Evelyn.
I was flying. Or floating? I was warm and comfortable, but something was nagging at my mind and I couldn’t really grasp what exactly. I shouldn’t be that comfortable or warm. I should be dead, but I’m pretty sure I’m not, the dead don’t feel anything. Or do they?
My head was fuzzy, so I tried to shake the feeling off, but my body failed to obey. I didn’t like it. So I tried again, but was met with some resistance. That’s odd… I tried opening my eyes, but they felt glued together. For how long have I been out? I took a deep breath and an amazing scent filled my nostrils, it smelled vaguely familiar, like the ocean and something… masculine? Weird… I inhaled again, still there. I tried moving my head again, just to check if it was still fuzzy, but something was holding me back. I tried wiggling my fingers, and it worked! Not ideally, no, my hands fell clammy and unresponsive, but I was slowly regaining my senses, so I tried feeling around in order to understand where I was and what was restraining me. The tips of my fingers pressed into something firm and warm, a soft material, flannel? How weird.
Suddenly I felt a weight lifted from my head and groaned from the loss of warmth. And then I felt something lightly touching my cheekbones.
“Open your eyes, love” said a quiet voice from above me, but it seemed to vibrate through my pillow as well. How was that even possible? Except… maybe my pillow wasn’t a pillow? After all it wasn’t soft. At all.
I tried opening my eyes again, and this time succeeded a bit. Through the tiny slits bright light blinded me, the pain shot through my scull and I whined helplessly. I wanted to lift my hand to hide my eyes behind it, but I felt week.
“Would you close the curtains, please?” same husky voice said to someone in the room. That voice sounded very familiar, it brought good feelings, I wanted to hear more of it, but couldn’t gather the strength to speak.
“Try again, Em, open your eyes.” same soft voice said, and I tried again. At first the picture was blurry, my eyes had a hard time focusing, but slowly I started seeing the outline of something in front of me. A chest. A male chest covered in burgundy red flannel shirt. I lifter my eyes higher and found a strong jaw with a couple days worth stubble, then the lips. I knew those lips. They bring pleasure. Where do I know those lips from? Said lips curved in a small smile and I felt entranced, I wanted to touch those lips with my fingers, just to check if they were as soft and warm as I thought they would be. I tried lifting my hand again, and shakily it obeyed. Slowly my fingers approached the lips, and when I was almost at my goal, another hand, much larger then mine took it and brought to those lips to kiss every single finger. They indeed were as soft as I thought.
And the hand, the hand was large, but gentle. I looked at the hand closely, it was huge, really, but not scary at all. The fingers were long and curved around mine perfectly, like these two hands belonged together. A small smile tugged at my own lips, and then the goal lips said:
“There’s the smile I wanted to see! Welcome back, love.” and then they kissed my fingers again. I looked even higher and my gaze met with the most beautiful pair of eyes I have ever seen – deep green, the colour of moss on a cloudy day with light specs of gold around the irises, framed by thick layer of lashes. And the look in those eyes was full of so much love, that my breath hitched for a second.
“Alex…” I whispered. It all hit me at the same time, all my life rushed to my brain with another wave of pain in my head, so I squeezed my eyes shut. Joshua, woods, the gun…
“What happened?” I wheezed out, my throat raw and dry. Alex shifted a bit, lifting us both up into a sitting position, but never letting go of me. My body felt sore, every muscle was screaming, but I tried my best to not whine.
“Drink some water first, and then I’ll tell you everything, ok, love?” he said gently and reached for a glass of water on a night stand. I gratefully accepted the water and gulped it down greedily. It felt good, the cool liquid soother my sore throat and I let out a satisfied breath. I took a look around from the corner of my eyes and discovered, that we were in a hospital, an IV restraining one of my arms, some machine making a low rumble noise somewhere behind me. The walls were painted a cream colour, but that’s all I could see, my eyes hurt too much to concentrate so I closed them again.
“So?” I leaned my head against Alex’s chest and rubbed my cheek against it. The soft flannel caressing my skin, the heat of his body seeping through the material, making me warm and cozy, safe and relaxed.
“It’s all over, Evelyn. You are free. Joshua and his father are dead and the rogues are no longer a threat.” he said quietly.
I inhaled deeply and just let the information settle in. It was over. No one was after me anymore. I was safe. My baby was safe. Wait, my baby! My eyes flew open in a matter of seconds, my weakness forgotten, with renewed energy I hastily sat up and tried to feel my stomach frantically, but it was flat! My huge belly was gone!
“Hope! Where is Hope?!” I tried screaming, but my voice sounded hoarse and quiet, but not less hysterical. Alex’s hold on me and he asked confused.
“Hope?”
“My baby! Where’s my baby?” Tears started streaming down my cheeks, the worst outcome scenarios filled my mind. No, no, no… Not Hope…
“Calm dow, love, our baby is just fine.” he said rubbing my back. “In fact, she is right here.”
“Where?” i started looking around in panic, and that’s when I saw Dianna, she was sitting in a large armchair by the window, holding a bundle of blankets to her chest. The smile on her face was blinding, she slowly stood up and walked towards us.
“So her name is Hope, huh?” she asked in a soft voice. “We kind of got used to calling her our little Munchkin” And then she lowered my baby to my lap. Thankfully Alex understood that my hands were too week to hold the baby, so he wrapped his arms around mine, taking all the weight of Hope. I looked at the sleeping baby, my baby, for the first time. She was perfect. Her peachy skin was soft and clean, her soft baby hear was the same colour as mine, dark brown, her nose was like a little button, she was chewing something in her sleep and I finally felt whole. She was alive, healthy, breathing. I was alive. Alex and Dianna were alive. Everything was fine. Tears were still streaming down my face, but this time it were a happy ones. I was happy. Finally.
* * *
Turned out that I have been unconscious for almost a week. Alex told me in detail everything that happened, and I felt sad for all of those people, who’s ambitions lead them to death. And my parents… The betrayal stung but surprisingly I didn’t feel as devastated as I thought I would. Yes, I was sad that they were gone, but they turned out to be the bad ones. They never loved me as parents should have, I saw that in the way Dianna and Jonathan treated their children. My parents felt no love for me, and only the fact that I spent over 20 years in their company showed that we had some relations, but there were no warm feeling between us, so I decided not to dwell on the past and move on.
Doc Evans got attacked on the way from the pack, luckily no one got hurt, but it made him arrive to the council the same time the fight was over. Alex said that when Jonathan called him from the hospital, doc rushed back before talking to the wise men, which naturally made the members mad, but Edmund managed to smooth out the conflict and invited the members of the council for a visit, a gesture of respect. Nobody blamed doc for it though, because they understood the bond he felt towards me and it was literally ripping him apart being so far and unable to help, although truth to be told, he couldn’t do more than just hold my hand while I was out of it.
I also found out that I have missed not only the birth of my child, but also the marking. I was sad, the marking was supposed to be substitute a wedding, since were’s didn’t do that. And I have missed the moment me and Alex would be bound for life… I sulked for a couple of days, but all my bad mood has vanished when one evening when I was putting Hope to sleep Alex took me by the hand and led me outside to the swing set we used to cuddle in. He sat me down and right there, in the back yard of B&B I stumbled upon those months ago he lowered himself to one knee and proposed. And I cried. Happy tears of-course. The ring wasn’t huge, but it was perfect, elegant and very traditional (human wise), with a small single diamond surrounded by delicate golden twigs reminding me of a flower in a forest. The very next day me, Alex, doc Evans, Dianna and Jonathan, Riley, Lena, the twins and Edmund with his mate drove to a nearby town and we got married. There was no church, no white dress, brides mates or anything I dreamt of as a girl, but it was perfect. In the end I didn’t need all this flashy things to be happy, all I needed was a family who loved me, and they did.
Oh, and Aaliyah… Aaliyah was devastated that she had missed everything and didn’t step a foot out of the safe room to help me or Dianna, and during or celebratory dinner she broke down in tears. Instantly she received quite a talk from Dianna about that… She was protecting a child in there and opening the door of the safe room would endanger the young innocent baby, so no one felt bad for her staying on the sidelines. Especially me, I understood her reasons more that she thought, I had my own child to protect, so I gave her a tight hug and reassured that no riff would come between us because of her choices. Some would argue, that a Luna should have stepped in, but in truth – she was a young mother, not just a Luna, her job is to protect the new generation, the heir of the pack, so that’s that. After the whole ordeal and a long talk I found myself with indeed another friend, she complemented my tandem with Lena perfectly and we started spending a lot of quality girl time together from that moment on.
Another week later we decided to do the hard thing and take a trip to my hometown. I needed to sort through my parents’ things and I decided to sell the house. We didn’t have any other relatives, so the house was now my property, but I didn’t need it. I had no intentions of staying there, the only things I wanted to find were the books, I was now certain, that my mother had those, and I intended to learn as much as I could from them. Since it was on a neutral territory, we didn’t need any permissions from other packs, and nothing stood in our way, so we packed a light suitcase, everything that the baby could need and took that trip. Lena tagged along, and I was thankful to her, she helped with the baby and then with the packing and sorting. Finding a realtor was a peace of cake, since I knew every single person in this town, so that part of my life was over relatively soon. Lying to the police wasn’t that easy. I don’t know exactly how but doc Evans got a coroners report saying that both my parents were attacked by some wild animal in the woods and died. They were cremated with no ceremony and we let their ashes free in the woods were everything happened to me. At the same spot I decided to forgive them for everything, because they were just mislead by the Mayor. They made a mistake. A grave one. But keeping it all inside and holding on to the hate would eat me alive, so I let it go.
After we got back home it was time to meet with the council, that also went pretty good, I think. At first they were surprised, they certainly never expected to meet a healer, but it also made the whole situation with doc’s behaviour dissolve. During the visit I finally got to meet the fifth child of Dianna and Jonathan, Ethan, who turned out was working for the council as a lawyer, he was a good man and I felt instant family connection to him, which made my talk with the wise men easier. I remembered, that Edmund said I could choose what to do, so we sat down with the elders and Ethan and spent a couple hours discussing my options. Much to my surprise the rumours of my existence had spread so rapidly, that I felt like a celebrity. But what was even better, that in a matter of days, while the council were still visiting, other healers started crawling out of their hiding places and reached out to the packs. Apparently only my mother was against passing the tradition on. I still don’t understand why she decided to come clean to the Mayor, but I guess I will never find out.
The only thing I did manage to find out was that the rogues indeed were hiding their scents with the help of my mother, that’s why they managed to sneak past the border patrols and get to the house undetected. It was quite scary how powerful a simple potion made of herbs could be, the weight of responsibility on my shoulders was huge. Doc Evans has persuaded the council to whip up a set of rules for packs to follow if they had a healer residing in their territory. First and most important rule was to use the powers for good reasons only – healing. That’s why a healer was called so, to cure, not to brew potions that would be used to harm someone.
I didn’t want to leave the pack to learn everything I could, so the council arranged for another healer to come to me. She was an old woman somewhere from Texas, she had 4 granddaughters, who all were healers as well, and she was eager to help me. She arrived after a month and settled in my old room at the B&B. She was also able to explain the amount of white light that was seeping through my pores in the forest, which I have no recollection of whatsoever, but Alex and Jonathan spoke of in in some sort of awe, they said it was magical and kind of creepy… Anyway, the woman explained, that the white lite was from my powers being awakened, and the fact that my child needed my immediate help made it so intense. Apparently this blinding sensation was me healing Hope, since she had yet to spend another month inside of me, but was forced to be born. That was also the reason why I passed out and nearly died, since I couldn’t control my powers yet, wasn’t strong enough for that and it literally drained me. If it weren’t for Alex marking me, I would surely have died, but he saved me. I cried when I understood what he did for me, and he did a lot. He fought an Alpha wolf for me. He saved my life. He called Hope ‘our’ baby, accepting me with all my baggage. I’m the luckiest girl in the world…
By the way, me and Alex moved in together. Apparently he had his own place not that far from the B&B. His house wasn’t as big, but it was mighty cozy with large windows facing the forest, a huge fireplace and even a small pond in the backyard. He confessed shyly, that as soon as he turned eighteen, he started building it for him and his mate. He was a romantic deep in his heart, hiding it behind this all warrior exterior. But I already knew that, he was my softy.
And Hope… Goddess, she was wonderful. And Alex adored her and was planning to spoil her for the rest of her days. We didn’t know if she would shift, or if she would become a healer, or maybe both? But we didn’t care, we loved her so much it hurt. All in all life was good. We had a long road ahead of us and a lot to learn about each other, but I had high hopes for the future. Everything I went through eventually lead me here, home. Life was good. Finally.
The end.