Rejected Mate and Following Fate novel Chapter 86

It’s a strange night, to say the least. Long, and almost sleepless, strained with three minds brewing crazily, and not exactly restful. Conversation is quiet, and sparse, as Carmen asked us never to bring up our newfound fact again and it seems none of us know what else to talk about. It all circles back around the two things – the fact I’m pregnant, with twins, and the fact Carmen lost her child that we never knew existed and mentioning either is obviously a sensitive topic. For both of us.

Me, I lay in bewildered and silent shock, staring at the sky, trying to get my chaotic feelings under control and absorb the reality of this, while Meadow keeps watch. She’s alert, on guard and sits staring out into the darkness, spinning to every new sound and can’t seem to switch off at all. In Colton’s absence she’s become my ever-attentive protector and it soothes me a little, while my heart still yearns for him to come to me and hug me tight.

What I wouldn’t give for him to be laid beside me now. His face close to mine, his nose touching, his breath warming my lips. His strong arms around me, keeping me warm and safe, like he always does. His gentle yet seductive tone and that accent that makes me weak at the knees for him. I miss him more than I can bear, and every second that passes that we’re still apart, I feel like I’m dwindling and crumbling to dust. My heart is broken with the loss of him and my soul is fighting so hard to find the hope, the remedy and to bring him home, yet I’m already so exhausted. I need him so much, more so since the witch told me that I’m carrying our children and I can’t turn if I don’t wish to harm them.

My head’s a mess and I wonder how long they’ve existed in my belly, while I was careless and patrolled with the sentinels. While I used my gifts, selfishly turned at will, and paraded around with no hint of danger of the inner workings of my body. How long have I been tired, and hungry, and oblivious to my own body telling me to slow down and rest, because of these two little lives glowing brightly in the depths of my soul. It makes me sick to my stomach that without even knowing of their presence, I could have ended them with my complete ignorance, and guilt claws at me, cutting deep and slicing my heart to shreds.

Sierra was right, even if she didn’t mean it in that way – I do have a little witch in me. In fact, I have two. Somewhere in my heart it makes me warm, and happy, swearing to protective them at all costs, but the troubles, the worry, and the vulnerability it gives me now, claws up like a dreaded threat and chokes me into uneasy fear. I just lost my edge in this war, my upper hand. If I can’t turn, I can’t heal, so I have to make sure nothing happens to me that requires that. I can’t use my wolf gifts, become strong, and huge. I can’t battle as a human, but at least I still have my vampire traits to fall back on, although my energy is weaker, and at least now I know why.

We all stay this way, trapped in our own heads, dozing occasionally when our bodies give up the fight; catching minutes or more of fretful slumber but then awaken at the uncomfy, and unfamiliar surroundings, with a start. We’re awake at odd times, sometimes together, mostly not, and nothing can really pull us out of it. This weird semi sleep, overly nervy mood we seem to be sharing. It’s a surreal night, being somewhere strange, noises out in the dark that we have never heard back home, but like Leyanne said, nothing comes close or even ventures at the perimeter, so we feel relatively safe even with her gone. Her magic is powerful, and after she left, Meadow found symbols and etchings in a full circle outside on the derelict walls, much like the truck, so she at least didn’t lie about our safety in this ruin. I guess in that she earned one point towards trust.

The early rise of sun doesn’t wake us as we’re already up, boiling water, making coffee that she left behind in that trunk full of things we assume she carries with her. It’s weird. She has no transport around, yet this thing is huge, and weighs a ton and seems to carry everything she needs to travel. It’s full to the brim of clothes, books, dried foods, potion bottles and an array of personal belongings that she has just entrusted to be left with us, with no care about us opening it to get the supplies she mentioned. We made sure not to touch the grimoires that were stacked in one corner, Sierra’s voice coming to mind about never touching one without a witching handing it to you.

We were careful to not pry too much, only access the coffee and sweeteners, ignoring her belongings as best we could and we kept the campsite clean. We are aware that crows still watch us as only a few left with her, and who knows, this magical bitch might have cursed her stuff so if we did pry we would suffer for it. There’s no telling what someone like her would do.

“Who do you think she’s bringing back with her?” Meadow cuts into my thoughts, pulling me out of the endless stirring of coffee I have been doing, while daydreaming about nothing and everything all at once. I shrug, frowning with a deflated exhale and shake my head.

“Honestly, with her, it could be anyone. She’s vague as hell and I’m not convinced she’s sane. I still don’t know if we should trust her or not.”

“Oh, she’s sane. She’s just a little all-knowing and smug for my liking. I don’t trust her as far as I could thorw her while in human form.” Carmen interjects, her face worn and drawn with dark circles under her eyes, telltale signs she didn’t sleep at all, and she moves to rummage a small cooler beside the chest for fresh food and finds nothing. We’re all tired, bellies rumbling from hunger and fed up waiting here.

“One of us should go back to the truck for breakfast supplies. I need bacon, lots and lots of bacon.” Meadow grunts out, never cheerful in the morning without her food, and in the same breath seems to offer to be the one to do it but I shake my head.

“I’ll go, I need the walk and the headspace. This whole thing is like a dream and I have no grasp on reality. “I make a move to get up, from my butt numbing wooden perch but flinch at the reaction.

“No!” both of them snap it in unison, instantly hostile and on their feet, as though ready to take me down while I blink at them in surprise.

“Luna, you should stay safe, here!” Meadow grinds out harshly, furrowing her brow at me, that no nonsense bossy femme on show and motions me to sit down with a jerked thumb.

“And the babies! You’re going nowhere.” Carmen adds on, brazen with her cold, overly protective tone, then blushes as she realizes the words that came from her mouth sounded almost tender as she turns away to hide her own reaction. Her face flushing red and she makes herself busy with tidying up our camp.

“I can’t even process…… I don’t feel any different. Maybe she’s wrong and I’m not. Surely I would know right?” I query but Meadow narrows her gaze on me, all doubt missing in her know it all expression.

“At the house, Sierra said… ‘are you sure you’re not a little witch’, because of how the book responded to you. Maybe she was right, and it’s not you, but there’s witch inside of you growing now and it’s only logical the book responded to them.”

We both fall quiet and all eyes stray to my belly from three angles, a pause as it sinks in that Sierra did say that. I even went over it myself through the night and came to the exact same conclusion, and I know for certain my DNA holds no witch. It has to come from Colton. And there’s only one way it could. You can’t transfer it any other way.

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.