Vanilla Moon: Acrimony

by Airiel Hawkins

  Bree escorted other families back. Every time she did, she gave us a sympathetic look. I wondered who she lost tonight… if anyone. There was a part of me surprised that she stood here. I never had the impression from her that she was strong enough to stave off her shift. That, of course, led me to the conclusion that she was also pregnant. Just my luck, right? Another one. The only thing that would make this worse was if Sophia told me that she was too. It would be my last straw.

  But, of course, I can't break even if I want to. I must be strong. I'm going to be the next Skaapie of this pack. Weakness is not an option.

  Almost two hours passed before Bree brought us back to Leon's room. There was an I.V. in his arm. He had stitches across his face, crisscrossing the scar already there. His right eye had gauze over it. He also had an oxygen tube around his face. His left arm had stitches from shoulder to elbow. His skin was pale and lifeless, but the heart monitor told us that he was very much alive.

  I wondered what happened at the Resting Grounds as I continued to look over him and take an inventory of his injuries. Ravyn pulled a chair over to him and sat down. Her hand brushed along his right arm, near his shoulder, where the skin was pristine. Even still, I saw his face contort with pain. She didn't pull her hand away and he didn't indicate that he wanted her to. I knew her touch would help him. Contact between mates did amazing things, one of which was speed recovery.

  My eyes drifted down. He had a hospital gown on, but someone bunched it up around his hip, giving him the decency of personal privacy while also allowing the gash on his thigh to breathe. Something gouged the skin. The bone of his leg shown, even in the dim lighting. The muscles and tissues surrounding it looked like they were reaching to close the gap. His skin looked like acid melted it and made me wonder if he had a silver burn. What had they done to him? How could they have been so cruel?

  I didn't want to imagine the mind-numbing pain he must be in. By the looks on their faces, I knew that Ravyn and Wolfgang didn't want to either.

  The doctor walked in behind us. I hadn't seen Dr. Cyrus since she discharged me after the Witches killed my baby. Every time we were in the same room, I refused to look at her. I didn't want the reminder of what was stolen from me. Now, it seemed that I had no choice but to acknowledge her.

  She closed the door behind her and looked at the four of us. I knew that Leon was conscious only because sedation didn’t work for us for longer than a few minutes at a time. The only way to keep him from feeling the pain was a constant flow of pain medications that would make him too high to function.

  "I think it's obvious that things are bad, so I'll spare the breath on that part," she began. She looked directly at Ravyn. "I'm going to ask that you stay here as much as possible because your presence will pull him through this. Right now, I can't say whether the eye will come back again like it did last time. All I can tell you is that it's going to be a very long, very painful road to recovery. Walking will be difficult at first. The muscle will all be brand new. Since this attack happened right after the moon set, we can't heal the injuries in the normal ways. They're going to take time. Some of them may even be human slow."

  Wolfgang stared at her. "We don't have time for 'human slow'."

  Dr. Cyrus shrugged. "I can't do anything more than what I've already done," she said. "At this point, it's up to them. You're going to have to be the one to lead the revenge effort on this one, Volsunga. The Witches will answer for what they've done."

  Wolfgang nodded. "Yes, they will," he vowed. "Tell me about what you've seen in the injuries. I can only say what I think they look like and I hope that I'm wrong."

  The doctor sighed. "Well, if you think they look like injuries sustained when fighting other Lycans, you'd be right," she said. "That's what they are. I don't know how they did it, but most of the injuries I treated tonight were Lycan-inflicted. There were a few silver burns here and there, but not enough to make me think that Witches did this."

  "They cast a spell," Wolfgang said. His voice was rough and cracked. I felt my body turn cold as we all stared at him in horror. He cleared his throat and shifted from one uncomfortable foot to the other. "After we sent the survivors down, Brenda appeared. She gloated about what they did. She said they managed to cast a spell that turned them against each other. No one escaped it."

  "That cannot be true," Dr. Cyrus argued, shaking her head. "Anica's injuries are not consistent with the other survivors. I don't know how she managed it. Her wounds are cuts made by blades, not gashes from claws. They're clean."

  "That's suspicious," I mumbled.

  Wolfgang nodded, agree with me. "I'll check it out," he promised.

  "You know, this attack means we either have a traitor, or they have a way to spy on us," Ravyn said. "And with as careful as we are, I doubt they're spying on us."

  "It could be either one," I replied. "Remember, Alan knew where to find us on the hunt," I reminded her. She nodded. I could believe that the coven had a way to pass on knowledge if they were annihilated before they could get the word out to the others. I imagined it more like a book or journal of some sort where they wrote down the secrets they discovered and the things that any successor would need to know. If Brenda had the knowledge that Alan did, she would know where to find us.

  I zoned out while Dr. Cyrus told Wolfgang that two of the survivors died. I heard her mention the other survivors' statuses and prognoses. I wanted to get away from the clinic. This place held some of the worst memories of my life and I didn't think that I could stand here much longer. My proximity to the place made my skin crawl. I needed to leave, and I knew that Wolfgang did too.

  "I'm going to ask everyone but the mates to leave," Dr. Cyrus said in conclusion. "I'll call you if anything changes."

  Wolfgang and I took the queue and said farewell to his mother before we walked to the door. Before I opened it, his father's hoarse voice called us back. "Wolfie," he whispered. We turned and saw him, his good blue eye trained on us.

  Wolfgang walked back up to him. Leon held his hand out and my mate took it. I could see him trying to be as gentle as possible. Leon looked up and their eyes met. "Kill them all," he whispered.

  Wolfgang nodded. "I promise," he vowed. Somehow, I knew that we would.

  When we stepped outside of the clinic and started walking toward the car, Wolfgang stopped. I turned back to look at him and saw him staring at his hands in the yellow haze of the light above him. Blood and dirt-crusted his fingers and palms. He hadn't washed his hands yet. It was possible that he wouldn't have time to shower again, no matter how bad he needed one. He cupped his hands and let them fill with rainwater before he started scrubbing them together in a vain attempt to clean them.

  I stepped up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, effectively stopping him. "Come on," I urged. "Let's get you home and in the shower."

  Wolfgang stared at me for a moment before he nodded. He took my hand in his as I led him back to the car. I saw his truck parked next to the emergency entrance, which used to be just a garage entrance for the warehouse. I assumed they used the truck to bring the survivors in. We wouldn't return for it until later in the morning at the earliest. Right now, it was safe, and we needed to focus on a plan.

  We stopped walking at the trunk of the car. "So, do you have any thoughts on how to go about this?" I asked.

  "Find them and kill them," he replied. He shrugged his shoulders. "I'll figure out the details later.

  The text tone sounded from his phone, so we got into the car. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the message. "They're done at the Resting Grounds," he said. "They're taking the… remains… down to be cremated."

  "Remains?" I asked.

  He closed his eyes and shuddered. I watched him swallow and started to understand just how bad it was for them. "There were pieces everywhere," he whispered. He shook his head as if fighting the memory. "I can't talk about it right now."

  I nodded. "Okay," I said as I started up the car. "Was that Riley wh
o texted you?" I asked. Wolfgang nodded. "How long have you known?" I asked.

  He cleared his throat as I started to drive away from the clinic. "That they mated?" he asked. I nodded. "I found out when I went to get the coffee," he informed me. "I haven't had much time to touch base with you, which was why I hadn't said anything." He studied me for a moment. "How are you handling it?" he asked.

  Tears burned at my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. "To be honest…." I sighed. "I don't know. This morning, I couldn't shake the feeling that the twins were hiding something from me. I knew that it was Lena's secret. I knew Soph wouldn't tell me because, knowing Lena, she probably asked her not to. I knew all of that before I really knew that there was a secret. When I asked Lena about it, she clammed up. She wouldn't tell me. She still won't tell me. I saw the bite. Figured out the rest. She says she's sorry, that they wanted to wait until after you and I were pregnant again, but…."

  "'One thing led to another and it just happened'," Wolfgang finished for me. "Riley told me the same story.

  I focused on driving for a moment while we let the silence grow between us. "Is instinct going to drive us to get pregnant again, or are we supposed to just get over what happened and do it?" I asked. I felt tears burn at my eyes and fought to keep them from leaking out. I rubbed my eyes for good measure.

  Wolfgang cleared his throat. "I don't know," he confessed. "I wish I could tell you."

  I nodded. "Great," I whispered.

  He reached over and put his hand on my knee. "We're going to get through this," he promised. "All of it."

  I nodded, even though a large part of me didn't believe him. How could we get through the worst events of our lives? Of course, he had more experience in that department than I did. All I really knew was that old adage: One day at a time; one step at a time. Or maybe it was the other way around. Right now, none of that seemed to matter.

  We entered the house without saying anything. People gathered in the foyer. Most of them looked fresh from the shower and wore looks of fear and worry on their faces. Wolfgang's gaze passed over all of them. "Two more died," he said. "My father is still your Enkidu."

  A collective sigh of relief rushed through the crowd. I saw Riley and Selena standing among their number. They looked at us with pain in their eyes and I wasn't sure if it was the pack or baby that put those looks there. Either way, I knew it for what it was. Guilt. Pain. Sorrow.

  Without another word, Wolfgang headed down the hall to our room. I lingered a moment to memorize their faces before I followed him. I didn't know what the plan was moving forward. I knew we would face it without any sleep. We needed a plan. I hoped he knew where to start with his find them and kill them quest.

  When I walked into our bedroom, I heard the shower running. Wolfgang was a step ahead of me. I followed the sound and saw him peel off his wet clothes and shove them into the hamper. I added laundry to my list of things that needed to be done and marveled at how mundane that was. Hundreds of people died tonight, and the laundry needed washing. How did those two things even belong in the same thought?

  Wolfgang looked at me before he stepped into the shower. There was no door or curtain to it. I doubted that there ever was one because it didn't look designed for it. I watched my mate for a moment as he bowed his head under the water. My gaze drifted down his sculpted body where rivulets of brown and red glided along his body to the floor. Swirling around the drain, the water was rust-colored.

  I felt the need to do something to help him, so I peeled off my own soaked clothes and tossed them into the hamper on top of his. I stepped into the shower with him, knowing that he wouldn't mind my intrusion. Without a word between us, I reached for the body wash and loofah. I worked the soap into a rich lather, then washed his body. I had to scrub a few places where the dirt and blood had dried and clumped together. There were moments where I even believed that I washed someone else's skin from his body. There were other globs that looked like tissues of some sort, but I didn't want to focus on it. I didn't want to think of who they used to be.

  Clean, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my body. Wolfgang stayed in the shower while I reached for his towel. I passed it to him before I started to dry myself off. When I looked up because I noticed he wasn't moving, I saw that he just stood in the stall, towel in his hands, stiff as a mannequin. He stared off into space and I knew that, in his head, he was a million miles away.

  His gaze flicked to me as I stepped up to start drying him off. I hoped that he would respond to something, but he didn't seem interested in anything but shutting down, so I pulled him in for a kiss. For Lycans, physical contact with our mates could change everything for us. It was how we healed, communicated, and focused. It made us better. Stronger.

  Wolfgang responded to that kiss. What started off as a chaste meeting of our lips escalated into something so much more. Wolfgang's strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me close to him. He held me so tight that I didn't have to worry at all about my towel slipping because he pinned it in place with his body.

  He deepened the kiss and threated his fingers through my wet hair. I moaned into him. It amazed me that I was so responsive to him. It had been almost a month since the coven took our baby from me. From what I understood, they forced some sort of herbal concoction down my throat and it worked fast to kill the baby. It may have taken me a while to come around to the idea of being pregnant and becoming a mother, but that was my child. I wanted that baby more than I wanted anything else by the time they took it away from me.

  There was a gaping void in my heart where the child should be. I felt empty without it. I longed for that love again, even if un-reciprocated. Maybe this was how I moved on? We were clear to start trying again. Sophia followed up with my recovery because I couldn't bring myself to face Dr. Cyrus. I didn't want to replace a baby with another baby, but my instinct said that we needed a child. The look in Ravyn's eyes said we needed one. Wolfgang was in a position where an heir was necessary.

  That was part of why I welcomed his arms around me again. I needed something—someone—to hold onto again. I needed to feel that love once more, even if in a different form.

  He pulled away for a moment and I saw the wildness in his eyes. Something about the way he looked at me made me think of predators hunting in the forests for a prize. It reminded me of our hunts in the forest. It sent a chill through me, but it was also exciting. At this moment, I wasn't the predator, I was the prey. His prey. His prize. I knew that he wanted to claim me once more and show that claim to the world.

  Wolfgang swept me off my feet and carried me into the bedroom. He dropped me on the bed and pinned me there with a look. Perhaps a month without sex wasn't a good thing for a Lycan, but I just hadn't been able to get there before today.

  He was over me in an instant. His mouth came crashing down on mine as he pushed my legs apart. It didn't matter that the towel was still wrapped around my body. He thrust into me with so much force that it made me cry out from surprise and pain. He was rough. His touch was harsh. All I could do was wrap my arms around him and brace myself for the ride. This was what he needed, and I would not deny him. Still, he made sure that I got something out of this too. Sex with him was never about one person receiving all the attention. It was always about both of us. Even in a moment like this, he made sure that I reached a climax too.

  Afterward, he lay beside me and held me in his arms like I was the teddy bear that would save him from the monsters under the bed. His body shook and he started crying. I turned my face to him and met his eyes in the dim light. I leaned closer and gave him a soft kiss but didn't say anything because I wanted to wait for him to be ready.

  "I've never seen him like that," he confessed. His voice was little more than a whisper. I didn't need to ask who he spoke about.

  I nodded at him. "I know," I said. "It was hard to see."

  "When I saw him at the Resting Grounds, I was sure he was dead," he confessed. He closed his eyes and rest
his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes and focused on doing what I could to comfort him. I ran my hand along his arm and smoothed his wet hair back. "I saw the bone in his leg and thought he'd never walk again. I didn't even notice the gash on his face. I couldn't be sure if he was injured there or if it was someone else's blood." I felt him shake his head before he held me tighter. He held back a sob. "I don't know how to do this," he whispered in a high whiny voice.

  I kissed his cheek because it was the only part of him I could reach. "We'll get through this," I promised. "Take it in steps. Before we can attack them, we need to know where they are. That's the first thing. Once that's done, we can take another step."

  He nodded just before someone knocked on the door. Wolfgang sighed and pulled away from me. He slipped on a pair of pajama bottoms from the drawer and I dashed into the bathroom to clean up while he answered the door. "Yeah?" I heard him ask.

  "Mira's up," Riley replied. "She's looking for Ravyn."

  Chapter 5 ~Wolfgang~

  I followed Riley down the hall to the dining room. Inside, I saw Selena watching over Mira as they sat at the table. Mira had a cup of orange juice in front of her. I smiled when she looked up because I didn't want her to know how dreadful things were yet. The look in her eyes told me that she knew something happened and that I'd be an idiot to try to tell her otherwise.

  She met my gaze with eyes of the same pale blue. "Wolfie, where's Mom?" she asked. For the first time, she seemed so much older than her six years.

  I didn't know what to say to her. On average, Mira and I were always honest with each other. I was the protective big brother and she came to me with all her secrets. I didn't want to scare her or make her think that things weren't going to be okay. "Come with me," I said, nodding away from the dining room. She got up from her chair and walked over to me, holding her hand out. I took that little hand in mine and led her to the library, where we sat down on the couch and I pulled her into my lap.