The Alpha's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance (23 page)

“Let me go, and I promise I will protect you,” he said, the wolf still strong in his voice.

“Protect me? From what, I’m in the home of my mistress, I’m as well guarded as the president!”

“You’re a slave, to be used and discarded when you are of no more use. Help me, and you can be free.”

Richard could see the anxiety in the girl's face; he didn’t know how old she was, twenty five maybe, barely older than Reign, but she had been in this life too long, the scars of her decisions ran deep. She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. She leaned forward and planted a tender kiss on his cheek.

“She’s lucky to have you,” she said as she left him alone. At least this time they left the lights on.

                                                        *              *              *

Reign leaned against the old pine tree that was directly in front of the lodge. The smell of burned timber still hung in the air, but this close to the tree it didn’t bother her nose. She was working on her second soda, and had already finished off two of the corn-dogs. It was the only saving grace of the whole morning. She had at least a day or two worth of food.

She knew the store a few miles away was open, but she didn’t know if the card she had would still work or not. She always just used it, never thinking about if Richard needed to put money on it, or if there was some account somewhere with her name on it.

She tipped the can back until it was empty and sighed. She genuinely had no idea; she rested her head against the tree, and let her thoughts drift. They drifted to Richard, to their last night, wonderful night together, to all the wonderful nights they shared before. She could almost see him, trapped in a cell, terrified she had been killed. She could almost imagine herself standing in front of him.

I’m coming for you my love, and they better be ready, ‘cause I’m gonna burn everyone one of those bastards.

His head snapped up, he mouthed words she could not hear. Her eyes popped open and she realized it wasn’t a dream, she had seen him, actually been there with him. She forced her eyes shut, but the memory faded like a dream; soon she had nothing to grasp at but the memory of him chained against the wall. They would torture him, which she knew, they would inflict pain on him that she could not imagine, and the only hope he had was her. She couldn’t even contact the pack, it would take days for them to get back from Brazil.

She had no gift for strategy, usually when she came up with a plan it was because the situation was there and she would just act.

Funny, how different am I?

She had a hard time imagining herself as the timid Reign of the year before, eager to get into music school, to be a violinist. In the last year, she had fallen in love with a werewolf, visited another dimension, had a baby, and been chased by vampires… all of it was too weird to classify.

She decided to try again, to see if she could contact him. She knelt down, legs crossed, and breathed. Long, deep breaths. She pictured Richard in her head, she tried to imagine his smell, the way his mouth tasted in the morning, the feel of his skin. While the image was almost exactly like it was, she knew it was just an image. She wasn’t seeing him. She was missing something, or something was blocking her. She heard the snap of a twig and nearly screamed. Carefully, as to not make a sound, she stood up, sliding her back against the tree for support.

Whatever was out here was not likely to be friendly. Be it man or beast.

The familiar form of a wolf padded into view, too large to be a normal wolf, and its coloring was too off to be native to Washington. It was a blond wolf with dark fur.

“Cara,” Reign whispered, a sudden swell of hope and pain surged through her breasts. Her friend was alive; she was so sure she felt her die before she Fade walked the whole pack to safety, all but Cara. The wolf looked at her, its tongue hanging out of its mouth, steam from its breath rose to the sun.

“Cara, girl, it's me, it’s Reign.” She moved slowly forward, the wolf leaped back startled, then it growled at her. Reign had no idea the effects of being stuck in wolf form for so long, as that seemed the only way she could have survived. As humans, they were fast and strong and could heal extraordinarily quickly, but as wolves, they were all but unstoppable.

“Cara, it's okay, it's me.” She reached blindly behind her and picked up one of the remaining corn dogs. With the meat in front of her, she moved a step at a time in the direction of her friend. The tawny wolf crept forward one paw at a time, her nose sniffing the air for danger. In a blink, the corn dog was gone; the wolf chomped it down in two bites. She licked her lips, a menacing growl echoing from her muzzle.

“Easy girl, I’ve got more.” Reign backed up a bit, using another corn dog to entice the she-wolf closer. Before long, the wolf sat in Reign’s lap, munching happily on corn dogs while Reign scratched behind her ears and petted her fur. With the wolf somewhat pacified, Reign took a deeper look into Cara. With her new senses, she could see the wolf, and the girl, mingled together, but separated. A block, like a black smudge, was on her essence. Without thinking, Reign reached into the wolf with her mind and cleared the smudge away. The wolf stiffened in her lap, Reign ignored it, and once the smudge was removed she saw something else, a small black spot, no larger than a golf ball.

She tried to clear that away, but it resisted. Her hand became entangled with the cold blackness, it leaked onto her like honey, it sent cold chills down her spine and goose bumps running along her arms. She forced herself to remain calm and breathe. The goo spread up her arm, moving forward with little tendrils for hands clawing its way to her. Her own aura dimmed and she understood that this was some sort of sickness of the Fade that was her domain. Redoubling her resolve, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She pushed out her fear and anxiety with her departing breath, and all that was left was her cool, calm, resolve.

She opened her eyes, the goo was to her shoulder, she focused on it, examining it in minute detail. It was not one thing, but millions of little things together. She put her left hand on it and the goo tried to infect that as well. Summoning her lightning, she sent small amounts of current out of her hand, into her arm, and back to her hand in a loop. The electricity never left her body. The goo convulsed, she increased the voltage. She imagined the goo’s cells breaking up as the ionic bonds were forcibly severed.

She looked down again and the goo was nothing but dust in the Fade being blown off her by the astral winds. She allowed herself a smile.

What the hell was that?

It was a small victory, but one she needed, it lightened her heart. She was so focused on the aura of the Fade and hadn’t realized until the goo was gone that so was the wolf. In its place was the naked, sleeping, Cara. Passed out from the exertion of being a wolf for so long the poor girl slept peacefully with her head in Reign’s lap. Reign could see her ribs through her skin, her hair was terribly matted and she had a year’s worth of dirt caked on her.

Reign made soothing sounds to the girl and ran her hands through her hair, unconscious, but responsive. Cara smiled, her body shifted as she slept, peaceful and secure for the first time in months.

After an hour, Reign’s back began to ache. Cara still hadn’t woken up and didn’t look like she would anytime soon. She carefully scooted herself out from under her head, and replaced her lap with her folded up coat and shirt. It left her wandering the forest in her white tank top, which made things a little chilly, and awkward considering she was still lactating.

Oh, Cara, I hope you are okay, I miss you, baby girl.

She was glad to have the adult Cara back, thrilled in fact, but the ache in her heart for her distant baby was a glowing fire that grew every hour. She’d made the right decision to let Skye take her on ahead to Brazil. The pack would be safe there, and no one would question Skye; the girl certainly had the rack to look like she was breastfeeding, and according to her, it wouldn’t take long before she was lactating herself, so the baby would be fed. Still her boobs ached with the need to feed her baby, and if she didn’t pump soon, her milk would start to dry up.

She wandered around the back of the burned out lodge, the conundrum of food and shelter rolling around in her brain.

I’m a doofus.

It was staring at her the whole time, the mineshaft the pack converted to a supply room slash emergency escape tunnel. She remembered being in there with Abbey and they had a full kitchen and months’ worth of food and water. She wondered if Cara stayed in the area in the hopes she would shift back and could use it to live on. She checked the door, it was locked and she didn’t have a key.

The door was the windowless variety, and she recalled the security system they used to monitor the whole complex from inside. She remembered being terrified as she witnessed the old wolf get beheaded,
what was his name?

She tried the door a couple of times, it just rattled against the jam.

Wait, I was terrified!

She wasn’t sure if it was enough, but it was worth trying. She closed her eyes and remembered the feeling, the place, what she was thinking, what Abbey looked like, then with frightening clarity the room was there, solid in her mind, as if she could step through her own thoughts and be there.

So she did.

Reign was in the security booth, emergency lighting shed dim illumination on the dead consoles. It didn’t matter, as long as she could make her way to the door, and she could. It opened easily from the inside, she had to prop a rock on it to keep it open. With light streaming in she found the pantry. The freezer had long since thawed, and she dare not open it for fear of the awful smell that would accompany a hundred pound of rotting meat.

However, the canned and dry goods were still there, and well within their use by date. She found the rice, beans, and some cured deer jerky. She also found the pack’s camping stove and fuel.

When Cara’s eyes began to flutter, Reign had a hardy meal of beans, rice, bacon, and pear sauce ready for her. Along with the food, she found a sleeping bag and some spare clothes, a flannel shirt and work pants, along with some boots she was sure were too big for Cara, but she also found socks, enough that the girl could wear the boots.

“Hi, sleepy head,” she said to the waking girl.

“Reign, is that you?”

“In the flesh, Cara, we thought you were dead!”

In a rush, Cara leaped to Reign and engulfed her in a long, tearful hug.

“Oh, Reign, how did I? What did you do? I’ve tried and tried to shift back, but it had been so long I was almost gone,” Cara said through her tears.

“I don’t know, I saw something in you, like a sickness, and it was keeping you in wolf form, I just sorta reached in and took it out,” Reign said.

Cara pushed away and looked Reign in the eyes. “Thank you, much longer and I would have been stuck as a wolf forever, as it is, three months was too long, you… you don’t know what it’s like, when you live in the wild things can get…complicated,” she said, wiping her face leaving clean smudges through the dirt.

“Here, some wet naps I found, you’re kind of a mess,” Reign said while handing her the wipes.

While Cara ate, Reign filled her in on the last few months, the pack heading to Brazil, the baby and her name, Richard's capture; it was a lot, and Reign had to choke back tears on more than a few parts.

“God, I’m so glad you’re alive,” Reign said again.

“Me, too.” Cara burped as she spoke, having eaten more in one sitting than she had in months. The girl’s skin looked immediately healthier. Reign hadn’t noticed before but Cara had more than a few nasty wounds under all the dirt, and now that she’d eaten, her body began to heal.

Cara noticed her looking and as she raised her arm to look at her side, she sighed.

“Yeah, there’s a normal wolf pack in the area, and the alpha wanted me as a mate, it took a lot of convincing that I wasn’t for him; I’m still human, you know. Some wolves, they, well they fuck as wolves, and for me I just couldn’t ever do that, it felt wrong.”