59
Myths about vampire bites and Lychan scratches turning humans so easily, are folk lore, and it’s almost impossible to turn a human to wolf. I doubt you can pass on witch DNA without a baby, and I know even the vampires have a whole process involved in turning a human to be like them. It’s not just a bite, and boom, vampire. Wolves are born, not made, yes even vampires are sometimes born, I assume witches too.
“I’m pregnant.” I breathe out, saying to aloud to myself, to set it in there and push the doubt and disbelief away. I instinctively cover my abdomen with a protective flat hand, shuddering inside as I swallow those words and reconfirm my brain that this is not a dream. “Oh my god. I am so not ready for this.” I blanche and shiver with the sudden wave of cold fear that courses through my body.
“Are we ever?” Meadow smiles, leaning in and rubbing my belly with affection, eyes softening, and then grimaces and casts a glance Carmen’s way, almost guiltily. I feel Meadows sudden drop in mood, the instant regret at being so careless and hurtful and I’m at least glad to see Meadow has found an ounce of her compassion again. Carmen turns to walk away and seems to be trying to look busy, keeping her eyes averted and her face straight while giving no hint of her emotions away. I can’t ignore them coming from her though, and how overwhelming they are in this moment, in small confines. The pangs of heartbreak and loneliness, the bitter despair. I pat Meadow’s hand and give her an understanding look, nodding softly towards Carmen with a downcast flicker of my eyebrows.
Maybe it’s time I go a little easier on her, huh? I mean, she’s been through enough. Meadow mind links me privately, hitting the nail on the head and I nod. I have nothing else I can add, but an understanding of her loss makes me view things a little differently in the new light of day. Carmen is complex and it seems that one thing after another comes up about this girl which makes me dislike her less and less. She should be curled up in a dark corner, crying her angst out, but she’s not. She’s a fighter, a warrior and she’s probably holding on with everything in her to stop her from crumbling the way her mom did.
They say femmes change when motherhood hits and maybe that’s true. Maybe she didn’t need to carry on to birth for the changes to take effect, because she became a mother the second that life existed. Just like maybe I’m softer, more compassionate and stronger in my need to care for my people of late, maybe that’s because I too have been touched by the maternal bond.
I can’t imagine what Carmen feels or what the lack of that life has done to her since. The hollowness of its absence. Especially knowing she had to save herself and sacrifice her child in the process, all at Juan’s hands. It seems we all have our own personal reasons to hate that man’s existence after all.
“Good, good, you’re up.”
All three of us jump about a mile high when the voice invades from the far right, startling us into standing and poised aggression and none of us even sensed her. It’s weird, but even with our sense of smell, our hearing and instincts, our awareness; none of us picked her up last night, or this morning. She’s like a freaking ghost. Just swans in undetected and scare sus shitless with that sudden voice which comes at you like a flying dagger. We stand and pull together in front of the now glowing low embers of the fire, rattled, hearts elevated in beat and look around expectantly for her ‘guest’ with high suspicion, but she appears to be alone.
“Aren’t you missing someone?” I point out, eyeing up the fact she’s still in the same clothes as last night but despite hiking through dirt and forest, she’s immaculately clean and no sign of fatigue on her at all if she was up all night. I wonder if Meadow is right and witches can wear some sort of outer mask to conceal the real them. She’s too neat to have been out all-night walking around in this horrid landscape and damp hair.
“No. He’s here. Waiting by the road…. Where we’re going now. So, chop, chop, ma wee darlings. Did you eat?” she asks in that merry brogue of hers, and noses around looking for evidence of food which causes her to frown when she sees nothing.
“We were about to go get our supplies and you showed up.” Meadow responds drily, still an edge to her voice, and Leyanne nods with a slight shrug of one shoulder.
“Guess you can eat on the journey. We have to go, he doesn’t like waiting. So come along, pets. No time like the present.” She gestures behind us to the path we came last night, and Carmen is the first to get up and move. Glad to finally be leaving this place.
“I for one will be happy to get back in that truck and out of here.” She adds in passing and I catch up behind her to resume our single file trail, finding security in being between my two femmes, especially now I know what I carry. Leyanne moves to walk behind us as the birds hitch up and follow, flocking in form god knows where and it seems like the sky is suddenly full of caws and cries and the battering of wings.
“I don’t know, it has it’s positives. Quaint, peaceful, no humans for another few miles in any direction. Seems perfect to me. No one nosing in or getting in your way.” Leyanne smiles cheerily, being strangely upbeat and annoyingly merry, as if we’re all just out for a summer walk, at dawn, in the ugliest of landscapes. This witch is too weird for this time of the day and I hook Meadow’s hand in mine to feel more secure now that we’re moving and instinctively, I reach out, catching Carmen’s from behind, sliding my fingers into hers. She stiffens at the contact, hesitantly glancing back at me before returning the grip without argument and loosely holding onto my hand. I can feel her awkwardness, her uncertainty, the alien feel of another femme wolf having this kind of contact and I’m sad for her that between her own pack sisters, touch is not familiar. It makes me wonder if it ever was. Has she always been so alone?
“You said turning was a no for me, right?” I turn back and glance at Leyanne, dismissing Carmen’s posture, asking a question I have been going over all night with it sitting in my brain, and I have to clarify a few things. I’ve turned recently, and yet I am still pregnant, even though she said it had to do with the age of the babies.
“Right. Many hybrids were lost with just one turn. The perfection of your DNA is also your biggest flaw when it comes to species breeding. As soon as your body identifies it as something that’s drawing from your health, it fixes it.” I guess in the earliest days they are so tiny and unformed that my wolf gifts ignore the presence until they start to make you sick. I know that pure wolf pups somehow have the ability to withstand turning and I guess the impurity of a mixed child, is its other species is the one who can’t stand up to it.
“Right, ummm…. my gifts, my abilities. In human form I can use them still though, right? They won’t hurt them?” I ask tightly, raising my brow as worry wriggles into my brain; needing boundaries and guidelines to keep them safe, and I wonder how many times I have carelessly used them these past weeks while I didn’t know. How close have I been to losing them before they were given a chance at life.
“Yes, fine, although…. some report that abilities and such may be weaker and get worse as thing progress. Your body focuses on the new life and stupidly leaves you more vulnerable. I think its nature’s way of ensuring the weaker hybrids don’t get out of the womb. So many obstacles to ensure failure. Only the strongest make it so I’m not at all shocked that Sierra gave birth to the future Santo Alpha.”
“You’re saying she might lose them; even if she doesn’t turn?” Meadow spins her head on Leyanne, homing in on the details and ignoring he rother words, much like I do and gets an infuriating shrug in return. We both blanche at her and my brain goes into chaotic overdrive as nerves flood me and make me feel instantly sick.
“Not if she’s careful. Limits her need to protect herself. Relies on her pack to shield her, her mate if he wasn’t cursed. Sierra got through, I’m sure you will too. Colton was a strong baby, and I don’t doubt his offspring will be the same. I mean look at you, your mother didn’t have half of your ability and she still carried you to term. Be calm, Luna, have faith in your fates.” Leyanne yanks a passing branch, snapping off a twig to use to swipe at long grass as we walk, and she seems so utterly casual and relaxed. Like she isn’t telling me the possibility I may still lose my children.
“You knew my mother?” I’m distracted by her words, head pulling away from the topic at hand for my own sanity, and like always, thirsting for more of what I lost in my past. Anything I can ever learn about my mother from before, it’s like a drug for me, always needing more of it as the memories of her fade with time. So few beyond our pack knew of her, and so little of the remaining ones can even recall her at all. A lot of the valley forgot the Whyte pack as it was completely wiped out.
“Not personally, but I know of her. Was quite shocked to piece you and her together last night. But then, I shouldn’t be, they always lead me to people for reasons. And nothing is ever coincidence.”
“You mean the fates?” Carmen queries with a suspicious eyebrow rise and a glance back at her, and I’m wondering the same thing. I thought witches had gods, or some other belief, something like a moon goddess, given Leyanne seems to have at least three pendants on with moon stones and symbols of phases of the moon.
“I mean the higher power. You call them fates; some call them gods… I call them guides. Voices in the wind, nudges in your gut, itching palms and footsteps that lead you other ways. They send me where I need to go and sometimes it pays off. I’m in the right place at the right time and it all comes together. Like now.” She looks at me for a long second, a smirk nudging her mouth as though she’s gazing with meaning and I break eye contact, feeling uncomfy.
“That’s what you meant last night. Why ever you were here, it links to us somehow?” I wish she would just open up and speak, stop these dumb riddles and sassy little expressions. Tell us, but I get the feeling she isn’t going to. She plays everything close to her chest and gets a kick out of watching us try to pull the pieces together.
“It does. And soon, you will know how. Now speed up a little, I want to get there before he has to go back. He’s a busy man and not famed for patience…. None of them ever are.” She swipes at Meadow’s butt with her branch in an attempt to slap her onwards and gets a snarl and an amber glow under ferocious brows aimed her way. It doesn’t phase her in the slightest and she just lifts her hands and makes a little ‘forward’ motion with her fingertips while smiling like the Cheshire cat. I think meadow is close to eating her as she growls under her breath and jilts me into a faster walk with a harsh nudge.
“Who is HE exactly?” Meadow is impatient and fiery in nature and I can tell this way of communication, and the smart-ass facial expressions, are annoying her.
“Someone you’re going to hate on sight, but trust me, you’re not going to act on it, not if you want to live. I’ll make sure of it. I can assure you though, he comes with no intention of harm. You just have to trust the witch, I guess.” That low and smug tone, the brows smoothing out to an almost catlike look that reminds me of Hollywood villains and I swallow hard.
The three of us throw glances at one another, more questions coming with her so-called answers and a feeling of dread rises between us.
“Why do I get the feeling we’re not going to like this.” Carmen butts in.
“Because you’re not. But needs must and this whole thing, is bigger than just you three. Now hush, more walk, less talk. I need some headspace to figure some things out, seeing as I did not sleep one wink last night. Ma head’s weary. Now shhhhh… get going.” Leyanne gestures for us to move, rather bossily, a lot of harsh hand waving and a finger to her lips to silence our chatter. We don’t like it, but we fall obediently back in line and quicken our steps retracing our path from last night effortlessly as we can pick up our own scent to follow back. A sense of lighter relief that we are going back to our familiar truck and will be turning around and heading home very soon.
It doesn’t take long to see the truck in sight ahead, in the clearing where we abandoned its poor self. With a few more feet to cross, we come out at it where we left it last night and Meadow unlocks it before jumping in to reverse out of the ditch, we almost got it stuck in. With less weight aboard she maneuvers it easily and pulls it back up to sit on the road that brought us here.
“Not you.” Leyanne catches my upper arm quickly as Carmen rounds the truck to get in and I was about to follow. Flinching in startled surprise and turning to eye her up and meeting a deadpan look that gives me no clue as to the why. “You’re with me for now.” She gestures back along the main route to our left and its only then I spot a large foreboding pair of four by fours, both black with tinted out windows, parked about a hundred yards further along the road. They give me a weird vibe and an internal shiver runs through the length of my body.
“Um I don’t think so, she say with us.” Meadow leans out of her now open window and throws Leyanne a challenging glare which only gets an amused smirk. She makes a move as if to say she will get back out of the truck and physically take me.
“If I wanted to harm any of you, you would never have made it out of this truck last night. Don’t underestimate me. Be a good wee doggy, sit tight, shut up, and do as you’re told. Don’t make me get the muzzle.” Her words are almost icy and cold in deliverance, despite that catty sarcasm, and I throw Meadow a look that’s meant to calm her worry rather than escalate this into a fight that I know will happen.
