July
It is hot, humid, and I am heavily pregnant. I have performed my Luna ceremony, and taken over the duties that come with the title. Many people are angry that an outsider claimed the title. But those people don't know all that is to come. Ransom has been busy preparing for war, and I have been busy preparing for the baby. I want everything to be set up just right. When the time comes, I will have to leave him behind, and I do not know if I will ever hold him again. I want him to be able to learn about the time I was here, lovingly preparing for his arrival. To know that I will carry him in my heart.
It's a strange thing, to be a mother at 20. To be a witch and a werewolf, to never go home. I carry that sadness with me, but I will never bring that danger back to my human parents. I can love them from a safe distance, as I will do with my son.
Phoebe brings me a sparkling water with a lemon wedge, and a big bowl of watermelon chunks. It's the only things I can stomach these days. In two days, the baby will be here. I haven't chosen a name yet, I think it will make leaving him behind much harder. I have prepared letters with instructions for the ranked members of the pack, and letters for the baby and Ransom. He is a good man, but I cannot dwell on that. Every night, I have dreams of all the different ways this could go. I have seen Ransom die; I have seen my son torn from my womb. But as I stood firm in my decision, those dreams became less and less bloody.
The pack is attributing my somber mood to pregnancy hormones. Everyone scatters and lets me have my space as I make my way down to the spring. I sit beneath the big magnolia and weave blankets for my son. I've made him so many things to have throughout the years, so he can remember that I still love him. My favorite is a gift that I wrapped for his 14th birthday. It has a fine tooled leather belt with special herb collecting pouches. I don't know if he will also have magic, but I would like to think he will get that piece of me. Everything I make has protection spells woven into its very core, and that comforts me as I weave away the afternoon light.
I must have nodded off. When I open my eyes, burning man is there.
"Not yet, Elbrus. Just over a day, and then I will go willingly. I promise." I don't run from him, or fight anymore. If he will allow me to leave my son behind, then I will go with him.
It's July 10th, Ransom has been cool as a cucumber, the birth is easy, and my son is beautiful. He has my eyes and hair, but his face is all Ransom. I shower, dress, and spend the day with my precious baby. I sing vienna to him, I scent him, he smells like honey and fresh mint leaves. I nurse him for the last time, and I feel it. I know he is here, but I won't take my eyes off of my son. I go through every motion that I have run through in my dream until I hear Ransom coming up the stairs. Then I take the hand that Elbrus has offered me, and we leave the life I have lived for 4 years.
We don't appear in the lab this time, he takes me to a room that looks like a vault. When he opens the door, I can feel the spells that bind me as I pass through the threshold. I know they tie me to him, and now to this room. I know that Athena won't be able to speak to me, but she will be able to hear me.
I study his face. Olive skin, scars are scattered all over his face, I can see they cover his arms and his exposed chest as well. He is handsome, with hair so dark it's almost black, and big hazel eyes rimmed with dark lashes. I can see his fist twitching at his side, and his wolf fighting for control. Elbrus wins.
He pulls a pair of gloves from his pocket, and grabs a chain from the wall behind the door, it's silver.
"Do you know what happened to my mother? On the day that your mother decided to burn our pack alive?"
"No."
He smiles dangerously. "She was tortured, accused of being a rogue, and eventually dismembered alive." He swings the chain out at my hip, and the sheer impact brings me to the ground, but the pain is far worse. I suck in air and try not to let myself vomit. I can heal, but it will be slow without my wolf.
"My father,'' he continued, "was never able to overcome the pain this caused him. He died, from a broken heart, reliving that pain every single day." He lashed out with the chain again, this time snapping my left ankle. I couldn't help but cry out, but I kept myself from sobbing openly. "And you," He growled, "he searched for you all that time, trying to extract his pound of flesh, so he could move on." Another crack and I can feel my shoulder blade crack. I can no longer follow along as he circles me. I feel blackness tugging at my mind, I am reminded how grateful I am that Ransom did not mark me. Another crack to the side of my head, and I am in a deep, black abyss.
When the abyss sends me out, a man is healing me. He is not like one of the brethren, he is shriveled and corpse like, his teeth are all sharp points. He smiles at me, and licks a trail of blood from my stomach, I try to jerk away but whatever spell he uses to contain me is holding fast. Milk is weeping from my exposed nipples, seeing it makes my heart ache for my son. I long to curl up in a soft bed and hold him close while we sleep. The corpse man moves his mouth to my breast, licking and sucking while I mentally scream for him to stop. As if someone hears me, a door slams open and corpse man jerks away from me, dissolving into the wall behind him. His rotting stench lingering behind.
I feel two men on either side of me, they stand me up and half carry, half drag me from the room. My wounds are mostly healed, but the pain is still there. My ankle has trouble supporting my weight, and my breasts are swollen and weeping as they parade me, half naked, through the halls. My gown has been cut away on the upper half of my body, I can feel dried blood crusted to my skin.
We enter what looks like a bath house, and a team of women begin stripping and washing me. When they are done, they dress me in a simple linen down. They provide no underwear or shoes, and then the oldest one returns me to the guards. We continue down the hall, away from the room I was in when I woke up. We take a service elevator up 4 stories, and pass through two secure check points. I am deposited into a suite so large, it could for 3 families. I can smell Elbrus here, he smells like leather, and lemongrass, with a touch of something bitter. My inner voice tells me that is the part of him that is decaying from borrowing the dark magic. I doubt anyone has ever cleansed him, but I won't dare to ask.
The walls are lined with silk wall wallpaper, the furniture is heavy and old. The room looks like it would belong to a king, so I guess he has that going for him. There are large oil paintings of dragons and war scenes, and tapestries hung with stories woven into them. I'm so tired, the sadness of parting with my son is overwhelming, and I wish Elbrus would kill me already. I wait for what seems like hours.
When Elbrus finally does arrive, he has a woman, who carries a screaming infant, and 3 guards with him. He strides over to where I am holding onto the wall, giving me a quick once over. His eyes settle on my breasts, the front of my gown is cold and soaked from the milk that weeps for me. Elbrus drags his eyes back up to my face, and snaps his fingers.
The older woman approaches, holding the infant tightly. "This is the daughter of my beta. Her mother and father were killed in battle 3 days ago, and she will not take a bottle. You will feed her, until we find a suitable replacement. In exchange, I will keep your torture light, and feed you well enough to support your milk production. I have assigned a pack physician to you for check ups twice a week. If you harm this child, I will tear your son apart, one limb at a time, and then I will kill your entire pack. I will save your mate for last, so you can watch." He spits the word "mate" out like it's personally offensive to him. I don't bother to say anything, I just nod. Two of the guards flank me and take me by the arms to the sitting area. The sofa is large enough for a giant to sleep comfortably.
The third guard plucks the screaming infant from the woman's arms, and delivers her to me. The woman is protesting, cursing me, calling to Elbrus. He ignores her, and the guards escort her out. Elbrus approaches me with a knife he pulled from his boot, almost as if he's going to cut out my heart. But he just makes a slit down the top of my dress.
I try to get the baby to latch, but she's so worked up that she's sweating, occasionally gagging from screaming so hard. I look up at Elbrus and steady my nerves.
"I need to use magic, to calm her down. It's not so much magic really, as a transfer of energy. I'm going to take her fear, ease her headache. Is that ok?"
He contemplates this, pacing in front of me for several minutes. Finally he makes a decision. "Every time you use magic, I will punish you. The choice is yours, but your mother used her own magic under the guise of helping my pack, so I will remind you what we do to traitors each time you choose to use your power."
Grief for my own son, who could be crying like this in his fathers arms, washes over me. I can't help the tears that come and I stroke the little girls face with my index finger. I sing softly to her as I pull the pain from her head, and replace it with peace. She settles down after a few moments, sniffling and hiccupping, and opens her milky blue eyes to look at me. She must be a few weeks old already, but she doesn't smile. She looks exhausted.
I settle back and coax her to latch. When she finally takes, the pain feels like it's piercing my heart. She drains both breasts and falls asleep with a nipple still in her mouth, milk spilling down her cheek. Elbrus must have linked one of the guards, because they bring the woman back to retrieve the baby. Once the door closes behind them, Elbrus turns to me.
"Can you walk?" He asks, as he detaches my chains from the ring.
"Not well."
"So you can walk, follow me." We leave the room through a different door. It takes us down a flight of stairs that runs behind the walls of his chambers. I pull energy to heel my ankle enough to keep up, I know he can tell, because his shoulders tense even more. We come to the room I dreamed of, the room smells of disinfectant, and death. There is a drain in the center of the white tile floor, and the walls are all stainless steel.
Elbrus takes a chain still attached to my wrists, and snaps the shackles onto my wrists. He winds the chain around my arms, and runs the chain through a loop hanging from the ceiling. He pulls the chain until my feet are swaying, two feet above the ground.
He runs his hand along the edge of a spotless metal lab table, finally coming to rest it on a whip, it's leather is braided with chunks of bone. He picks it up and gives it a crack, my whole-body tenses when he turns to me. I can't use magic against him, the protection spells around him are too strong. I can only wait. When he finally reaches me, he rips the rest of my gown away. I don't lower my head in shame, I just stare right back at him, ready to receive whatever twisted punishment he has for me. The image of my son, safe, alive, all that I need to get through this.
Elbrus takes 6 long steps back, and lashes out with the whip. The first bite into my flesh is along the side of my calf. The bone shards act life fish hooks, bringing chunks of flesh as they tear away, only to come slicing back down to my thigh. My knees, my feet, my legs. It goes on until my blood covers most of the floor. I feel so cold, and the edges of the room blur. I want to know, if I die of blood loss I want to know her name.
"What is her name?" I whisper, trying to lift my head enough to meet his eyes. He is drawing his arm back to crack his whip again, but he stops, and drops his arm.
"Mariana." He drops the whip on the floor and leaves without saying anything else. A doctor comes in soon after, giving me a blood transfusion, and another corpse man works on healing my feet. They've laid me out like a dead body, on a metal table. When they finish, guards take me to be cleaned and dressed again.
This time, when they take me to the alpha king's room, he isn't there. They also don't chain me, but they leave chains on the desk. The older woman comes in, she's dressed simply, in linen pants and a tunic style top that matches. She reminds me of Jackie Kennedy, the way her black hair is swept up in dramatic volume, but neatly styled into a bob. She has dark brown eyes, and they're looking at me like she would rather kill me than leave the baby with me. She has a rolling bassinet with her, and I can hear soft little breaths coming from the small bed. There is a shelf under it with diapers, wipes, blankets, and an assortment of clothing.
I think she is going to say something, but she just turns and walks away, a little sob escaping before she pulled the door closed. I wonder if this is her grandchild, if one of the parents was her own child. Mariana cries out, but it's a talkative cry, not a hunger cry. I pull the bassinet to the bed, I used a few moments alone to heal myself more, but it has taken most of my energy. I pull her out of the bassinet, still baby talking, and set her on the bed. Her diaper is fresh, so I tuck us both under the covers, with a wall of pillows around us. After a few minutes of playing peekaboo and fascinating her with my curls, she starts to fuss.
The new nightgown has buttons at the top, so I can pull the front down. I nurse Mariana, cradled in my arms, until with both fall asleep. I wake up to someone lifting her out of my arms, crying out, I claw at their arms. Someone slaps me, hard. It's dark, no lights are on, and I'm reeling from the hit to my temple. I throw my body at the man taking Mariana, wrapping myself around her. Reaching out with one hand, I push as much energy into his chest as I can manage. It knocks him back, making Mariana scream. My heart races, I feel Athena, ever so slightly. It's like a whisper of her. That brief touch of our souls floods me with energy, I draw closer to the window, by the bed, my main source of light. I need to figure out what the threat is.
Someone rushes at me from the darkness, I cry out, and spin my body around to shield Mariana. I can smell him now, one of the guards from earlier. He has me by the throat when the lights finally come on. Elbrus is standing with the woman. He signals for the guard to take the baby, and once they have her, everyone leaves but Elbrus. I yank the top of my gown back into place, fastening the buttons. Elbrus gestures to the bed.
"Fix it."
I move as fast as I can, putting everything back in its place. I can smell him, so I know he is getting closer. When I feel him about half way across the room, I turn, taking a defensive stance. Something sparks in his eyes when he see's I have moved to defend myself. He continues his advance, moving to grab me, but I dodge him. Leveraging his arm against his body weight, I flip him, but before I can get a firm hold on him, he's back up. We go on like this for a while, lashing out at each other, breaking things in the room. I know he could kill me in seconds, but he seems to enjoy the hunt. My theory is, if I distract him enough, catering to the violent need he has, maybe he will let his guard down some.
If there is any hope to be had for peace, alliances, for any of us to live through this, we must come to common ground. I've just thrown him into a table, it splinters and rips the sleeve of his shirt away as he stands up. My eyes flit over the deep ridges of muscle, if I could get a good grip on his arm, I might be able to pull some of the dark magic out of him. I would need to do cleansing rituals for myself, but it might help our progress before one of the other packs makes a move against the new king.
Ransom went over many strategies and plans of attack when we first thought Elbrus would take me unwillingly. Although I never told Ransom that Elbrus was Alpha Lobo. I gather my strength and charge him, I make a half hearted attempt at a rib shot, and he takes me down as I expect, but I have my opening. I clamp down on the exposed skin of his arms with both hands. Faint little static shocks travel through my hands, through my whole body. As I pull at the darkness, the shocks intensify, but they actually get more pleasurable. I don't understand, I can feel Athena now, faint, but excited. I forget about focusing on the pull, and focus on the pleasure instead. The shocks ease the soreness, fill me with warmth.
I relax, letting my hands trail down his arm, before he lifts my head up and slams it into the floor. I hear a sickening crack, and everything goes black. I dream of a black ops team, sliding through a portal, into a cavern that does not trigger the warning system for King Lobo's territory. I dream that Kira and Vashti, two high ranking officers, breach the well system for the territory. It leads everywhere, every home and business, every farm, the castle. They poison it with wolfs bane and heavy concentrations of nightshade. In the days that follow, everyone dies, their stomachs dissolving inside of them, bleeding to death on the inside. I see myself, Bloody, decaying, while baby Mariana starves to death in my stiff arms. I have to wake up.
Athena helps to bring me to the surface, but everything is still blurred at the edges. I struggle to make sense of where I am. I'm in the cement room again, but this time Mariana and almost jackie are here. I struggle to sit up, and Almost Jackie helps me. She still looks angry, but she hands me a glass of water. I shake my head, there's no time.
"Elbrus." I rasp.
"He won't see you. His wolf has left him for hurting you, and he wants very much to kill you. But to kill you is to kill him. So, you will be with me for the time being. My name is Eva, I am Mariana's grandmother." She picks up a very fussy Mariana, and hands her to me. When I draw her to my chest, she immediately starts rooting. I unbutton my gown and settle her in to nurse before turning back to Eva.
"Was it your son, or your daughter?"
"My daughter, her name was Wendy. She was my only child." She sighs, "I do not trust you, but I fear there may be things that we all learned about you that were not true. So, I would like to talk to you, when you have had a chance to clean up a bit, and have something to eat. We could have dinner in my apartment, it is a floor below the kings."
"I would appreciate that very much."
She tells me about Wendy while Mariana nurses. Wendy called Mariana "Mimi", and spoke in English, French, and Finnish to Mimi, so she would be fluent when she grew up. She wasn't supposed to be with Duke, her mate, on the battlefield, but she had a terrible feeling that something would happen to him if she didn't go. I listen until Mariana is done nursing, and hand her back to Eva with an exaggerated yawn. Eva sets a bowl of fruit, and a cup of soup on the singe table by the small bed, and leaves without saying anything else.