Demetruis had the twins in the town. I sat frozen as Elena told me the news, "He says that if you go alone, you see them, but if we follow..." Behind her, Clayton scowled, clearly tempted to hit something, but the toddlers were watching us carefully, having followed me like little shadows.
"He has them here?"
"He said he'd not hurt you. He had to discuss their future with you." Elena said quietly from behind Nick. But she didn't know. Neither of us really knew.
"I should go then. Shouldn't I?"
"You're their mother. I'm not going to order you to do something." She replied, reaching out. "I'm sorry that we didn't get to discuss this at the meet first. Did you want to see them again?"
I nodded, a sharp nod, eyes squeezing shut a moment as I felt her inhale slowly.
"Call us. Any problems. Call us. We're not going to be in town but we'll be just on the outside." Clayton came out, keys in hand. "We agreed to not go in town but we'll be a few minutes outside. Lucas is waiting outside town now."
"Nick?"
He hadn't spoken. I could see it, he didn't want me to get into the car, he didn't want me to risk myself so fast, but ...Nick wasn't going to tell me what to do either.
I got into the car and let the man who'd broken my heart take me back into his life.
Demetruis did not have the children. He'd seen of the pack in town, apparently, and that shattered the agreement. But he didn't harm me either, reassuring me that there were other chances, offering a coffee in the darkening night. We sat there, my anger and hurt that they weren't there mixing with anger at him, as he sipped his drink casually. Neither of us spoke for a while.
"Why am I here if you didn't want me to see them?"
"To ensure you were recovering." That wasn't it, I suspected, but his eyes went over me. "You have colour back."
"I am fine."
"Did you require more morphine?" Demetruis leaned down, opening a case, and I froze as I saw what it was.
An entire box of the stuff.
He didn't even wait for me to accept it. Demetruis stood up, pushing it into my hands, and headed outside. I heard him say something about being in contact again but it was drowned out by the weight of the chemicals in my arms.
I sat in the car, numb, my mind battling with the need for this chemical. It made no sense. I didn't want to be drugged up, I didn't want to be addicted to this stuff, but … the disappointment, the anger, that he'd lured me out here with the offer of seeing the twins and then to get nothing...
Every fibre of my body, of my brain, it pleaded for this. Just a little. Just a tiny bit.
I was still staring at it when we pulled up outside the gates and stood there as the car pulled away. No one was waiting for me. They were probably still waiting outside the town.
It was perfect, in other words, the perfect chance to get it into the house and hide it. Surely they wouldn't notice. Surely I could use it secretly. Just to calm down the depression, just to release the pain a little, to endure the loss of my babies.
I wandered down the driveway, the case ten pounds heavier than it actually was, heart sinking as I was aware that I was already deciding what to do with it. How to hide it. How to use it without being seen. No one was at Forestwatch, no one was there to stop it, and I stared at it as I sat at the kitchen table.
The image of the hospital room, as they carried the babies away, it fixed in my mind. This drug promised to make that image go away. So much morphine. Deep down, deep under the depression and hurt, I felt angry at Demetruis for giving this to me. He hadn't given it for pain relief or because of the surgery. He knew, maybe had always known, that his son used it to control me for months.
Was this about control?
Maybe it was. Some part of me didn't care.
Sleep came, as I stared at it, a heavy sleep that I couldn't resist. Whatever I'd do with it could wait.
A hard slap knocked me back into reality, Clayton's face white with fury as he stared at me, bending over me. I'd slumped onto the floor, apparently, and gone to sleep there. Where was I? Stonehaven? Had I gone to Stonehaven? I wasn't even sure any more. Maybe I had come here instead of going to Forestwatch.
"Clay." Jeremy grabbed onto him, as he went to slap me again. "She's awake."
"I ain't hitting her to wake her up." He hit me again, so hard that even Nick flinched. It was a brutal thing, maybe, to humans... but he was the pack enforcer now, not Clayton, and he'd caught me. "Come with me." Clayton yanked me up, angry, and made me watch as Nick emptied each bottle down the sink, one hand keeping my head pointing in the right direction. "Where did you get that shit?"
I watched, numb, but there was a sense of terrible loss as I saw Nick destroy it. Every last bottle. He wasn't looking at me, his hand shaking as he emptied every last bottle. He looked so afraid.
"Smell it, Clayton." Jeremy said, softly, calm. "Smell the case. She's still too drugged to ..."
Clayton dropped me, or would have, but Nick was fast to catch me. He knelt down, eyes still avoiding mine, and I shut my eyes. God. What did I do that for? I'd just started to get over it properly.
"Gone." I said, finally, trying to open my eyes again. When I did, I blinked, the room different. I was in the basement now, in Stonehaven, and the cage door was shut. The panic that'd normally have come didn't. I lay there, staring at the door, as it hit me. It was all gone again. Every last drop.
"You used it again." Nick's voice came from beside me, his voice soft, and there was a hurt there.
"He didn't have them."
There was a long drawn out sigh. Nick flopped his head on my chest. There was so much hurt there, at this assumption that I'd used it, that it angered me for a second. Then I remembered that I had wanted to use it. Somehow, for some reason, I'd just passed out too fast to attempt it.
"I didn't use it." I told him softly, suddenly, some memory of it coming back. "I didn't. He gave it to me but ...I just sat there staring at it."
Nick's head lifted, as I shut my eyes, reaching up to rub my aching head. Or tried to. My arms were held down.
"I need aspirin. If you don't believe me, smell the inside. Or look at my arms. I didn't touch it."
"Clay, what's inside the syringe?" Nick spoke, and I saw him then, the big guy outside. He stood up and headed upstairs without a word. Nick's hands brushed across my arms, sliding the sleeves up, fingers trembling. There was nothing there, of course, but I held my breath until both arms were seen. Neither had a mark on them.
When he came back, there was something there, something in his face that was less angry. "It was empty. Nothing was in it. No chemicals. She's telling the truth."
"Told you." I muttered. Shut my eyes, fell asleep again, floating away even as they spoke at me. Whatever reason I needed to sleep, it had nothing to do with the morphine.
I woke mid-vomit. It was the strangest thing, one minute floating around in peace, suddenly then bent over a basin, the acid burning my throat, the basin already half filled with the nasty smelling stuff. Some of it was black.
"Here, drink. Try to keep it down." Jeremy gave me a glass, something that smelt like charcoal, and he held it at my lips till I drank. I didn't ask him how he knew I was awake, suddenly, just did what he told me.
"What?" I asked, making a face at the texture of the water, somehow more lucid than before. We were still downstairs but the cage door was open.
"Sedative, probably." He was relieved, I could see it, because a sedative was a much easier problem than starting the morphine thing all over again. "The charcoal will help get rid of it."
"Why would he do that?" I knew why though. For the same reason he'd offered me the morphine. To keep me calm, controlled, and safe. Jeremy didn't answer. "Is Nick ok?"
"Now that he knows it wasn't the morphine, yes." He replied, soft. "We sent him upstairs to have a sleep."
"I almost used it." I said, quietly, lying back as I shut my eyes. "I might have if I didn't fall asleep."
"Yes, but you didn't. Focus on that." Jeremy's voice followed me as I floated away again, a faint pride there almost, as if he wasn't angry at all.
Everything was back to normal after a few days and I felt terrible when I found out they'd delayed the Meet till I recovered. Jeremy was probably right, he'd probably sedated me, as a precaution. He had taken my babies, after all, maybe he was concerned. Worried I'd hit him. Some part of me would have loved to do that.
I made Nick check though, check that I hadn't been touched, even if my own nose knew that it hadn't happened. He found nothing either. No marks, no scents that I could smell, no bruises, I was exactly as 'he'd left me'.
But Demetruis contacted me again within a few days to apologise. His body guard had slipped a sedative, apparently, it was entirely out of his hands. Funny how it was always someone else's fault. Never his.
He asked me to come back, to discuss the twins, and I went back. This time, they stayed within sight, using a hotel to watch us. Lucas was with them, hiding them, Paige joining him. Elena was not going to take another risk like that again.
Demetruis ordered himself a coffee, lips twitching as I refused to let him get one. Instead, I got one myself, watching it getting made from start to finish, and only when that was done did he get onto his point. "You have been very helpful to me over the past few months, at great cost to yourself physically. I am glad we chose to make the agreement that benefited us both."
"You didn't tell me it was for the bitten werewolves only." I growled softly, despite my attempt to stay calm, and he raised an eyebrow.
"I specifically said it would only cure werewolves. I assumed that, as the Cabal know that the more common strain affects all species, not just werewolves, you would know I could only offer the cure for the bitten strain. That was your misunderstanding, not my lie." He replied casually. "Would you like some cake?"
"No. Why am I here?"
"I'm getting to that." He ordered the cake and went back to sipping the drink, casually, the dark summer night surprisingly quiet for this area of town "You see, I am not keen on putting all my eggs in one basket. I intend on having more children."
"I'm not doing that again." I tried to not crush the coffee mug under my hand as he said that.
"No, and I would see more genetic material from you as 'eggs in one basket'. I am in possession of a different medicine. One that is able to restore supernatural gifts, if taken, and my scientists are close to the actual cure. I believe many of your pack, your son included, are in need of this, now that the mutts are buying it from me."
They were... what? My heart froze at that. He smiled, so pleasant, but there was the distinctive threat there now. He was threatening us again.
"They are very eager to pay to return to normal. I offer you this medicine for free for your own pack and a percentage of the sales, which are more than profitable, in exchange for a child of a different genetic heritage."
"Who?"
"Elena. Your alpha."
I almost spat out the coffee as he said that. "You think I can just ...negotiate on behalf of Elena,t trade her eggs? You want me to rent Elena's womb to you?" I laughed. I couldn't help it, the dry laugh there as I tried to get this into my head.
"More or less. Yes. You are a hypnotherapist Convince her to allow it one way or another and I will be satisfied with her eggs, if she is unable or unwilling to carry the child I will find a woman to carry the embryos." He didn't expect me to say no, again, but this time I was too furious and upset that my babies weren't here to let him get away with it again. My body? Sure. I could probably be manipulated into using it to protect the pack. But put Elena's body at risk? Not a chance.
"I have a counter proposal."
"Yes?" He didn't seem interested, but his eyes opened a little more, that intimidating stare fixed on me a little more.
"You give me joint custody of the twins and I will arrange for you to have a meeting with the Alpha-" I refused to call Elena by her name when dealing with this bastard "-to negotiate rental of her womb with her directly. A privilege most mutts don't get."
"Joint custody?" He seemed amused, suddenly. "Why would I accept that instead?"
"They are werewolves and require a woman to imprint on as a mothering figure. I am their mother and make the best one you could find, but you're running out of time, and they will not accept any other mother. That's why your sons didn't grow strong- they had the wrong balance." It was a outright lie, more or less, I was bullshitting. But maybe it wasn't total bullshit. Would they have treated women like that if they had a mother?
"Go on."
In other words, he wanted me to keep bullshitting. "... I also don't expect to be paid, unlike a nanny, and they will grow up with the best role models in the werewolf world. This would mean that they both have a balanced upbringing- you, with the sorcery, and the pack adopting them and ensuring their protection and place in the world as adults. They would also be more psychologically balanced and less likely to become fucked up like your older sons." I tried to keep that calm cold face that Clayton could do so well, that unemotional face. That was a good reason. But I didn't know if I should tell him I loved them. It felt like if I did that, if I put my heart into the bargain, he'd use it against me. Now or in the future.
"Interesting points made. Valid, also, for I am admittedly very grateful to my own mother's involvement in my life, as you well remember." He paused then. I did remember. The ex-alpha had left her to be gassed by the Cabal swat people, and Demetruis had been furious at him. Not just that, but Nick had said that Aaron's mother had cared for him. I couldn't tell if he was actually considering it. "How often would you expect to receive the twins as the joint-parent?"
"Every second week."
"And what school would they go to?"
I didn't know. I didn't even know where the triplets were going yet. "We'll look at schools and decide that when they're older." Truthfully, the idea of discussing anything with this bastard in the future was about as attractive as using sandpaper for toilet paper then going for a swim in the sea, I knew that he'd forced this on me- forced me to get pregnant, forced me to give them to him, everything. But I'd worry about that later. "It's too important to rush now."
His lips curled up in a smile, just the fraction of one. I hated him. I loathed him. He was like a snake, or something nasty, and the idea of letting him have any time with them made me want to throw up. But it was better than never seeing them at all. "And you will side with me on the issue of Elena having a child?"
"No." As his face got icier, I added, "That's not something I could do with my role in the pack. I can a arrange a meeting with the Alpha and I will then stand back and let the two of you discuss it. You don't seem to understand how the pack works- I do not tell the Alpha what to do or think. No one does. But I can bring her here." I saw him open his mouth and added, voice sharper, ignoring the fearful 'What if he doesn't accept?' "This isn't an offer mutts get. They get the pack enforcer and a broken neck if they try to get a meeting with her. I don't know how big in the sorcerer world you are but in this world, you'll get treated like any other mutt who invades on our territory and harms our own." I didn't lower my eyes, didn't blink, as if this was a battle of balls. Like the mutt 'penis measuring' bullshit they did when they were threatening each other. Balls? I vaugely remembered hearing something about that, about how balls were fragile, weak, exposed, where as vaginas could take one hell of a beating. So this was a battle of vaginas?
It was funny, how when I was most stressed, the most bizarre things popped into my head.
He was sitting there, as my brain sprouted out things that tried to make me laugh, and he didn't speak for a while. I could see him sipping the coffee very slowly.
"She must be alone."
"The Alpha is never alone." I said, as his eyes finally came back to mine. "The Alpha is always accompanied by the Pack Protector at all times and always has been. But you won't get the whole pack surrounding you and getting ready to tear you from limb from limb. You won't get my mate here." The last part was a threat. Nick, if he came here, I didn't know how he'd react. But I suspected he wasn't going to be cracking jokes and comparing notes as to how I was in the sack.
"My research suggests your mate is no threat- he takes no active role in punishment as Elena's mate does." Demetruis raised an eyebrow.
"Did your research also add that he crushed a man's skull for trying to rape me? You succeeded on that front. Any of us are a threat if our mate's been hurt." I replied dryly. I didn't mince words now. "You get only the Alpha and the pack protector, instead of the whole pack and whoever Lucas Cortez's father sends-" That, I noticed, caused him to tense and I wondered just how big in the sorcerer world Lucas's father really was, "-and the Alpha will also have Lucas with her to ensure that no spells are used. We don't use spells. It will balance out the meeting."
"How fast can she come?" He asked. He still hadn't agreed to my terms.
"Half an hour at the most." Less. I knew that they were just a two minute walk away. But they'd take a few minutes up there to discuss strategy first, knowing them. Half an hour would give them ten or fifteen minutes Clay would want to deal with the threatening position Elena would have to go into.
He leaned back, thinking, and I felt my heart thud hard against my ribcage. Please. I had to see them again. Suddenly, that craving for morphine was nothing, nothing compared to the craving that came with needing to see the twins. Hold them. Smell them for the first time.
"If Elena comes here with only the Pack Protector and Lucas, I agree."
"I can't guarantee she'll agree to your original offer. You'll have to offer your terms to her directly and our agreement stands, regardless of her choice." I reminded him, even though I didn't want to, I had to make sure he understood that I expected the twins no matter what she decided.
"I understand that." He leaned forward. "You will not turn them against their father with hypnosis?"
I stared at him for a moment, expecting him to do that cold laugh or smile, but no. He was deadly serious. I had used it sometimes, on mutts, and it worked surprisingly well. Sometimes more efficiently than on humans. But I'd never expected this man to take it so seriously.
"No." I hoped they'd be smart enough to loathe his father all on his very own. It was amazing, how much power Demetruis assumed I had with it, when I was still learning myself. I had to look into it deeper- almost everyone I met scoffed, but witches and sorcerers always seemed in awe of it, rather than mocking. Maybe it had greater hold over the mind of a supernatural. "If the boy has your gift for magic, I want him to be able to control it, and he won't learn from you if he hates you. I want the children to be strong too. You are their biological father and naturally, make the most logical choice for that influence, as I do for the werewolf half. No hypnosis on them."
He nodded slowly. I could see it, the assumption that I was like him, that I would do anything for strength and power too. I would do anything for my pack, my children, strength and power had nothing to do with it.
"Agreed. If she is here within thirty minutes, you will receive the twins every second week, starting today, and we will renegotiate the terms of joint custody when they begin school."
"Agreed."
"Say it out loud." There it was again. That bizarre feeling, like he was doing some spell, some contract.
"If my Alpha is here within thirty minutes, I receive the twins every second week starting today and we will renegotiate terms of joint custody when they begin school."
Again, it felt like shackles closed over me, it made me stiffen and tense. He seemed to tense too. But after a second the sensation relaxed. It felt so final, so done, that it took everything I had in me to not slump in relief. Instead I stood and went to call Elena.
She didn't tell me off, though I suspected she would have liked to, I heard her speak to Lucas and Clayton. Nick had to stay there, everyone had to stay, but they were already getting into the car when I hung up.
It didn't take her thirty minutes. It took them ten minutes, Clayton sped, and when Demetruis saw Clayton, he shot me a look of annoyance.
"You didn't agree to send her mate with her."
"Her mate is the Pack Protector. He's doing his job and will follow her orders over the desire to hit you." I hoped, anyway, though I wouldn't have blamed him if he broke orders. Most likely though he'd stay calm. She was the one in charge now.
Elena gestured for me to go stand some distance away beside Lucas. I stood back and watched across the road with him, as the two spoke at the table, Clayton standing behind Elena, their faces shadowed in the dark. Everyone except Clayton's face, which the light of the coffee shop was hitting, giving us both a clear view of his reaction. It might have been funny, the look on Clayton's face, I guessed when the man had the audacity to say he wanted Elena to bear him a child, if it wasn't for the clear sheer willpower Clayton had to use to not rip his head off then and there.
"You made an agreement with him." Lucas said, quietly, as we waited.
"Yeah."
"It's a spell. You can't break it."
"Can he?"
Lucas shook his head a fraction. "No. But be careful. He agreed to something and will use every thing he can use to manipulate the words to his advantage."
"Like he did with the cure." I muttered. "He said it'd be for only werewolves but he didn't mention that it was a cure only for the bitten strain."
"Exactly. We'll go over the words after." Lucas said softly and concentrated on the older man again.
Elena lasted about two minutes with him. I had only heard a masculine voice, though I'd not heard the words themselves, and then she stood up and waved us both back over.
"We'll discuss this in a week's time." She informed him, just as cold as he was, no room for argument. He nodded and stood up as well. Elena radiated something I'd never seen in her, not at home, a kind of authority and power that even Demetruis struggled to fuck over like he did so easily with me. It probably made him even more determined to get his way.
"The babies." Elena reminded Demetruis. Clayton fixed him with that stare, that stare that made even Demetruis freeze, and he pulled out his phone.
"You have no car seats for them. I can-" Demetruis started.
"Give us the ones you have. Very kind of you." Clayton was taking over now, drawling, relaxed, but every muscle in his legs was tense. He was waiting for an excuse. The man had just insulted the Alpha, his mate, and he had to be calm. Demetruis seemed to know this too. Knew that he was seconds away from Elena's control over Clayton's anger slipping.
"Yes." He agreed, dialled a number, and Elena went to get our car.
I didn't see them, in the dark, I only saw the car seats for newborns. But I smelt them, needing to lean against the back fo a chair as Elena moved them into the car, my legs going weak. Traumatic birth or not, I knew that scent as well as I knew the triplet's scent, these babies... I could smell them and knew they were mine. Bonds, deeper than anything Demetruis understood, wrapped around those babies.
"Don't loose it now. Get in the car." Clayton said, quietly against my ear, so soft that only I'd hear it. He was right. I could loose it when I got home. Right now I had to keep up the badass werewolf logic crap.
Getting into the car, their smell filled the car, filled my nostrils, like a drug. I whined again, quietly, an instinctual response to them. I heard them breathing, heard their little stomachs working on something they must have just been fed, heard their hearts beating slowly. I wished I could see them. But if I turned on a light I might wake them and upset them. They were both asleep, both quiet,and I felt afraid to touch them suddenly. The others piled into the car and we drove away, leaving Demetruis there, with the precious babies.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do." I said, quietly, when we were out of town.
"You got him to speak to the Alpha. That was the right thing to do." Elena replied, glancing back at me, as I sat there. Lucas wasn't far behind in his car. "From now on, if he speaks to you, you tell him to come to me. If he has something to say to you, I'm there. Understood?"
I nodded and she looked at the two small bodies.
"More nappies?" Elena asked, softly, amused. "We better stop and get some food and nappies."
"I don't really care." I didn't. I stared at them, the two babies curled up, that new look and smell all over them. There was plenty of leftover clothing from the triplets. I'd get that shit off them, that stuff that smelt like Demetruis, and put something else on them.
She made me go in with her, as Clayton remained behind with Lucas to guard the children, so that I could 'protect' her. I wasn't really in a state to protect anyone, Elena and Clay knew that, but it worked in snapping me out of the daze somewhat. We went into the Walmart, my first time in there, and I jumped as a woman greeted me.
"Relax." Elena said softly.
Truth was, that would have freaked me out even as a human, Australia didn't have Walmarts or greeter people. We shopped fast, and I stared in amazement at the bullets sitting in plain sight. In a shop. In a fricken shop. There were bullets on sale, arranged like different sized nails, under locks. Elena nudged me and we tried to hurry, getting a few nappies, clothing, formula, no time to be clucky and go crazy. Just enough. She reminded me that I had enough at Forestwatch too, this was just to make sure, just to make sure they were fed and safe.
We went back outside and headed off again.
When we got to Forestwatch, Elena told me that we'd be all at Stonehaven overnight, so I went inside and got what I could. In the basement we'd stored the triplet's old stuff, clothing, bottles, and I got as much as I could in a bag as she waited, barely able to believe what was happening.
We got to Stonehaven, and I found that there was a crib set up downstairs in the living room, Elena must have called ahead. I followed them inside, the bag in my arms, as they carried the babies in. I felt so stunned, so knocked over, that I had to ask Lucas to check me for spells over and over. But it was reality. I'd won. I'd gotten him to let me be their mother too.
We stared at the pair of babies in the dim light, Nick as awestruck as myself, Antonio beside him. We were so used to the triplets, up, walking, trying to go to the toilet on their own, telling us about themselves, screaming when they wanted something... we'd forgotten what babies this new looked like. I remembered, back when we'd had them, the look on Clayton's face when he'd held them. The look of a man who was almost tempted to try for more kids, that awestruck look, and I understood why now.
They were beautiful. Tiny, dark haired, their hands clenched loosely, Rose, eyes shut gently, blue veins across the pale skin, a dummy abandoned in favour of her own thumb. And Reece, his dummy still in place, with the same translucent skin, the same dark hair, a birthmark on his neck. They were so tiny. I could see Nick falling in love with them, even as he tried to remember how I'd come to carry them, even as he tried to remember how he'd hated them months ago.
"Rose and Reece?" He asked, soft, amused. "Reece will be flattered."
"I didn't know if I'd see them again. I wanted them to have names from Australia."
"Roses are Australian?"
"Rosellas are." I muttered, smiled somewhat, and leaned against him. "It's a bird I like."
"Rose-Ella and Reece, huh." He sighed, soft. "I guess we're sleeping down here with them."
"I am. You can sleep upstairs."
Nick shook his head, leaning over to kiss me. "Not a chance, Aussie. Wait right here. I'll get us a bed set up."
While he was getting the bed set up, I went with Lucas into the kitchen, and he wrote down what we'd agreed to. It seemed fairly straight forward, what we'd bound ourselves to, but he would talk with someone anyway. Contracts when broken meant that I was in his debt on a deeper level. It meant that he could ask almost anything of me and I'd be obligated to do it. Not just obligated- I'd find it impossible to refuse. It was better to keep it.
We curled up on the single mattress Nick found, watching the babies sleep, and I longed to finally pick them up. But I didn't. I left them there, almost afraid that if I touched them, they'd break or vanish, trusting in the feeling of Nick's chest behind my back instead.
Antonio dropped off several boxes of the nappies we needed as we slept, just in time, because I woke to see him gently lifting up one of the babies, a foul smell coming from the baby just as it started to stir. He held a finger to his lips, lowering the baby beside me, and changed it as I watched sleepily.
We heard Elena and Clay arguing upstairs, at one point, when I got up to try and feed and change the babies. I suspected it was about the offer she'd been given and that she hadn't refused but, as it wasn't my business yet, I tried to ignore it.
I lifted up Reece, my breath catching as I felt how tiny he was, how light, his little cries of distress about the dirty nappy going straight through me. His stomach was growling too. Soon his cries got louder, more insistent, and Rose joined in, till Nick had to get up and help me.
We thought they'd calm down when they were changed and the bottles were in their mouth. No such luck for me- no matter how much I tried to calm Reece down, he bawled his eyes out, refusing to eat, and Nick eventually took him from me and handed me Rose instead.
Reece calmed down and started to drink.
Rose, on the other hand, started to bawl her eyes out.
I started to cry again, much to Nick's alarm, but we were saved by Clay's weary appearance in the kitchen door.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to keep you awake."
"I was already awake." He grunted, taking the tiny girl from me, and let me try and feed her while he held her. Rose calmed down slightly, sort of, but after a few minutes with her still refusing to eat, Clayton took the bottle and Rose into the darker living room. A box of tissues was flung at me a few seconds later.
I heard Rose calm down fast and it wasn't long before she drinking eagerly, the tears glinting in the light from the kitchen, grief and guilt at the distress I felt I'd caused them. I tried to clean my face.
"You're tired and stressed. They probably can tell." Clay said, matter-of-factly, as she drank. He sounded more awake now. "I think the toddlers have woken up."
"I'll go." I had to go, Nick and Clayton had a baby each, and headed upstairs.
The toddlers were still fast asleep but I sat there in the room with them, Matt asleep in the other bed, watching them as their peaceful sleep comforted me somewhat as well. I didn't go back down until I heard Clayton going past in the hall to his bedroom, somewhat afraid of the babies now, afraid that I'd upset them or wake them up.
Nick was back in bed, his eyes shut, but he was awake and waiting. He only went to sleep when I did, a hand stroking across my arm gently.
I felt the urge to change, suddenly, and snapped awake. Nick's head lifted up, confused, and watched as I stripped clothing off fast, my body contorting, my hurt and confusion translating into the need for change.
"Shit, right now?"
I didn't answer, I couldn't, but he grabbed my hand and dragged me outside as the change really got into it. Outside it was hot, the insects were singing, I noticed for a moment that the fireflies were dancing over our heads.
Collapsing onto the prickly dry grass, I lay there, gasping, trying to let go of the fight and let it do what it had to do. The agony of it was over fast, mercifully, and I lay there panting on my side, trembling, tail twitching against the dry grass.
Nick's bare feet were nearby, trusting that I was in control, and I leaned out to lick them as I tried to relax, let the pain drift out. He laughed, a funny sound in my head, and I felt him reach down and slowly stroke the fur, the bizarre sensation of it both pleasurable and strange to me. But what was wrong with it? He touched me all the time as a human. He was careful though, ready to back off, waiting to make sure it was fine with me.
I whined, slid closer, rolling over so he could rub my stomach, and to show submission to him. He was my mate, my partner, but deep down... he was also my boss. At least outside the bedroom. A palm found the thinner fur.
Oh, that was the spot. This was why dogs liked it so much. I shut my eyes, hearing his soft chuckle, and then I heard him stand up and start to strip his clothing off too.
"If you get to go for a run right now, so do I. I'll tell Dad. Wait here a moment." He was already inside by the time my mind understood what he'd told me to do.
I heard Antonio come downstairs, his head ducking out to see me sitting there, and he sighed.
While Nick changed, I stood up, wriggling, and started to pace around the house in the night, sniffing at scents and chasing the little moving lights that darted through the air. A dark shape barrelled into my side as I chased a poor firefly, Nick panting, pushing me over as he tried to pin me and breath my scent up into his nostrils. That was right. He didn't have his nose when he was human.
I lay there for a few seconds as he smelt me, his nose pressing against my neck, and then nipped at his ruff and threw him sideways, catching him by surprise. The two of us played and tumbled and nipped at each other, rolling around in the grass in the field near the house, chasing the fireflies, acting like a couple of silly puppies instead of a pair of adults. It was another kind of stress release, one we probably both needed, giving into the wolf side that in many ways made much more sense to us than the human world with the complexities and stupidity that came with it.
We went into the forest after a while, side by side, hunting together, our efforts not so good as we couldn't resist playing at the same time. We managed to find rabbits though, the playfulness fading as we got into the serious hunting side, not sadistic in nature- we didn't play or tease with prey. We hunted them, killed them fast, and respected them enough to make sure they didn't suffer.
Then we headed back, bellies full, changing near the house. When we went back to sleep, this time it was a deeper satisfied sleep, one that the babies interrupted soon after with another need for food. Nick comforted them while I got the bottles ready.
The meet next day wasn't a peaceful one. Elena informed the pack of the offer- that in exchange for her to donate eggs, they would receive the cure for the hereditary members, and that the mutts already had the cure.
I found out only now that everyone had gotten the disease while I was gone. Every mutt, every member of the pack, though the treatment to end the fever had suddenly reduced the time they'd been sick and made it go from critical and life threatening to just a pain in the ass for a short while.
She hadn't decided yet. She'd just informed us, kept it transparent, and I could see how angry Clayton was about the offer. It pissed me off too. Elena wasn't bits and pieces, she wasn't an apple tree that could be harvested, and while I'd accepted that treatment thinking it was for the best...
He was angry about me too, I could see it, as she informed everyone where I'd been and what had happened. No secrets, exactly, though she didn't mention that the babies had been conceived during a rape. Just, that had been how I'd secured the cure for the bitten mutts.
I added, quietly, when I got looks, that it had been a stupid choice. But it was done. I wasn't going to support or speak against Elena's choice, either way, because it hadn't been a good decision on my part. She would call another meet the day before the twins had to be returned to Demetruis and let us know what she'd decided.
The other problem was that this cure, this one Demetruis wanted her eggs for, it wasn't just going to affect Elena or the pack. He'd made it clear that it would cure any supernatural and we'd receive control over it. The werewolves would have the power over the entire supernatural world, the power to cure everyone, or to ...well, take it over. Maybe he was hoping for that. I didn't know. I didn't see Elena deciding to rule the world though. But there was something she wasn't telling us, something she hesitated about, her eyes meeting Clayton's eyes a moment. He was stony faced as she talked. Because, apparently, Demetruis had already received offers for it from other interested parties.
The pack wasn't interested in 'ruling the world'. A different group was.
Most of the pack knew about the attack just before we'd turned up there'd been a fight with a group of supernatural who wanted to 'resist' the human control. They wanted Savannah, Kate and Logan. Hurt several people, not just pack, in that attempt. And apparently there was a prophecy about the Kate and Logan- the first children born of two bitten werewolves- which made them more or less walking targets for this group.
I assumed this meant my triplets were safe, as were the twins, but I was just as protective over Elena's twins as my own. She reassured us that the prophecy was made up, probably, but whatever it was the people in the 'resistance' believed it. And they did want to take over the world. She hadn't heard a word of them since they'd had a victory over them. No one had, we'd assumed, but Demetruis had.
Demetruis had told her that he had received an offer from them for the cure and control over it and that he was seriously considering it.
I growled softly, under my breath, as I suddenly saw what he'd hung over Elena's neck. Like me, he hadn't just said 'So, cure for baby?'. He'd added a threat into the mix. If she didn't, he would do something which could endanger all of us far worse. By giving this 'resistance' the power to cure or make sick any supernatural, excluding the witches, and our daughters, it could be a potential disaster. It went from being Elena's choice, what she did with her body, to everyone's choice. The entire damn supernatural world hung on what she did with it.
"He's informed me that if I carry the child, we'll receive sole ownership of it. If I donate eggs, we'll receive it first. And if I refuse-" Elena didn't need to tell us that again.
As far as he was concerned, this crisis wasn't involving him, he was just playing sides against each other to get what he wanted. I had this feeling that he wanted us to tear each other apart. Like it was entertainment or something sick. But somehow it made no sense either. Why would he be so keen on having 'hybrid' children? That was what they'd be, after all, the children of female werewolves and a bitten sorcerer. Surely it was more than just power.
Elena didn't elaborate, her eyes going to the phone in Lucas's hand, and I realised that he'd been here the whole time and had called someone. Or had he been on it the whole time? I'd been so wrapped up in what she'd told us that I hadn't thought about looking.
"We'll discuss this as the council after lunch." Lucas told her, as he listened to the phone. Then he hung up. "I think everyone needs to think."
She nodded a fraction.
I didn't want her to do it either. No one did. Lucas, who had to be there for this one, muttered something about getting onto his father about the scientists again, because if they could find the cure first, she wasn't going to have that pressure on her.
Right now though it was on her.
There wasn't much else she could say. We told her what we thought, more or less everyone was against the idea, but the news about the 'resistance' group and that it'd cure more than the werewolves had made it much more complicated than just mutts verse the pack. I suddenly saw how, really, she had been his goal all along. He liked power, Elena was the Alpha,and I was just convenient. Demetruis had saved the real offer for Elena. He'd just used me to demonstrate to her that what he offered, a 'cure', was genuine... by trading the bitten cure with me first.
I sat with her after, as the men left us, and we heard a car pull up. Daniella and Reece, late for some reason, and Antonio took them aside to tell them what we'd been told.
"I don't like it." I muttered, finally, as we sat there in silence.
Elena nodded, her face paler than usual, though she was hiding her reaction to the news well. She'd been stony faced as she'd delivered the news. Now though, now that we were alone, I saw that it was tearing her up. She'd been used by men as a girl and a teenager and had survived. Now some asshole wanted to come along and 'borrow' her body all over again. It didn't matter how many years passed, how many great things happened, that kind of betrayal ran deep.
"No. I know." She said, finally, leaning back in the chair and sighing as she shut her eyes. "Neither does Clay."
"What do you want for lunch? I'll cook anything." Suddenly, I wanted to comfort her, make her food, make her something she loved. Elena opened one eye, a tense smile as she caught my face. "Anything."
"Pancakes from scratch, ham, maple syrup. Let's pretend it's breakfast. Clay is already starting but if you hurry, you can probably rescue the batter."
I listened, filtering out the voices and noises, and heard it. Clayton pulling things out in the kitchen, slamming them on the bench, his breathing heavier than usual as if he was just barely holding in his anger. "I'll go rescue it."
Clayton wasn't surprised to see me in the kitchen. He handed me the whisk and went for the fridge instead, taking over the meat part of it, neither of us speaking as we cooked enough for the army of werewolves in the house. He didn't need to ask me what I thought about it, he knew as well as anyone how I'd reacted to the agreement in the end, and I didn't need to ask him either.
Truth was, neither of us wanted Elena to do it, neither of us wanted her to be used like that. It was demeaning, disrespectful, and just plain fucked up.
"I knew you were up to something." He said, finally as I waited for the next round of pancakes to finish. "You should have said something to me."
"If I did, the deal was off."
"I'm the pack protector. You should have called me when it was done then." He growled, as an egg cracked too much, flinging it into the sink with several others. I took the box of eggs off him. "Scrambled eggs with bacon."
It was an order, so to speak, not just an explanation as to what he was trying to make. I let him take over the pancake flipping, his hand white around the spatula as he stood there.
"I should have. Yeah." I agreed quietly. I should have called someone. "I wasn't thinking straight."
"We know. Next time you use that shit, I'm going to hit you myself, and leave you in the cage. I don't care how hard it is to get off it." There was no sympathy, at least not with the morphine, just annoyance. I flinched a little. "It was stupid for you to use so much."
"I know." I didn't meet his eyes. The scolding was the first one I'd had since I got here. It hurt but ...he was right.
"And fucking stupid for you to try and kill yourself with those drugs. Do you have any idea what that'd do to Nick? To your babies? To Matt?" He swore as he snapped the handle.
I handed him a spare and he took it, trying to calm himself down again, the stress about Elena overflowing into his anger about what I'd had to do. Clayton breathed in and out, slowly, shutting his eyes.
"Yeah. I do now. You're right." I said quietly, stepping beside him to make the eggs in another frying pan, and Clayton relaxed somewhat as he watched my face.
"Well, like you said, you weren't thinking right. Next time you don't think right, you call me, I won't let you do anything stupid. The pack deals with threats together." His arm brushed against mine, the physical contact rare since Nick had gotten angry with me, some part of Clayton calming down when I nodded.
"I sold my babies for a cure." I muttered, quietly, as we worked. He froze, glancing at me, but he didn't deny it.
"You weren't exactly jumping for joy either, were you?" As I shook my head, he dropped another pancake onto the plate. "So stop thinking about it. You got him to let you be their mother. I take it you want them."
I nodded, glancing back at the living room, Matt gazing over the edge at the sleeping babies. He would glare at anyone who was too loud, which amused me, so loving of them. "I want them."
"Good. We'll deal with him." He wasn't going to let him fuck with the pack any more, I sensed it from the soft growl in his chest, but for now... all Clayton could do was cook with me. So we cooked.
I was picked up, midway through cooking, as Reece rushed in and swung me around, grinning, delighted.
"You named a baby after me?"
"Sort of." I muttered, inhaling slowly, glad to see him again. "After Australian things. You're Australian."
"I am, aren't I?" He laughed, dropping me as Nick came at him, hands up. "She's all yours. Where are they?"
I could hear them, I was surprised for a second that he couldn't, until I remembered. He had the hearing of a human now.
"I'll serve this all out. You show him." Clayton called.
I led Reece into the study, the quiet room perfect to let them sleep but be close enough to get close to, and Reece gazed down at them with the same wonder that we had. Particularly at the tiny Reece.
"How you doing?" He asked, softer, arm brushing mine. "You okay?"
I didn't say yes. I just said, "Trying," which he understood. I was trying to be okay. That was the best I could do right now. Reece put an arm over my shoulders, Nick appearing a second later and ducking between us, the playfulness between them returning somewhat.
Elena didn't tell us what happened in the meeting with the council, though I suspected it was more discussion over what she'd been offered, and she was buggered by the time it was over. Pizzas appeared, with another bag of nappies and fresh baby formula, and we didn't speak about it. But Elena made it clear that Nick and myself had to stay here- she didn't want us to leave the house till the week was up, she wanted to make sure the twins were safe till she knew what she was going to offer him.
We moved into one of the other bedrooms, as the babies kept waking everyone up, and waited.
The ideal result of the week would have been that everything went smoothly, that my depression vanished, and that the morphine cravings vanished with it. Nothing of the sort happened. To begin with, the babies didn't like it when I held them, when I fed them, they didn't like me to touch them at all. They cried their heads off every time, and then I'd cry my head off, if Dominic was in the room then he'd get upset, and we'd be a mess. Maybe it was because I was so afraid, when I touched them, I was so deathly afraid of hurting them, but ...nothing I could do could make it any better. I tried to smile, I tried to talk in a happy voice, but they just weren't believing it.
Nick, on the other hand, was like a magic happy snuggle monster. He would hold one or both and suddenly they'd calm down. The same deal with Clayton. The two of them seemed to have some calming thing about them that Rose and Reece responded to.
It only provoked the depression to get more difficult to deal with again, as I watched them, and even Matt's shocking question wasn't enough to really shake me fully out of this depression. Not only that, but my body was still going through the withdrawals from the morphine, and like Jeremy had predicted, I changed without warning day or night.
"It's going to get better." Elena tried to reassure me, as I sat there, trying to not cry as Rose cried her eyes out in my arms, unable to settle or relax with me.
I just tried to smile, nodding, every cry stabbing into me, feeling so guilty for her distress. What if I'd made her unhappy during the pregnancy? And Reece? By ignoring them? I longed for it to be like the triplets when they were this age- they were so content, so happy with me, calming down the second I touched them. They and Matt became like sunlight to me, big smiles, warmth, endless love. And it was bizarre that she was trying to reassure me. I was supposed to be reassuring her right now.
We had two days left before I had to hand them back for a week. The anxiety was growing about this, about giving them over, every part of my nature saying FIGHT instead of doing the wrong thing. I didn't know if he'd vanish with them, I didn't know if he'd notice up upset they were and say no, I had no clue what to expect.
Finally, Clayton gave in and took Rose from me, and like usual she calmed down and let him feed her. I felt him brush my arm, as he moved away, my heart sinking further.
I didn't hate them for it, for being so resistant to me, but ...I resented them. It wasn't like with the triplets, who knew who I was, the twins behaved like I was their worst nightmare when I loved them so much. That came with the guilt that I'd caused this.
Dominic, like usual, started to look upset. He had been sitting nearby at the table. Somehow he'd been stalking me for the week, the entire exhausting upsetting week, and now he looked like he was about as ready to cry as I was. I slid down to sit beside him and played with his curls, hiding my face behind him, letting him slide into my lap and show me what he'd drawn.
The second I was sitting two more bodies were in my lap, two more toddlers that almost didn't fit now, and I knew there was going to be a point where I just had to tell them one at a time. They were getting bigger and bigger.
"I don't know if I can do it." Elena said, softly, as she slid beside me and pulled Lily out of my lap. "Come here, baby. Show me."
Lily showed her instead, happily, as Susie sat on one of my knees and drew on the coffee table.
"You don't have to."
She didn't answer. I could see it, that same torn feeling I'd had, that guilt. Elena had so much more riding on her than a simple disease cure for a baby. If there was a group of supernaturals out there, wanting her children and wanting to make the humans slaves, giving them any extra power was a bad idea.
Three sets of pounding feet, laughter, and we saw Logan and Kate run, squealing, as Matt chased them with a watergun, water going everywhere, the three of them soaking wet.
"Outside!" Both myself and Elena called, making the triplets jump, the kids jumping too as they spotted us with guilty looks. Then they were gone again and Elena laughed softly, staring at the devastation they'd left behind, the trail of water and droplets running down one wall.
"What do they want with your kids?"
"I don't really know." Elena replied. If she did know, she wasn't telling me right now. What really mattered was that they were wanted. "We expected it to come much faster. Their attack."
"I didn't know." That was messed up too- waiting for an attack they knew was coming. It would leave everyone in a state of anxiety, tenseness, unable to relax. It was almost a psychological warfare all on its own- making the enemy wait for an attack they knew would come. Even more so when there were children involved.
Elena's blue eyes met mine and she sighed softly against Lily's hair. "No. You didn't need to know earlier, not just yet, but if I'd thought your children were at risk I would have told you."
"They're not the ones they want."
"No." She replied quietly. Her eyes didn't meet mine though, and suddenly I wondered. Suddenly I felt the first flicker of fear, of uncertainty. "Savannah will come explain it to you tomorrow. But today Clay is going to be taking you for an afternoon of training again now. Starting today."
"Seriously?" I was glad for it, glad that he was willing to teach me anything, but with babies? The withdrawals? All of that shit going on? Suddenly I felt how serious this 'resistance' really was. I had this sinking feeling that if Elena rejected his offer, if they received the 'cure', it wasn't just going to be a handful of mutts coming here and trying to slap us around.
She didn't say anything else, just got up and headed into the study.
Training with Clayton was crazy. There was no other word for it. He had been cured as well, and he was serious when he came at me, no sympathy for the depression, no sympathy for the morphine detoxing that my body was going to be doing for a while. It was supposed to be a five hour session, apparently, and when I changed out of the sheer stress of it, Clayton changed too. Then he just kept it up, snapping and attacking, as comfortable with instructing me as a wolf as he was in the human body. In some ways I felt like he preferred this shape.
After four hours, I was buggered, and I didn't notice the little wolf watching us at first. Clayton had though. He watched Matt as Matt snuck closer, belly scraping across the undergrowth, and suddenly lunged at him.
Horror went through me, and an incredible need to protect my pup, but Clayton snapped at me. I was supposed to stay still. Then he chased after Matt, teeth bared, Matt turning on him and attacking back.
The training suddenly went between them, as I had a moment to breathe, big golden wolf attacking the smaller red wolf pup, a fight that made me snarl and growl even as I tried to suppress it. Then, when I couldn't take watching Clayton 'train' Matt, I lunged at him and knocked him away from Matt, fur rising, teeth bared. When Matt tried to go for Clayton, I grabbed Matt by the ruff and picked him up. As he squirmed, trying to whine, I carried him back to the house and dumped him in the living room, Elena's laugh in my ears as I headed back to Clayton.
Another hour passed, the two of us going at it, before he finally sighed and flopped, panting hard, and I flopped down nearby as I read his meaning. It was over. We could relax. I could taste his blood and knew he'd nipped me hard enough to get the same taste.
When we changed, we dressed and leaned there, breathing hard still, bruised and bloody and somehow I felt fine. The sadness was gone. The depression, faded to the back of my head, and even Clayton seemed to be more relaxed now. There was something about training like that, so brutal and serious, that seemed to slap everything else back.
"My kids are in trouble too, aren't they?" I asked it, finally, as he sat there beside me, leaning against me.
"Could be." Clayton admitted. But he didn't say anything else. The practical solution was pretty clear- I just had to get stronger again. Get over the drug. Get over the depression. And be able to defend everyone again physically. "Feel less emotional now?"
I nodded and he smiled somewhat then, flopping back, and I flopped back nearby. Clayton's arm dropped across me, the first snuggle with him for months and months, and he relaxed as I breathed out slowly. Relief came at this contact- if Clayton was willing to touch me again like this, then I was forgiven in the pack, I was his pack-sister again. He would only behave this way with his pack.
"Thanks." I muttered and the arm squeezed me.
"Happy to beat you up any day, darling." He muttered, amused now, and shut his eyes. "Just tell me when."
"Next time you see that morphine near me..."
"You get the same treatment." Clay's head lifted and I saw that Matt was back, now dressed in shorts, a few bruises and scrapes from his fight with Clay there. But he was grinning, face smeared with dirt, and Clay shook his head. "You, next time you interrupt training with Anne, I won't be so nice."
"Can I learn?" Matt asked as he flopped down on top of me and Clayton, just for a second, before he realised how hot and sweaty we both were. In the hot summer's day this was not a pleasant idea- cuddling hot sweaty adults- and he got up to flop in the shade of a nearby tree instead. "Can you train me?"
"Next birthday. We'll start it then." Clay answered. He yawned and I felt him relax. I had to agree- a nap in the shade was a nice idea.
When Matt was asleep, I leaned up, shaking Clay gently. I'd remembered something from the meeting I hadn't told Elena yet.
"Mmm?" He made a noise as he shook gently out of sleep, blinking sleepily up at me. "What you want?"
"I forgot something about the meeting with him. I didn't ...I guess I was knocked over by the twins, I didn't mean to forget it."
"What?" Clayton leaned up, softer, the sleep fading at the look in my eyes.
"He asked me if I could hynpotize Elena to do it for him."
Clayton showed no sign of tensing, nothing, even yawning, but I felt deep down that it had done something. "You think he'll force her?"
"He wanted me to make her do it so ..."
"How did he get you pregnant?" Clayton continued to look lazy, relaxed, but his eyes were fixed on me with such intensity that I needed to lean back a bit. Not a trace of sleep was there now, nothing, he was alert on every level.
"Didn't I ever tell you?" I hadn't, I realised, and I hadn't told Elena either. I'd told Antonio and Nick, and Reece.
"No."
I told him about Antonio finding me in the garden. Clay knew that much, he knew that Tyler had jabbed me with a needle, I remembered we'd discussed that and he thought it'd been spread to me- the strain that attacked hereditary wolves. But he hadn't known that Antonio thought I'd been raped.
"You remember the attack?"
"Only a tiny bit. Only flashes." I admitted. "But the pregnancy matches that ...so..."
"He came to you with a deal anyway. Used a spell to make you hold to it." Clayton's voice was still soft, his eyes shutting now, arms tense. "Lucas said he used it again with the twins. I'm guessing you had to do the same thing earlier for the cure."
I nodded. "I had to. If I had known I was already..."
"You might have told him to go to hell. Or you might have had the upper hand." There was a soft growl then, just the trace of it. "He's trying to stay a step ahead of us. Come on. We'll tell Elena."
When I'd picked up Matt, who just grumbled and went back to sleep, we headed back and left him in the living room while we went to find Elena.
That night I was exhausted and restless. Not just from being woken up every few hours by the twins. It was more than that. This flood of information, of pressure on the house, on the pack, and as I tried to change the twins, I could tell I wasn't the only restless one. There was a soft light coming from Clay and Elena's room, I could hear Jeremy downstairs on the phone, and when the babies had started to cry, Nick had gotten up so fast that I knew he wasn't asleep either.
I changed them, as they fussed and cried, and then handed them to Nick who took over the feeding and soothing. Like usual they calmed down with him and I tried to not take it personally.
Once they were asleep, and he'd made sure the triplets and Matt were sleeping okay, he crawled into bed and flopped onto his stomach in the darkness with a soft groan.
Leaning up, I tugged off the long tshirt, the gentle whoosh of the fan over my bare skin, and stripped Nick. When he tried to get up, I pushed him back down, and with slow firm strokes, stroked his muscles, massaging the tension out, my long hair brushing against his skin as the fan blew it, Nick watching me with a mixture of love and amusement. And gratitude. His entire body was tense as I worked on it.
Finally he started to relax, the muscles relaxing under my hands, his breathing slowing. Sleepily he asked, "Why?"
"Becuase I love you." Why else?
He reached out to stroke my bare leg, eyes shutting, murmuring his love back, and I felt him ease into sleep as I stroked his back. It took some time to join him in sleep.
Savannah was there early the next morning and, like yesterday, more information overload crammed into my head. She told me about when they'd captured her, how she'd seen hundreds of supernaturals in the 'resistance', and how they had listed off every child that was a hybrid or unusual.
"So they weren't just discussing Kate and Logan?" I'd assumed that it was mostly about Elena's twins. But Savannah shook her head.
"Wasn't just our children they were interested in. They wanted Hope's child too. Savannah. Several other children that were hybrids. Seemed like they were getting ready for a war and were trying to collect the whole bunch."
"Hope's child? Why?"
"She's the daughter of Lucifer."
Lucifer. Devil. Demon. The top dog, so to speak, of all top dogs. Or demons. They wanted any child born from an unusual parentage, in other words, and while my triplets weren't so unusual- they were from a father who'd come from a long line of werewolves- my twins were. They had a sorcerer father who'd been bitten, and then me.
"Your children will be interesting." Savannah said, softer, as she smiled down at Lily. Lily had refused to be left out. "Elena thought the triplets aren't going to be of great interest, but I'm not so sure, because you are unusual."
Deep down I knew that they'd be a target. I always knew they'd be targets, one way or another, especially the girls. In a male dominated society? Of course they would be. It hadn't concerned me though, I automatically felt like Lily and Susie could have handled any idiots that came their way, they had some of the best fighters in the pack to train them. But what about against other supernaturals in the world? If Savannah's hunch was right, how could I train them to defend themselves against that kind of interest?
And Matt, he was unusual too, created like Clayton had been. Would they be interested in him too?
The twins would be of interest. No matter how I tried to look at it, I knew that, because they were one of a ...well, really, two of a kind. Hybrids, like the ex-alpha had been, and we had no clue how they'd turn out. Aaron had been a weak ass sorcerer, barely any skill, and a pretty shocking werewolf. His brother had been a much better sorcerer but a shocking werewolf. I didn't care if the twins ended up being weak in either way, or even both, but I did care about how well they could defend themselves.
Then again, if they were clearly not strong, why would a 'resistance' want to get them? Maybe they'd be ignored.
My mind flashed back to when Clayton had taken such a obsessive approach to guarding them while we were in the desert, that for the pack protector to leave the alpha and guard the children... I should have known it was more than his anger that blood was being taken. Or how, while at school, at least one member of the pack was in town. Not there but ...watching.
When I didn't respond to her for a good five minutes, watching Lily discuss something about frogs with anyone who listened, Savannah shifted uncomfortably.
"Elena didn't want to worry you before." Savannah explained, softly. "I'm sorry. Maybe I should have told you earlier. Elena's children are the probably the main targets, as the prophecy bullshit was directed at them only. She believed that the triplets would be safe, as Nick isn't a bitten wolf, so ...they're not too unusual. Not yet. But your twins are different again."
"It's okay." I smiled, stressed, and added, "I think I knew."
I heard someone come to stand in the doorway and looked up to see Lucas standing there, quiet.
"Your son will probably need instructions from someone other than his biological father. We don't think your daughter will. But I'll be there. My father has offered you protection now, he's made it clear, anyone that touches your children in the sorcerer world.."
"I still have to keep the agreement though, don't I?" I realised, with horror, that it was tomorrow. I had to give them back tomorrow.
"Yes. He could demand anything of you otherwise. It's safer to keep up with it." Lucas nodded a fraction. "The Cabal have been looking for him for questioning but now, now they're determined to locate him. That spell he used on you is against every one of our rules. You never use it on someone who isn't a sorcerer- only a sorcerer can cancel the spell from the other end- so he's in deep shit." He tried to smile.
"If you capture him?"
"He'll be imprisoned for around five or six years. At least."
The same amount of time we'd agreed to swap children. I flinched as I pictured them being raised in a prison half the time. Had he known this would happen? Probably. He knew that the pack was close to Lucas and Paige, knew that if he was captured, the agreement still stood.
"Yes, we know. The twins have to remain with him for every second week, prison or not, but ...we'll keep it in mind. The agreement works both ways though. If he doesn't give you the children back after a week, you hold the power over him." Luca's lips twitched then. "So don't worry. You'll always get them back in the five year period."
"What if he can't find me?" I wondered suddenly if ...if I vanished. For an extra day. If he couldn't get them to me in time.
"He has magic. He can get them to you wherever you are. You don't have that technique and don't want to start that kind of battle with him. If he vanished and you couldn't find him..." Lucas reminded me, as he caught the idea in my eyes, and shook his head. My heart sank at that. "I'm working on it."
"How much could he ask of Liz?" Nick's voice came from the window, his head popping up, from where he must have been hiding.
"Nothing that would harm her or another, or that would threaten her life. But she'd become a slave, more or less, for that five year period she agreed to. He'd be able to ask you to do anything that didn't physically hurt you or kill you." Luca's eyes went from Nick to me. "This is why it is forbidden to be used on people who can't cancel the spell. Five years is a long time. But, as you only agreed to every second week, you would only be obligated to serve him every second week. That's the worst case scenario. It's better to avoid it."
Nick swore, hoisting himself into the window when I didn't tell him off, and strode over to stand beside me as if this would stop it.
"At least I know." I muttered.
"Better to know where you stand." Savannah agreed softly. She was still playing with Lily, as Lily ignored all of us, stroking her curls. "Her hair is amazing."
"Her dad's curls." I said, leaning against Nick's side, relieved to be off that topic now. So much information. It was too much for me. Nick's arm squeezed my shoulder sas he stood there. "Nick?"
"Yes?"
"Stop sneaking around and listening in to private conversations."
He grinned a sheepish grin down at me. "Had to know where you stood too."
We heard, or rather I heard, Clayton calling for Nick. No one else seemed to notice. Should I warn him that he was being hunted? Chased?
"Were you supposed to be with someone?"
"Clay was going to tell me what Savannah told you, I think." Nick shrugged. "Why?"
Clayton's head popped up in the window, as he followed Nick's trail, and Nick jumped. He backed up, fleeing the room, Clayton leaping inside easily and going after him. Lily, seeing this great chase, squealed with laughter and took after them both, her interest in Savannah and frogs going fast, she was never able to resist a chase.
I followed after them, my mind on other things than this, barely even able to smile at the sight. Instead I headed for the bedroom and sat down on the bed, watching the twins sleep side by side, tucking my legs up. I loved the triplets, I loved their sense of humour, but the weight of what was going to have to happen tomorrow was too heavy. The twins being given back. Elena having to make a choice.
I wondered if she could even make the choice when it affected everyone. Not just her.
Sighing, I shut my eyes, wishing ...I didn't know. It felt like we were being lured somewhere and the way out behind us was already being shut off. Like we were already halfway into a trap and had only just realised there were bars around us and no way out. It went against every instinct we had, to be in this position. Getting the twins back, like this, it was only a tiny victory. Demetruis was still pulling the strings.
Tomorrow was going to be a very long day.