by Amira Rain
I'd completely forgotten about the possibility of a rescue. And now I was beginning to think that I might not want one, at least not for a while, and maybe not ever. After giving me a few all-too-brief kisses, Cole went down to his room, packed a few things, gave me another brief kiss and soon left the house, joining several of his men who were going to be traveling to Northwoods with him. I watched him go with a funny little ache in my chest. If I'd known that it was going to be two weeks before I'd see him again, I might have developed a lump in my throat, too.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Not much of crucial importance happened over the next two weeks. I made friends with Cassie, who was very friendly, just as Cole had said. A North Haven scout got within a half-mile of the village and was captured by Cassie's husband, Clark. I then convinced Clark to allow the scout to return to North Haven with a letter from me to Commander Northrup, saying that I couldn't explain things very well, but I didn't want him to make any attempts to rescue me at present time. Despite the fact that there was perfectly good cell phone reception in New Bad Axe, and Cole had even left a phone so that I could call him if need be, I'd had to write Commander Northrup the letter because I didn't even know his phone number, or anyone else's in North Haven for that matter.
During my two weeks without Cole, I grew closer to Mary-Alice. Along with Cassie and another friendly young woman named Ella, we spent several days planting a flower garden in the center of the village, because we all thought the space could use some color, considering that all the houses were the same shade of drab gray. Then, the four of us embarked on our next project, planting a massive vegetable garden that anyone from the village who wanted to work in could enjoy the harvest from. Being that all supplies and most food had to be sent to New Bad Axe from Angel communities in the Angel-occupied north of the state, sometimes fresh food was scarce, so we figured the garden would help with that.
During our last day of planting in the warm May sunshine, Deanna, the woman whose husband Cole had killed, joined us, followed by two other women. The three of them were definitely a little different, with one of them, a middle-aged woman named Beth, talking only to herself the entire time and not to anyone else, but that was fine. Cassie, Ella, Mary-Alice, and I were just glad that the three other women had joined us, particularly Deanna, who hadn't left her house much since Dominic had been killed, despite lots of gentle coaxing from Mary-Alice and Cassie. A circular wound on her right cheek from where he'd ground a cigarette into her flesh for the last time was just beginning to heal.
I learned that many of the women in New Bad Axe, including Mary-Alice, Cassie, and Ella, had been forcibly taken from various towns and cities in northern Michigan during the Takeover. Mary-Alice, whose whole family had been killed, had been taken to serve as a maid and cook for some Angel leader now long dead, and Cassie and Ella had been abducted to serve as concubines for Angel men. However, before either of them had been violated in any way, each of them had been "rescued" in a sense by their Angel husbands, each of whom had married them without forcing them to do anything. Then, eventually, Cassie and Ella had fallen in love with their respective husbands, Clark and Edmond, who both seemed to be men similar to Cole, which was to say men who wanted a different kind of Angel community, one where women weren't abused, and where there was a more predictable system of law and order than in the average Angel community.
One of the things that I didn't ever learn during my two weeks of female bonding in New Bad Axe was why Mary-Alice didn't speak. I'd come to notice that she really hardly ever even opened her mouth. When she smiled, she kept her lips glued together, and when she ate, she tended to either kind of cover her mouth with a hand while taking bites, or closely cover her mouth with her food, like an apple, when she took bites. As curious as I was about all this, I just never asked Mary-Alice what was behind it all, mostly because she seemed very reluctant to talk about anything that was in the past, and I guessed that whatever had happened that had made it so she couldn't or wouldn't speak fell under that category. And as far as me learning anything from the other women about Mary-Alice's situation, they never brought it up, and I never asked them anything, primarily for the same reason that I hadn't asked Cole about it. Whenever I thought about doing so, it just seemed like I'd be violating Mary-Alice's privacy in some way. I figured that when and if she wanted to tell me why she didn't speak, she would.
Another thing I didn't learn or ask about during this time was why Cole had repeatedly told me I was pregnant with his child. Although I felt like I was good friends with Mary-Alice, Cassie, and Ella by this point, something about the thought of telling them what Cole had said to me just struck me as bizarre, as well as slightly embarrassing in a way I couldn't even articulate. So, I said nothing, and I didn't ask anything, either.
Then, near the end of the two weeks, something curious happened. I myself started to wonder if it could actually be possible that Cole had somehow gotten me pregnant without ever sleeping with me. Feeling as if I might be losing my marbles, I realized that I had felt nauseated, off and on, very frequently since Cole had abducted me from North Haven. I also realized that I hadn't gotten my period in a long while. I actually couldn't even remember the last time I'd gotten it, although this in and of itself wasn't that remarkable for me. I'd always had a wildly erratic cycle, sometimes having a regular monthly cycle for months at a time, and then sometimes having stretches where I didn't have a period for two or three months. Various doctors had declared me perfectly healthy and had said that sometimes even healthy women were just predisposed to having unpredictable cycles. So, the fact that I couldn't remember when I'd last gotten a period didn't really give me pause in and of itself, but combined with my frequent bouts of nausea, I was really beginning to wonder.
It was the night before Cole returned that something suddenly and inexplicably clicked into place for me. He'd gotten me pregnant through some kind of sorcery. I absolutely couldn't believe this thought hadn't crossed my mind earlier. But now, it made perfect sense. After all, I knew that some Angels could perform feats of magic such as bringing animals back from the dead, so it only stood to reason that some might be able to impregnate women without even actually sleeping with them. It seemed likely that Cole might be one of these Angels, since he seemed to be an incredibly strong Angel physically. Maybe he'd done some sort of a pregnancy spell on me while I'd been passed out after the battle, I figured.
Before this epiphany, I'd been sitting in a chair in the "bird room" of the mansion, just watching the finches in their glass cabinet, and when the thought of possible pregnancy via sorcery hit me, I gasped, one hand flying up to my mouth. The sudden movement and noise startled the finches, and several of them flew up and off a branch, chirping in a rapid, repetitive sort of way that indicated irritation.
I knew I needed to call Cole, needed to tell him that I knew. Weirdly, even though I thought what he'd done was wrong, incredibly wrong actually, I wasn't currently feeling any anger. Maybe I was still too shocked.
After dashing down to my bedroom, I grabbed the phone that Cole had given me for emergencies and dialed his number. Up to this point, I'd only called him once while he'd been gone, though not for any emergency, but just because one day I'd simply become preoccupied with hearing his voice. During that call, he'd told me that Dominic's brother Bennett had left Northwoods the day Dominic had been killed, and since then, Cole and his men had been tracking him all over the state, fearing that his plan was to eventually reach New Bad Axe and wreak havoc for revenge. So, knowing that Cole was incredibly busy, I hadn't called him again, until the present.
He answered on the second ring, immediately asking if all was okay, and if I was okay.
Sitting down on the side of my bed, I said all was fine. "I just called because I think I understand what you did now, and I'm actually starting to believe what you've said about me being pregnant with your child. I'm actually starting to feel pregnant, sick to my stomach off and on all the time, and I can't even
remember the last time I got my period. And...I'm really not sure how I feel about all this, but...I do just want to say one thing right now. It was wrong of you to get me pregnant with your sorcery, and if I didn't feel some kind of a funny, strange, weirdly deep connection with you, I might-"
"I didn't get you pregnant by way of sorcery, Lauren."
Miles beyond surprised and confused, I didn't respond, and Cole soon continued.
"I didn't do it by any kind of trickery at all."
"But-"
"Please...just continue to trust me just a little while longer. I really can't explain things right now. I know this hasn't been easy for you, and I'm sorrier about that than you'll ever know, but please just continue to trust me a little while longer. All right? Please trust in our connection, which I feel, too...very, very deeply...and trust that things are working out exactly the way they should."
Feeling like I didn't have much of a choice, I said that I'd try, and soon Cole said that he was sorry but he really had to go. I could hear some kind of commotion and shouting in the background, so I quickly said goodbye and that I hoped he'd be home soon. Before ending the call, he said that he hoped to be home the following day.
After putting the phone back on my nightstand, I just sat on the edge of the bed for a while, mind reeling, before falling back on the bed. "Damn you, Cole."
I hadn't said what I just had because I was angry at him for getting me pregnant by whatever mysterious, baffling way he had; I'd said it because I was incredibly frustrated that I couldn't see him right then, right that second, couldn't run my fingers through his thick hair while he kissed me. I was frustrated that I couldn't inhale his intoxicating scent, and would have to wait until the next day, at the earliest, to do so.
Something strange had happened to me, and not just that I'd been impregnated and didn't even know how. Somehow, I'd fallen for a man, whether in lust or in love, even though that man had kidnapped me, and even though I hadn't yet spent much time with him, and even though I'd watched him brutally killed a man, and even though we hadn't even seen each other in two weeks. But I couldn't deny it. Some deep part of me had possibly felt some indefinable connection with Cole from the moment I'd met him, and despite the absolutely bizarre series of events that had happened since then, my feeling of connection with him had only grown.
It could all just be chalked up to lust, plain and simple, that I knew. The sexual part of my brain had been activated probably from the second I'd set eyes on Cole, even while he'd been in his fearsome Angel form, and even while he'd been actively abducting me; and that sexual part of my brain had been reactivated every single time I'd looked at him or had even thought about him since. It had been profoundly reactivated the night when we'd kissed. And since then, nearly every night, I'd been having dreams about him, and not just dreams about him kissing me. These dreams had gone a whole lot further, usually veering into incredibly carnal, graphic territory, and several times I'd awoken drenched in sweat, with a hand sliding down the front of my pajama pants.
Self-release didn't do much to quench my desire, though. In the past, when I'd been parted from other boyfriends, it had, but something about my lust for Cole was different. It was a kind of hunger that could only be satisfied by him and him alone, and I knew it. Absentmindedly running a hand over the soft curve of my lower stomach, I contemplated whether I should just come right out and tell him all this when he returned home, whether I should just come right out and tell him that I wanted him, and I didn't want to wait any longer. Something about this seemed overly bold; however, I was having his child, even though I hadn't been able to fully wrap my brain around that idea yet, and it didn't seem that I should feel like I had to shy away from telling the father of my child that I needed to experience sexual release with him, and very soon.
I slept in his room, in his bed that night, which I'd recently started to do. I'd also recently started to curl up with an unwashed shirt of his that I'd pulled from his laundry hamper, which vaguely made me feel like some kind of a possible pervert in some way, but I didn't care. I'd just begun to need to smell his scent every night before going to sleep. I'd begun to crave it like a drug.
The next day, I gardened with Cassie, Ella, and Mary-Alice, and the three of us made plans to open some kind of a combination lending library and little general store in the village, like they had in North Haven. If the library and store were well-received by the community, we had thoughts of adding a little coffee shop or restaurant at some point, too. At present time, there was only one single business operating in New Bad Axe, which was a dingy hole-in-the-wall bar staffed by Beth, the middle-aged woman who spoke only to herself. It was beside the bar, in a vacant small, gray, aluminum-sided outbuilding similar to the bar, that Cassie, Ella, Mary-Alice, and I wanted to have our little library and store; but I said I'd of course have to talk to Cole first and ask him if we could use the building, and also ask him if we could paint it a cheerier color, maybe a pale yellow, or at least tan, any color that wasn't the drab prison gray that the first Angel leader of the village had seemed so partial to when building the village over the ruins of Bad Axe.
As interested as I was in our gardening group's plans and everyone's ideas and thoughts, particularly about how we might get the other women in the village involved, I found myself more than a bit preoccupied, wondering if Cole was going to be returning that day, as we both hoped. His second-in-command, Cassie's husband Clark, who was a tall, well-built, stern-faced man, though a man not entirely without humor, came strolling over to the vegetable garden late in the afternoon, telling Cassie that he was on a break from running a patrol around the village and just wanted to see if all was well. Wiping dirt from her hands on a towel, Cassie said that it wasn't. Frowning, Clark asked what was wrong, and she came over to him and began leading him away from the group by the hand.
"I'm in desperate need of a kiss and a few minutes of conversation with my husband, is what's wrong. Let's take your break together."
With Cassie's slender hand in Clark's much larger one, the two of them started down a narrow U-shaped lane that led away from the vegetable garden, with one side of the U leading to the area where the hundred-some houses in the village were located, and the other side leading to dense woodland, through which Clark and a few other men had cleared walking trails a few days earlier. I watched them go, thinking that Cassie wasn't the only one in desperate need of a kiss.
When they returned to the vegetable garden a full half-hour later, hand-in-hand once again, it appeared that Cassie may have enjoyed more than just a kiss in the woods, based on the fact that her long blond ponytail was clearly crooked, and the top button of her heavy, dirt-smeared work shirt was now just gone, as if her shirt had possibly been ripped open. More than a bit envious of her experience, I casually asked Clark if he'd heard anything from Cole, or knew if he would be returning to the village that day.
A man of few words, Clark said no, he didn't. "Last I checked in with him, though, he seemed eager to get back."
Hopefully he was just as eager to get back as I was to have him back.
That evening around ten, when he still hadn't arrived home, I ended a session of dejectedly watching his birds in their massive cages, took a shower, and went to bed in his room, curled up with the shirt that still held his scent.
Not long after I'd fallen asleep, I awoke to the sound of the shower running in his master bathroom. Opening my eyes, I saw Cole not too far away from the bed, taking off his heavy black boots. In thin light filtering out from a several-inch crack in the bathroom door, I could see that he'd already taken off his shirt and was now wearing only battered jeans.
After slowly pulling myself up to sit, I feasted my eyes on the sight of his shirtless form. "Hi. Are you taking a shower? You look like you might need help."
CHAPTER NINE
I couldn't believe I'd said what I had. I wasn't sorry for it, though. Cole was finally home, and the idea of showering with him was one that I found just
too tempting to pass up. Already, thoughts of sliding my hands over his muscles while they were soapy and wet were sliding through my mind, making my intimate parts tingle in anticipation.
Now with his shirt, boots, and socks off, Cole looked at me with the corners of his full lips twitching. "I was hoping you might wake up and want to join me."
After coming over to the bed, he extended a hand and pulled me up, then into his strong arms and just held me for a long moment before speaking. "I feel like I've been gone months."
Reveling in his scent and the feel of his arms around me, I lifted my face from his hard chest. "I feel like that, too. And I know I haven't even known you for very long, but I...." I paused, looking into his eyes in the dim light. "I somehow missed you while you were gone."
Dipping his head, he brushed a tender, lingering kiss against my mouth. "I missed you, too."
These four simple words sent a little thrill rippling through my stomach, in addition to butterflies that were already present. He'd missed me. I hadn't even expected knowing this to make me as strangely happy as it did. The knowledge of something else was also beginning to make me strangely happy as well. Somehow, we were having a baby together. I was actually pregnant. Cole was the father of my child. The thought of this was making something stir deep inside of me, some primal urge to want the father of my child to claim me, sexually and emotionally, and in every other way possible. I wanted Cole to make me his.
