perfect. Perfect was a unicorn that didn’t exist. But you could choose happiness even when things weren’t perfect. Happiness was what you made it. And she would make it her world.
********************
Kyle drew in a calming breath. His wolf was slow to rile, but once provoked, he rarely settled down without a fight. Taking on the inevitable responsibility of Pack Alpha had increased his stubbornness, and he, without doubt, considered the other Alphas less dominant than himself. Kyle knew he was probably right, but he had no intention of challenging the others to assume leadership over every Werewolf in the City. He and his wolf were quite different characters, and if he’d been a made-wolf, as Riley called those who’d been infected by a bite, he suspected he would’ve needed help to control his wolf side. It was quite possible that he would’ve been put out of his misery by now. Chances were good that being a born-wolf had saved his life.
Faced with a furious Natalie, Alpha female of the Red Shadow Pack, he was struggling to keep the growl from his voice. Her mate, Harrison, was making a token effort of supporting her demands for their team to be left alone to deal with the alert, but Kyle could tell that he was relieved by their intrusion. There was only one thing more dangerous than an amateur Hunter…an amateur Hunter who didn’t know they were an amateur. Natalie’s wolf was overconfident, brusque and aggressive, and Kyle suspected that Natalie the human was exactly the same, which made them a pair to be wary of. He’d never particularly liked the woman before he became a Pack Leader, but having witnessed her snide and insidious passive-aggressive treatment of Trish, he was now just one step short of loathing her. Which made being reasonable around her a thousand times harder.
Darkness had fallen in the hours since the call alert had come in. It had taken the Magi this long to lock onto the supernatural signature of the Ghouls, adding another layer of concern that these creatures seemed to have achieved some level of magical warding. The Vampire contingent were en route, and he was glad Gabi had needed to go and collect weapons and gear and hadn’t made it to the rendezvous point yet. Gabi wasn’t known for her tact, and she and Natalie had bashed heads in the past. If she got here and Natalie was still arguing with him…
“You’ve never come across Ghouls before,” Kyle said for what felt like the millionth time, “and the ones we came across two nights ago weren’t acting the way Ghouls normally do—”
“I heard you, and you’ve spoken your piece,” Natalie interrupted him. “We are not idiots, and we know what we’re doing.” She spoke as though she were trying to get through to a two-year-old.
“Nat.” Harrison broke in, taking a step forward as though to insert himself between his mate and Kyle; perhaps he’d felt the wave of furious exasperation radiating from Kyle’s wolf. “This isn’t some kind of competition. Some backup won’t hurt here.”
Natalie turned cold, hard eyes on her mate as her hands dropped from her hips to clench into fists at her sides.
At that moment a darkly overwhelming presence ghosted in to Kyle’s right, raising the hairs on his bare forearms.
“You can come on the hunt with us, or you can remain behind.” Julius’s voice raised every other hair on Kyle’s body, and even his wolf took a wary step back. There was a potency to his quiet voice, a combination of unquestioned command and supreme authority. This was an ultimate predator, something every single wolf in the vicinity knew to be higher up the food chain than they were.
Gabi was suddenly at his left elbow. She was quiet and calm, but he knew better than to think she was unprepared for any eventuality. Razor would be at her feet, and he could scent Fergus and Mac close behind him, as well as Charlie, another long-standing member of Julius’s Clan. This was the team that travelled the world investigating and apprehending the most dangerous Vampires in the world. Only someone with absolutely no sense of self-preservation would dare to test them.
“Fine,” Natalie spat, her arms now folded across her chest and her jaw set, but she’d dropped her eyes to the ground. She turned to her team. “Get geared up. We move out in three,” she barked.
“Don’t forget your flame-throwers,” Gabi called after her stiff, retreating back.
“Gabs,” Kyle growled in a warning undertone. He didn’t want to start the fight all over again.
“Whaaat?” she asked, feigning innocence, but when he turned to glare at her, the corners of her mouth twitched with suppressed amusement. “Is Nat giving you a hard time? But she’s such an obedient puppy when you speak to her the right way.”
“Shuddup.” He elbowed her in the ribs. “She wasn’t backing down from you.”
Gabi cracked, a snort escaping as she leaned around Kyle to eye her Consort. Now that Julius had reined in the menacing aura, Kyle was able to look at him without wanting to go wolf. The Vampire was dressed head to toe in black: combat boots, dark trousers and a heavy duster, only his face and hands visible, the pale skin dulled with smears of black camo paint.
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