Darkmoon (#5) (The Cain Chronicles) (16 page)

The wind blew around them as he kissed her again, even harder than before, and she wrapped her fingers around his shoulders to lock him in place. Rylie was almost as strong as he was. When he tried to pull back for air, she just dragged him down again.

One of his hands found its way underneath her sweater dress. He lifted her leg to the side of his hip and crushed his hips against hers, though he was careful to keep most of his weight suspended on his arms.

“Mine,” he growled into her lips, his fingers digging into her thigh.

The Alpha in her wanted to argue. She wasn’t his—
he
belonged to
her
. But Rylie felt a distinct shortage of oxygen, coupled with a total inability to think rationally, and she would have agreed that the sky was green if it meant he would never let her go.

Abel reared back and pushed her wrists down when she tried to hang onto him.

He was framed by the trees and the stars at his back, and it was so dark that she could barely make out his features. Was he still a man, or had he begun to change to a beast? His golden eyes shimmered. His smell was rich and overwhelming, musky and masculine, and she wanted to roll in it.

He shoved her knees apart and trailed his hands up the insides of her legs. His fingernails felt too sharp, almost claw-like. “Tell me to do it,” he said, his eyes burning with heat.

Rylie couldn’t breathe, much less speak. She wetted her lips and shut her eyes.

They were in the fields outside the ranch. Any of the werewolves could decide to go for a late-night walk and discover them. Or worse, the Union could have been watching.

And what about Seth?

There was a hard squeeze of pain in her abdomen. Rylie gasped, and this time, it wasn’t from excitement.

Abel’s hands stilled the moment that her expression changed. “What’s wrong?” he asked, voice sharpening.

The tension rapidly increased. It was breathtakingly painful, as though a massive fist had closed over her midsection and was pressing down, squeezing the twins lower. She arched her back with a cry. “The babies—”

“Oh, shit,” he said.

Bekah had been helping her practice breathing, counting, and other ways to make the contractions pass faster. But Rylie suddenly couldn’t think of any of them. The contraction intensified until it felt like her eyes might pop out of her head.

An instant later, everything relaxed. Rylie went limp on the ground.

Abel had gotten to his knees at some point, and he looked like he was on the verge of fleeing. “Are you okay?”

Rylie nodded, trying to get onto all fours. “It was just—unexpected.”

“You need to see Stephanie,” Abel said, pulling her to her feet. She only made it a few steps out of the grove before the next contraction hit.

Rylie whimpered and lost her footing. Mud squelched as she sank to her knees.

Abel backed away. “I’ll find the doctor.”

“Wait,” she whispered.

But he was already running for the house.

“How are you feeling now?”
Stephanie asked, bringing a cup of tea to Rylie at the kitchen table. She was sitting right next to Gwyn for comfort, even though the smell of death and decay was starting to become more stressful than soothing.

“I’m okay,” Rylie said, and it was mostly true.

She had spent over an hour pacing up and down the driveway in front of the house with Stephanie, breathing when she was told to breathe, drinking lots of water, and trying to rest between contractions. Rylie had been certain that she was going into labor, even though Stephanie insisted the contractions were too irregular.

She wasn’t in pain anymore. She didn’t feel anything more than an occasional, gentle squeezing in her abdomen.

But she definitely was
not
okay.

She turned the mug around in her hands and watched the tea swirl. “Where did Abel go?”

“I think he was scared of the idea that you might go into labor.” The doctor sounded far too amused by the idea. “He’s probably hiding out in the fields, if he’s like most nervous fathers-to-be.
Men
.”

“What were you doing that triggered contractions this time?” Gwyn asked.

Rylie blushed as she thought about Abel’s hand between her legs, and the way that their beasts had lunged for each other, like they were starving after months without contact. All Rylie could manage to squeak out was a few babbling, incoherent words, and then she spared herself from having to speak by taking a sip of her tea.

“Rylie,” Stephanie said in a stern,
you better not lie to me
kind of voice.

She swallowed hard. Her entire face must have been red. “I was helping Abel try to transform into a wolf.” Rylie took another sip.

“Did you have sex with him?”

She sprayed her mouthful of tea across the table.

Gwyn grabbed a towel and mopped it up. Her motions were slower than they used to be, and much jerkier, like she had to think hard to move at all. She couldn’t pass for living anymore.

Rylie wiped off her chin before replying. “No.” But at Stephanie’s hard look, she added, “We might have been getting a little…physical.”

Gwyn gave a rattling sighed. “Oh, pumpkin.”

“I’ll need to take a look at your cervix,” Stephanie decided. “If it seems like you’re dilated too far, I’m going to have to forbid all sexual activity until you give birth. That includes orgasms, for the record.”

“I didn’t—I wasn’t—”

“Merely by virtue of having twins, you’re much more likely to go into preterm labor,” Stephanie went on, ignoring her. “I’m not sure that you understand the gravity of the situation, so I’m going to spell this out very clearly for you: it is very likely that you will not be able to sustain this pregnancy for a full nine months. Our goal is to get you to seven months, or thirty-two weeks. A pregnancy becomes potentially viable sooner than that, but we’ll consider that the safe point. You cannot do anything—
anything
—that puts you at risk until that time.”

Rylie swallowed hard. “What’s going to happen if I have them preterm?”

“Normally, I would tell you to expect a lengthy stay in the neonatal intensive care unit. But since your children are unlikely to be human, I suspect they’ll be stronger than that.” She spread her hands wide. “I’ve never heard of a werewolf newborn before. Your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, we don’t
know
anything, and we have to be careful. You’re officially on bed rest.”

“Bed rest?”

“You can’t do anything for the pack on the next moon. I mean it, Rylie. You’ve been calming all of the wolves’ transformations for the past few weeks despite my admonitions, so I think you might be deaf, but you have to hear me now. Stay away from the pack. The strain of it is too much for you.”

“But…”

“Babe,” Gwyn said softly. “She’s right.”

Rylie dropped her head into her hands.

No sex. No taking care of her pack. No physical activity at all.

Being pregnant was definitely much, much worse than being a werewolf.

She suddenly remembered what Brianna had told her on the way to town. “Is there a chance that only one of the twins might not be a werewolf?”

Stephanie thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it’s possible that one of them could be human. Seth is a kopis—a legendary hunter of demons. That’s hereditary. And kopides are immune to the werewolf curse. They can’t contract lycanthropy any more than they can contract hepatitis.”

“How do you know that?” Rylie asked.

“Seth isn’t the first kopis I’ve been around, trust me,” she said. “In fact, James is an aspis, bound to a kopis. He would be able to tell you even more, if you’re curious, but…it doesn’t really matter, in this case.” Stephanie dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. “My point is, if the fetuses were fathered by Seth—”

“Babies,” Rylie said.

The doctor didn’t even miss a beat. “If the babies were fathered by Seth, and one of them is male, it will be very likely to be like him: a kopis. Which means that you may not be pregnant with a litter of puppies after all.”

“I’m going to bite the next person who makes a dog joke.”

Stephanie gave a pinched smile as she stood. “Then good luck finding someone else willing to perform supernatural obstetrics. More tea?”

Rylie held up her mug, and the doctor poured hot water into it from the teapot.

“When will we know?” Gwyn asked.

“About the paternity? Soon. I had to send additional blood samples from Seth and Abel. They’re having a challenging time differentiating between them.”

No matter how soon the test results came, it wouldn’t be soon enough.

Rylie heard the front door open and shut. A moment later, Seth and James entered the room.

“Where have you been?” Stephanie asked, her voice sharpening.

James took one look at the doctor sitting with Rylie and said, “We’ll have to talk about it later, I think.”

Seth dropped to his knees beside Rylie and put a hand on her knee. She still had a little mud smeared down her shin.

“What’s going on here?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

She stared at the table. “I think I should go back to bed.”

Nobody spoke as Rylie dumped the rest of her tea in the sink, set the mug on the counter, and headed down the hall. Brody was next to the bathroom door, but he wasn’t sleeping. His eyes reflected the dim light from the kitchen as he tracked her motion across the room.

“Rylie, wait.”

She stopped with her hand on Gwyn’s door. Seth had followed her into the hall. “What?” Rylie asked, keeping her voice down so that she wouldn’t wake anyone up.

“I think James and I have a way to protect you,” Seth said. “You, the babies, the pack—everyone.”

Seth probably wouldn’t hide from me when I go into labor,
she thought, and then she immediately felt guilty for it. “That’s great.”

Seth stepped over Brody and took her hand. The familiar smell of leather and gunpowder followed him, even though she knew that he wasn’t armed at the moment. He searched her face, and she wondered if he could see the guilt etched in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Rylie,” Seth said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

She bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, too. Can we…can we talk?”

He nodded and followed her into Gwyn’s room. Rylie eyed the bed with its rumpled red sheets and couldn’t bring herself to sit down. Stephanie had ordered bed rest. She suspected that meant she was going to be sick of sitting down very soon.

“Today, James took me to this place called a Haven,” he began, but she grabbed his hand to stop him.

“I kissed Abel again.”

That cut him off quickly. A look of hurt flashed over his features. “Why?”

“Because the wolves wanted it,” she said, but it felt like a lie, and she shook her head as soon as she spoke. “No…because
I
wanted it.”

Seth looked like he had been gutted.

“Oh.”

Now that Rylie had started talking, she couldn’t stop. “I don’t think the things that I want can be separated from the things the wolf wants. I love you, and I…” She took a deep breath. “I think I love Abel, too, in a totally different way.”

He captured her face between his hands. “I told you that I’m not going to let werewolf urges get between us. And I also told you that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you. I still mean that.” It still made her heart give a little jump to hear him talk like that. “I know that Abel might be the father, and I don’t care. Not as long as you still want to be with me.”

“I do, Seth,” she whispered, and her vision blurred. “I do want to be with you. But…”

“You don’t want to make the tough decisions,” Seth said. “I get that.” He released her and stepped back. “As long as you want me, I’m going to be here. But only as long as you want
me
.” He gave a pointed look to her hand—the hand that wasn’t wearing a ring. “Don’t hide behind the babies as an excuse not to make your own choices, Rylie.”

The tears that had been threatening to escape finally spilled down her cheeks, drawing hot lines to her chin.

Seth wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I can’t believe you kissed him again,” he said, so softly that she wasn’t sure she was meant to hear it. He raised his voice. “We’ll talk about Haven in the morning.”

He left.

Rylie sank to the bed, buried her face in Gwyn’s pillow, and cried.

F
IFTEEN

Missing in Action

The next morning, Seth called
together the entire pack so that he could tell them about the Haven. Once everyone was collected in the living room, they filled the sofas and half of the floor.

He kept his explanation short, and he didn’t mention the warnings about magic or time. “But we can be safe there,” Seth concluded, standing in front of the fireplace so everyone could see him. “Nobody can reach us. Not the Union, or the Office of Preternatural Affairs, or…anyone else.”

He scanned the pack’s watching faces. There were a lot of mixed emotions, but mostly disbelief.

Seth caught Rylie glancing over at Abel again. They were sitting on opposite sides of the room, but he kept seeing them look at each other, as if they were having a silent conversation. Knowing that they had been kissing the night before made Seth want to choke his brother out, but he restrained himself. He wouldn’t do it—not while Rylie was in the room, anyway.

“So? What do you all think?” he prompted.

“Another Earth,” Trevin said, picking at his half-eaten burrito. “That’s…crazy. It’s crazy talk.”

Kiara stood, making the pillow in her lap tumble to the floor. “It’s not just crazy; it’s a straight-up lie. You expect us to believe this?”

Seth wasn’t surprised that someone accused him of that, but he
was
surprised that it wasn’t Levi. Where was that guy, anyway? Bekah was by the window with Gwyn and Brianna, but her brother was nowhere in sight.

He raked a hand through his hair, trying to think of a way that he could convince the skeptics. “James showed it to me yesterday. I’ve been there.”

“I have, too,” Brianna said, lifting her hand as if asking permission to speak in a classroom. “It’s everything Seth says, and more. Safe, quiet, beautiful. And there’s no moon.”