Rogue Heart

by Samantha Wolfe

  She shrieks in agony as she arches up in pain, her attack completely forgotten. Ronan sees the opening I've given him and takes it. With one swift upward thrust, he buries his sword deeply into the vampire's chest and gives it a hard vicious twist that abruptly cuts off the creature's now gurgling scream. Then he pulls the blade free as he surges to his feet, and with a bellow of rage and one wide arching swing, he severs the things head from its body.

  The vampire drops into a lifeless heap as the head hits the ground several yards away to roll across the grass, leaving a steaming trail of blood in its wake. Ronan stands over the body scowling and gasping for air with his sword hanging loosely in one hand with blood sizzling along its length. He looks up to meet my gaze, his expression softening. He tries to take a step toward me, but staggers and lurches to the side, his sword falling from his fingers.

  "Ronan!" I cry out in alarm and rush toward him, but before I can reach him, he collapses. "No!"

  I drop to my knees next to his prone body. I roll him onto his back and pull his head into my lap, cradling his face in my hands. His emotions feel foggy and indistinct, his heartbeat and breathing much too slow for my liking considering the physical exertion he just endured. His eyes flutter and start rolling back in his head.

  "Ronan!" I call out again.

  "Lyric?" he whispers as he focuses on my face with some effort.

  "What's wrong?" I ask as tears burn my eyes and blur my vision.

  "Wolfsbane soaked into the bolt," he says, glancing down toward his legs.

  I follow his gaze to see multiple wood splinters peppering his feet and legs. Oh my God, it got into his system. My fear immediately becomes stark terror.

  "What should I do, baby?" I ask as panic licks up my spine.

  He reaches up with a trembling hand and places it over one of mine. He sends a comforting wave of affection flowing into me through our bond, though it's sluggish and weak. "Shh, sugar." His voice is soft and listless. "I'll...I'll be okay. Small d...dose."

  "Are you s...sure?" I ask. "Maybe you should shift to help yourself heal."

  "Can't...the...the wolfsbane," he replies, his head shaking almost imperceptibly as his hand falls limply away from mine.

  Well, that explains why I couldn't shift.

  "Just...just need to ssssleep...ssssleep it off," he says as his eyes drift closed.

  Then he's out cold, leaving me alone and sobbing, and hoping to God he's right, and that I'm not about to watch my mate die in my arms.

  19

  RONAN

  In my dream, I unwrap the sleeping newborn baby cradled in my arms, and stare down at her perfect little face, and her skinny arms and legs. I study her teeny fingers and toes. Every day before she was born Mom called my sister a tiny miracle since it took so long to conceive her, and she is. A tiny miracle I don't know what to do with by myself. At that thought, I glance at my mother just a few feet away. She lies there still as stone and just as devoid of life, her warmth, her vigor, the dazzling light that always shone from deep inside her, all gone in one incomprehensible moment. A crushing sorrow crashes down on me, and I curl over the baby seeking comfort as a string of brutal and guttural sobs burst free from my chest.

  A little while ago, I woke to the sound of my sister's feeble cries as I lie slumped on my side on the concrete next to Mom, who was still just as dead as when I passed out I don't know how long before that. I fought past the fog of pain, nausea, and feverish delirium plaguing me and snatched up my sister's chilled little body from my mother's cold lifeless one. I wrapped my sweatshirt more snuggly around her and held her close to my chest to warm her up, and I've been holding her ever since. I don't want to let her go. I can't lose another part of my family.

  I swaddle her back up in my sweatshirt and hug her tight as I kiss the downy soft black hair on her little head with tears still trickling down my cheeks. Then I finally look around. The abandoned warehouse we're hidden in is silent and dark, but for the glow of the outside streetlights shining in through the windows running along the ceiling.

  I don't know how late it is, but Dad should have been back long before now. Do I keep waiting for him? Do I go after him? The thought of leaving my mother here, even though she's dead, physically hurts. What if I leave, and Dad comes back looking for us? On the other hand, what if something went wrong, and he needs help? I don't know exactly who's after us or even why really, but I know from overhearing my parents that it has something to do with some sort of power struggle within the pack involving the Alpha and his son.

  Dad has always purposefully kept me in the dark about the pack and any werewolf business in general, saying I was safer not knowing anything until we found out if I was an actual trueborn or not. For the first time, I question my father's wisdom in keeping me ignorant, even if it was to protect me. My stomach churns with my indecision and the surge of guilt for doubting my own father.

  Suddenly, the baby starts moving in my arms. I look down to see her little face scrunching up and reddening, just before she lets loose with a loud wail, her tiny hands clenching and unclenching as her chin quivers. Her cries grow louder and more frantic as does my distress. What if something's wrong with her? She's so little and frail. What if she dies too?

  "Shh, baby." I start to rock her in my arms, scanning her trembling little body for any hint of what's wrong as fear ices my veins. "Shh."

  It doesn't help. She just keeps crying and crying. What if someone who wants to hurt us hears her? Desperate, I try caressing her face and cheeks to soothe her. When one of my fingertips brushes over her tiny lips, she instantly latches on to it and sucks it into her mouth. She suckles on it a few times before her face scrunches up, and she spits it out to start wailing again. Oh my God, she must be hungry. Not only that but she needs clothes and diapers too.

  I glance at the bland sedan still parked several yards away. I know that Mom had a bag packed for her and for the baby in the trunk of our car for when she went into labor. I watched her pack them weeks ago and knew there were formula and bottles, diapers, a few outfits for the baby to wear home, and a bunch of other stuff in it. Most likely, she brought them with us, but we left in such a hurry that I wasn't sure. I prayed to God that she did.

  Somehow I find the strength to stand and totter to the car and open the passenger door. I carefully lay my still wailing baby sister on the floorboard, afraid she'll roll off if I put her on the passenger seat, then reach over to pull out the keys. I leave her crying in the car since I don't trust myself not to collapse with her in my arms, and slowly shuffle my way around to the trunk. I unlock it, then pop it open and spot a duffel bag covered in cute little zoo animals partially buried beneath the other bags Dad must have tossed in before we left home. I sigh deeply in relief as I reach in and dig it out, along with a hooded sweatshirt from another bag that I put on, since I can't stop shivering.

  It takes far more effort than it should. I feel so tired, so weak, but manage to get myself into the driver's side of the car where I muddle through making a bottle of formula with an unopened water in one of the cup holders. I pluck the baby up and offer her the nipple, and she latches onto it eagerly and calms quickly as she sucks it down. When she finishes eating, I clean her up with wet wipes, clumsily get a diaper and some clothes onto her squirmy body, then wrap her in a blanket instead of my filthy sweatshirt. Fed, clean, and content now, she drifts off to sleep again in my arms.

  Exhausted and shaking from the effort, I slump back into the seat with the baby cuddled close and battle to keep my eyes open for a while. It took everything in me just to do such simple things for her. She needs care that I'm barely capable of or equipped to give her. It's clear to me now that I can't stay here. I need help. I need my dad. I need him, now more than I ever have in my entire life.

  I glance at the steering wheel. I know how to drive thanks to Dad teaching me on the quiet back roads near our house, and I overheard where he was going to meet his best friend. If I can figure out where I'm at, then
I can go there, and even if Dad's not, maybe Rett is, and he can help me take care of my sister and find my father. I nod to myself and lean over to place my sister onto the floorboard again. I don't have a car seat, so I figure it's the safest place for her. I shove the key into the ignition before belting myself in, then pause.

  I turn my head to look out the passenger window at my mother's still form and more tears well up again. I feel so guilty for leaving her, but what choice do I have? Besides, she'd want me to do what was best for the baby, but it still feels wrong. And worse yet, how am I going to tell Dad about her being gone? He adores her, has his whole world wrapped up in her and our family. This is going to kill him inside, like it's already killing me. If only I had done more, taken her to a hospital in the first place or been with it enough to realize something was wrong before it was too late and made her go. Instead, she's gone forever, and I can't help but think it's because if me.

  Despair and guilt fall down on me with crushing and paralyzing weight. I hunch over with harsh and gut-wrenching sobs, just wanting to curl up in a ball and die, until a tiny noise catches my attention. I lift my head to find that it's my sister whimpering softly in her sleep, and seeing her pulls me back to reality. Shit. What am I doing? I don't have the time or the luxury to fall apart. My sister needs me. My dad needs me.

  I suck in a ragged breath and take all the pain and guilt and sorrow inside me and shove it down hard into this tight throbbing knot in my chest. I'll deal with it later when my sister is safe. For now, I have to keep it locked inside, or I'll completely break down. I straighten and start the car, then put it in gear and slowly drive out of the warehouse, ignoring the urge to look at my mother one last time for fear I'll lose my resolve.

  I quickly realize I'm in some sort of run down industrial park as I see multiple buildings similar to the one we'd been hiding in with broken and boarded windows and graffiti on every one of them. I get lost and turned around a few times before I manage to find my way out of the warren of buildings onto an actual street.

  There's not much traffic as I start driving around desperate to see a landmark that I recognize. I'm just about to give up when I finally spy a familiar brick building, a fire station in the much larger town north of where we lived in the pack's territory. I knew everyone of them in our little town, and any I'd spotted in the surrounding ones too, since I wanted to be a fireman when I was younger. Every time we passed one, I'd stare and stare, hoping for a glimpse of the firemen and their shiny red trucks inside. I wanted to be a hero, the kind of man who ran fearlessly into danger to save others. The idea of that appealed to me, but now I knew better. I was a coward, a weak pathetic thing that couldn't even save his own mother and keep the promise he made to his father to take care of her. I grind my teeth together and glare at the firehouse as I fight the despair threatening to escape the little ball I'd forced it into.

  I see several police cruisers parked in front of the building and feel a surge of fear that supersedes my self-loathing. If I get picked up by the cops for driving underage with an unrestrained infant lying on the floor, they'd take us in where I couldn't help my father. They'd take her away from me too. I sink lower in my seat, grateful that I look older than my actual age and that the baby is still quiet and sleeping as I pass the fire station unmolested.

  I head north out of town after that, following the same two-lane highway my father used when he'd take me camping far away from pack territory. I never really understood why he kept me separate from that part of his life, but I'm starting to now. I don't think I'll ever want any part of a pack, regardless of the fact that I'm a werewolf myself. Why would I want anything to do with the people who chased my family away in fear for their lives and then indirectly caused my mother's death?

  The homes and buildings lining the road become fewer and fewer, replaced by mile after mile of trees as I drive deeper and deeper into the forest, fighting to stay conscious and lucid. I'm burning up with a fever again, my bones aching down to the marrow and my skin clammy and tight. I'm just about ready to pull over and rest for a while when I spot my destination up ahead, an old rundown gas station that I remember well. It must have closed down decades ago because it had been sitting there slowly being swallowed up the surrounding forest for all the years Dad drove us past it on the way to our camping spot.

  Instead of pulling in, I drive past slowly, scanning the place and the surrounding area. The gas pumps and the building itself are overgrown and obscured by trees and brush under the strangely bright moonlight, the asphalt around it crumbling apart and infested with weeds. I see no one in sight, but continue driving anyway. I don't want to park the car anywhere near if I'm walking into trouble here. I find a little gravel road a short ways down the highway, and pull onto it, then drive in far enough that I'm hidden from view. I cut the engine and headlights, then sit for a minute shaking and shivering as the world spins and feverish exhaustion threatens to pull me under again.

  I pull myself from the brink of blacking out again, and glance down at the baby. My sister is still sound asleep in her blanket, her tiny face relaxed and content. I reach down with some effort to caress her smooth warm cheek, then gather what strength I have and get out of the car, locking it behind me. I hate to leave her unattended like this, but she'll be safer here in the car. I'll be damned if I take her with me and risk falling with her or taking her into any kind of danger.

  I stumble back out to the road and follow it along near the tree line, ducking out of sight when one vehicle passes by. I notice how oddly bright the moon seems again, and how easily I'm finding my way in the dark, then realize it's probably because of the change making my wolf senses start to emerge. My hearing and sense of smell are still human, but I hope the change in my vision means this miserable nightmare is almost over. It's been days of feeling like this, and I don't know how much more I can take of it on top of losing my home and my mother. With that thought, an image of her lifeless body fills my mind. My eyes start to burn as I pick my way along, and I end up tripping and falling to my hands and knees. I ignore the burning skin on my scraped up palms and force myself upright, shoving the horrifying image and the crushing sorrow back down again. I won't let myself fall apart until I find Dad, and the baby is safe.

  I continue walking until I finally spot the gas station, then slink out of sight into the woods and circle around behind the small and faded white cinder-block building. All seems quiet and no one seems to be here, so I risk creeping out into the open and approach the back of the building. This side isn't as overgrown, and I can see two small windows and an open doorway with no door attached. I inch forward toward one of the windows, deciding to look inside first since I don't know if Dad is even in there, or if someone who wants to hurt me is in there instead.

  I press myself to the wall next to the window to catch my breath for a moment, then slowly peek through one of the broken panes of dirty glass. I peer into a small room with cinder-block walls and insulation hanging from several large holes in the ceiling. Moonlight filters down through them illuminating two men inside, one kneeling over another lying sprawled across the filthy and debris littered concrete floor. At first, I can't identify them, since the one kneeling has his head bowed, and the other's face is a swollen and bloody mess. I study the broken man on the floor for a moment, then suddenly realize that I know those boots. I recognize that dark hair soaked in blood. It's my father, and I'm so stunned that I'm instantly paralyzed with shock. What happened to him? Why isn't he healing his injuries like I've seen him do so many times?

  The other man lifts his head to look at my dad, and I recognize Rett, Dad's best friend. His face is set in a stony expression of sheer determination. He picks something up off the floor at his knees and lifts it above my father's limp body. Before my poor muddled brain can comprehend what it's seeing, Rett's hand plummets down in an arc of sharp flashing steel and plunges a knife deep into my father's chest. My mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. I watch in horror as Rett
violently twists the blade, then yanks it free, leaving a swiftly growing stain of red blooming across Dad's chest. I know enough about werewolves to know he won't survive this. The weapon clatters to the floor a moment later, and the noise finally breaks me from my paralysis.

  Rage ignites inside me, and my first instinct is to rush inside and throw myself at Rett, who's still kneeling there with blood covered hands with his head bowed again. I want to let the fury inside me loose. I want to kill him, to rip him apart with my bare hands even though I know I wouldn't stand a chance against him. I'd die trying, but I don't fucking care. He just killed my father, my hero, my best friend. He deserves to die.

  I move away from the window with my hands squeezed into fists and take a single step toward the door, then freeze as I realize that I can't do this. If something happens to me, my baby sister will have no one to protect her, to take care of her. She'd surely die in that car or by Rett's traitorous hands right along with me. She's all I have left. I need to go before he finds me out here and get her far far away from him and the fucking pack that destroyed nearly everything I love. My fear for the baby spurs me on, and I hurry away as quietly as I can with tears pouring from my eyes and pain shuddering through me inside and out, and hoping like hell that he doesn't hear me and follow.

  I somehow make it back to the car, barely remembering how I got there, and scramble inside. The baby is still sleeping soundly and doesn't stir as I start the car and throw it into reverse. I back out quickly onto the road, then floor the gas pedal and race away down the highway, sparing one last glance at the abandoned gas station as I pass it. I see nothing indicating that Rett even realized I was there. Relief floods my body now that we seem to be safe, but on the heels of it comes a blast of pain and anguish like I've never felt before as realization hits home. My life is in ruins. My home, my parents, everything I knew is gone. I have nothing now, nothing but a baby depending on me when I have no means to take care of her, let alone myself.