AN: Thank you for the reviews! It inspires me to know that people out there like what I write. A big thank you to my beta reader and to Jadecoyote for correctly identifying the creature I had imagined, and giving it a proper species name. And thank you all for being patient. So! Without further ado…

Chapter 8

This baby boy looked very familiar. A cousin, maybe? Whoever it was, he wasn't afraid of what was going on around him. What on earth is this child doing here? Vivian thought. This small child with his messy black hair seemed to carry with him all the joys of world, yet he held so many questions in his golden eyes. The child outstretched his arms to Vivian. He wants to be held?

Suddenly the large shadow stopped and noticed the child, and Vivian. Soon, it began to make its way toward them. "No!" Vivian screamed. All of a sudden she had the urge to protect this child, as if it were her duty. Vivian ran with all her might to get this small boy out of the way, but the shadow was coming towards them at a high velocity also. With all the effort she had left in her body, Vivian made a great lunge for the boy screaming his name out to break the curse of this nightmare.

She screamed, and shot upright onto the bed. Her fangs were sharp and feral.

"What did you say, Viv?"

"I … I don't remember… But Gabriel's in trouble. And I have to save him."

"If that is your wish."

"It is. For now."

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Gabriel spat up blood, but kept lunging. If I stop, I'm dead, he kept chanting to himself, over and over again in his head. He wouldn't die. Not now. Vivian needed him. He lunged again, and sank his powerful jaws into whatever was available, a flank, a calf, a shoulder, all the while tasting the coppery mess threatening to drown him. The creature howled and fought back against the loup-garou, swiping at it with its long razor claws.

Then he heard another set of paw prints closing in. He would've called to the loup-garou for help, but he could smell it before it approached further. It was Nathan, and he was ready to attack. Gabriel howled a war cry that sent a pulse through the ground, all the way to where Vivian was running. She tore off her nightgown and changed into a loup-garou, still keeping up her furious pace.

I need to get to him. He needs my help.

Vivian's muscles were clenching and flexing from the speed that she was acquiring. It felt like she was going to jump out of her skin. But she still felt as if she wasn't going fast enough, and time was slowing down.

Nathan trembled with the adrenaline pumping, and the excitement in the air. He was itching to kill that damn Gabriel. But he couldn't get in on the action. Not yet. Adam was unstable, swiping and clawing at everything; the ground, the trees, Gabriel. If he got in the way, he'd just end up a bloody mess. Part of Nathan felt heavy with guilt. He had promised Adam he wouldn't let him lose control anymore. But this was beyond control. Someone, or something, would die tonight.

Gabriel was tiring. He was almost to the point of breaking. But he wouldn't stop the fight. Someone had to die, and he wouldn't let it be him. He managed to escape the creature's swipe, and lunged again, getting a mouthful of muscle. The creature smelled, and tasted, like a loup-garou. But it wasn't. It couldn't be.

Nathan carefully smelled the air. The blood was getting headier, and muscles were getting torn now. Pretty soon he would get to go in, and finish the kill. He crouched down lower to the ground, ready to pounce, when he felt daggers slice through his flank. He cried out in immense pain, like he hadn't felt in a while, and tried to buck the loup-garou off of him. But she wouldn't move an inch. Instead, she bit down harder, trying to tear his ligaments. This new loup-garou was more powerful even than Gabriel, and was ready to do some serious damage to him. Perhaps she would have, had Adam not intervened.

Adam yanked her off. And then she snapped. Adam was already seriously injured, but she was ready to finish the fight. Nathan's eyes clouded with uncontrolled tears as he watched his brother get mauled by the feral loup-garou. "Stop it! STOP IT!" he yelled, over and over again until he was sure the beast girl understood him. And, she actually stopped, and the creature rolled onto its side, panting heavily.

Vivian crouched low to the ground, still lusting for blood, still wanting revenge.

But then she noticed Gabriel, and how heavy he was breathing, and ran to him, and began licking his wounds. Nathan changed back into a half-human, and crawled up to Vivian. She turned her head to face him, bared her bloody teeth, and snarled. "Please, I just want my brother." Vivian half-changed and got up to answer him, in her human voice.

"That's your brother?" she said, through her sharp fangs.

"Yes. Please. Gabriel needs your help, and I need my brother."

"I don't care."

"Please Vivian. It's not his fault, he… he can't control this."

"What is he? He smells like a loup-garou."

"I wish I had more time to explain, but Gabriel isn't looking so good."

"I'm not going to leave your brother. Tell me why he should live."

"…Because you're not killing him. Not really. You… can't. He's a wendigo. And the only way to kill him is to burn his heart of ice."

"I've heard of that before…" Vivian paused, not sure of what to do. "All I care about is that that thing is psychotic, and homicidal."

"Please."

"Tell you what. I'll let you kill him. He's close to death now. He won't feel a thing."

"You can't … you can't do that."

"If you don't, I will. Either way I can't let that thing go free. It wants to kill, and if it's not Gabriel, it's someone from my pack. And if it's not one from my pack, then one from another will die."

"There… there must be some way to cure him."

"Come on, you know the stories as well as I do." She resented the fact that she still cared what happened to this guy's psychotic mutant of a brother. If she were a strong queen bitch, she could finish him off herself. But until she was certain there was no cure, she had to care. "I need to take Gabriel to Aunt Persia. Maybe she'll know what to do about your brother."

Vivian changed back into her loup-garou form and picked up Gabriel by the scruff of his neck, swinging him over her shoulders. "Vivian, I can help you with that."

"No. He's my husband. I can do this." Vivian paced as quickly as she could back towards Aunt Persia's home, and found the old woman waiting for them outside, with a table set up with medicines and instruments outside, closer to the forest. Of course Aunt Persia would've known this was going to happen. She must have had a vision already. She carefully swung Gabriel onto the kitchen table, and changed back into her human form. "Tell me what to do."

"I've got this taken care of darling. He'll be just fine. You got him here in the right time. You need to help Adam."

"How?"

"You have to decide what to do. As the queen bitch, what is best for this pack? Here are some ropes, and a bucket of hot suet. If you decide he has a chance, feed him the hot suet until he throws up the evil inside him that's freezing his heart. If not, the ropes can hold him down until the sun comes back up and melts his heart. It's your decision."

Vivian was getting tired of hearing that. But it was her duty to decide what was best for her, Gabriel, and the pack. She ran back into the deep forest and hoped something would show up and make her choice for her.

Nathan was not afraid of touching his brother's mutated limbs. Adam looked like his old loup-garou self, but the appendages were longer, and the claws like skeletal fingers. Nathan wished he hadn't let Adam do this again. The creature's breath was coming in short, quick gasps, from all of the wounds the pack leaders had inflicted on him. Nathan acknowledged their power for a moment, as he tended to the shallowest of his brother's wounds. If he hadn't stopped her, the queen might have bled him to death. And Gabriel had managed to live, despite facing the worst of Adam's attacks.

"Move Nathan."

"I can't. I won't. What are you going to do?"

"Nothing if you don't move." Vivian noticed the cuts and red marks on Nathan's arms in his half-human form. Nathan was hurting himself. I'll deal with that later, she thought. She handed Nathan the steaming pail of suet.

"What is this shit?"

"Raw beef and mutton fat. Feed it to him, until he throws up."

"And what's that supposed to do?!"

"Quit asking so many questions. His life is in your hands now." Vivian turned and left Nathan to deal with his brother. She knew it wasn't her decision, it was his.

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Gabriel opened his bleary eyes and saw his beautiful wife at his side, on his bed, playing with what looked to be knitting needles and biting her bottom lip in obvious frustration.

"What do you think you're doing?" he mumbled, still groggy from all of the painkillers.

Vivian's face lit up when she saw he had awoken, and descended down upon him in a shower of kisses. He laughed, and tried to remember the last thing that had happened. He fought the creature named Adam, and was injured, and now he was back in his room. "How long have I been out?"

"Too long," she muttered, burying her face in his neck, carefully. He had bandages across his arms, and chest. And new stitches on his face and knuckles.

"What are you doing? Or were you doing?"

"Oh, this?" She picked up the knitting needles and a baby blue colored square. "I dunno. It's nothing really. Just… something to pass the time. You've been asleep for a while."

"Does the rest of the pack know why?" he asked, his senses returning to him slowly but surely.

"Yes. Nathan explained everything to them."

"Is the creature…? Adam… still alive?"

"Barely. He's even worse off than you right now. Luckily you heal fast, because I am not a patient person."

He grinned and sat upright on the bed. "Oh yeah? What's that supposed to mean?" She purred quietly and sat closer to him, still aware of the bandages.

Then he noticed how different she looked. Vivian's face was considerably softer, her lean muscles less noticeable. "Viv, why have you taken an interest in knitting?" She stopped kissing his neck, and smiled like he'd never seen her smile before. It was a gentle smile, full of promise.

"Well… I had a dream. And I saw a little guy, and he looked like you, and me, sort of. And it's been a week, and Aunt Persia says I should learn how to knit, to pass the time. I think knitting is rather stupid… but you know people … they normally do this when…"

"Are you saying…?"

"Maybe."

"Viv, you need to say it, or I won't believe you."

"What do you want me to say? That we're having a baby?"

"Yes." Somehow, knowing that, all of his wounds miraculously healed, and he had enough strength to jump out of bed, and pick up his beautiful wife, and spin her around the room, while she held on to him, and wrapped her legs around his waist.

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The whole pack was gathered at the dinner table, glad to have Gabriel back. He looked around and saw a couple of new faces. His sisters, the triplets, were present, and making big eyes at Nathan, who was trying to pass a plate of lamb to Vivian's mother's new husband.

And Adam was at the table too. Gabriel noticed Adam's black hair, and green eyes, like Nathan's. When he heals, he'll look more like Nathan, he thought. Adam had a cast on his right leg and left arm and side, and bandages covering a lot of his visible skin. But Adam was laughing, and smiling.

Vivian made her special announcement, now being able to say it with Gabriel at her side, and there was an immense roar of noise and happy howling from the group. All of the non loup-garou of the inn had left already, to continue their own lives, while Gabriel and Vivian were starting theirs.

After dinner, the pack left their leaders with Adam and Nathan, to talk things out, and explain what hadn't been said yet.

"Thank you, Vivian and Gabriel. For letting us into your pack." Gabriel looked at his mate's eyes, but never questioned her decision.

"And thank you for forgiving me. I never expected that." Adam looked younger than all of them; he looked to be only sixteen or seventeen years old. "I suppose I owe you an explanation, Gabriel. See… I… I got lost in the forest a long time ago, and the spirit of a wendigo descended on me. And I became mad by it, and I loved it. There was so much power. But I also grew hungry, for blood, for meat, for life, and souls. I could've taken yours, but you were strong. And Vivian was stronger."

"And Vivian let me save him. She gave me that chance. And so we asked to join your pack, to protect it." Nathan had lost all of his arrogant cockiness, and proved to be a quiet and humble young man.

"I see. Well, if Vivian says you're welcome, then I say so too."

"And congratulations on your baby," said Nathan.

"Just one question though." Gabriel looked at Adam, wondering what else needed to be said. Vivian had been silent the whole time, playing with her moon pendant, she looked at Adam too. "What will you name him?"

Gabriel laughed and ran his fingers through his hair, and looked at his wife with his bright blue eyes. "I don't know, actually…" Vivian smiled softly back at him, and took his hand.

"He told me his name. In a vision. It's Jacob." Gabriel's breath hitched, and he couldn't have been happier than at that moment.

"Jacob. That's a wonderful name," said Adam.

AN: Don't worry. This isn't the end of the story! Not yet. I still have a few tricks in store for y'all.

But I hope you liked this chapter, and please keep the reviews coming.

Thank you!