The Final Insult Ch. 02

*****

She hadn't come back. Had he scared her off? Had something else happened?

"Rick. Seen her at all?"

"Not since you took her outside. What happened?"

"I dunno. Nothing that should have scared her away."

"Didn't get rough with her?"

"No, no."

"What if the cops come looking for her?"

It was a couple of weeks later that a letter was left at the bar with Ethan's name on it. Rick handed it to him the next time he came in.

"What is it?"

"Dunno, some young fella just left it for you. Said you should know."

"It wasn't her?"

"Nope."

Rick tried to watch over Ethan's shoulder as he opened the envelope. He could only see two lines, a few words.

Ethan stared at the words on the small white piece of paper. 'It's affecting the men now. You've been exposed.' He crumpled it up and shoved it in his pocket.

"Bad news?"

"I'm not sure. Let me know if she comes back and I'm not here, OK?"

"Sure thing."

"What'd this young guy look like?"

"Black hair, blue eyes, jeans, big in the chest. You OK?"

"Yeah, fine."

*****

The scent on the paper was wolf. Someone had come down to warn him. How did they know where he was? He needed to find out what was going on. The only place he could really get information would be to go home again. His father would probably be just as likely to kill him as welcome him home. It was warm enough, maybe he could just watch and catch one of the others alone outside and find out what the hell was going on. He really didn't want to meet up with Ian. His father. He had left because of him.

And, what about her? He'd been exposed and he had to assume it was the virus; they had been talking about it for years before he left. It had to be her. Who was she? She wasn't surprised at his knot but she hadn't smelled full blooded werewoman. What had happened since he'd left?

Two months later

He finally got up the courage to go home. He got 2 weeks off work since it would take him a while to get in, and out, and he needed to find the right opportunity to get someone alone, find someone he could trust to talk to.

She hadn't come back to the bar. No one had seen her since that night in his truck. It had been a couple months now. She had never stayed away for much more than four weeks before. He hadn't hurt her; she didn't seem upset, except when he asked her the cost. Anne.

All he knew was her first name, what she looked like and what she smelled like. And no one else had come around asking about her. Who was she that no one was looking for her? Or had she just gone home?

*****

Her mood was grim. She had tried a couple of ways to get rid of it. But the hated fetus in her womb tenaciously clung to her.

Little could be done to lift her spirits although Beth and her older daughters tried. "You can't be sure who it was. Other people have left their packs before, look at great great grandad."

"Anyway, it's yours. You'll never see him again. It will be raised here. A McKenna."

Callum grew more and more concerned about the depths of her melancholy. If she actually had this baby, would she neglect it? Would he have to kill it to bring his mother back? Would she kill it? She didn't want it that was certain.

The only time he heard her laugh anymore was when she played with Devon and Bev. Or when she watched the younger children play.

He worried even more when she started taking off alone, coming home having run herself to near exhaustion. He organized a search party the first time she was gone overnight. She returned the next day around lunchtime, ignoring his questions. Refusing to tell him where she'd been.

And, there were a couple of little things that went missing. A hammer, some wire...

*****

He left his Blazer near the bottom of the wilderness area where he grew up. He started off carrying a small duffle bag. A couple of serious backpackers watched him march off, chuckling and shaking their heads.

He trudged off for a distance, watching for humans, and then shifted to wolf. Grabbing the duffle in his jaws, he trotted off to his father's home range.

The ranges had changed slightly in twenty years but he was surprised that he didn't smell his father's scent at the markers. He hid the duffle just outside the range and began scouting around.

*****

She had difficulty thinking of anything but the parasites growing within her. She was mad. Mad that Callum had forced her into this, mad at Devon for dying and leaving her subject to the council's whims, again. Mad at herself for not recognizing Ethan for what he was, and at her body for allowing this connection. She got to the point where she had trouble tolerating the others, the sympathetic looks and whispers. And, she'd have to go out and do it again after these were born. She had gone off into the woods to clear her mind. And Callum had the temerity to question her as to where she'd been and what she'd been doing, as if she were a child.

She loved her children but she didn't know how long she could stay there anymore with Devon gone. Ryan was six and Devon and Bev were two. While she considered taking her youngest with her, she wasn't sure she could care for them all by herself. They would be better off with their siblings and the other members of the pack. She wouldn't be too far away. And she wasn't sure Callum would allow her to take them. She'd been considering her options and had some hard choices to make.

They all left her alone as she sat on Devon's grave. "Oh, Devon, I've tried to get rid of them, but they stubbornly cling to me. Ethan Matlin's twins. The others don't believe it's him, but I'm sure it is. Why? Why was it him?" She played with the petals of the late violets that were scattered on his grave. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do when they're born. I know it isn't their fault that they were conceived, but I don't know if I'll be able to see anything but Ian when I look at them. I don't know if I can do this."

She curled up on her side, her hand on the grave, as if she'd curled up next to him. "I do know one thing though. I can't stay here. I've found a place, I think it's where Beth's pack lived, and I'm fixing a building up. I'm pretty sure I can make it through the winter. I can't stay here anymore; I'll leave the pack to our children."

She stopped writing in her journal. Callum had been in her room, apparently looking for clues, and had been in her most recent volume. She'd have to hide it somewhere.

*****

Ethan haunted the edges of the range, looking for two of his friends, twins, Liam and Levi. He stayed downwind, trying to catch the scent of his family, or his friends. There were a number of younger folks running around; the pack appeared to be thriving. His brother, Dylan, came into sight one day and he watched the interactions with other pack members. It looked like he was Alpha! Where was his father? What had happened? Ian had been in his prime when he'd left.

Four days after he arrived Owen ended up at the edge where he'd hidden. He stepped into view and Owen raised his hackles and growled.

Ethan shifted. "Owen, it's me. Ethan."

Owen shuffled, and whined. Ethan extended a hand. "C'mon, Owen. You remember me."

Owen sniffed, shifted, and faced Ethan. "I can't believe it's you. What are you doing here? Dylan's not gonna like this. Are you back?"

"Owen, something's happened. I need to know what's gone on since I left."

*****

He was getting more and more worried about his mother. Alana hadn't been able to get anything out of her and she wouldn't talk to him about it at all. In fact, he was sure she probably blamed him for her current state.

It seemed the only one she would talk to at all was Beth, and, no matter how hard he tried, she wouldn't tell him what was going on in his mother's mind. Her behavior had gotten odder as her pregnancy progressed. Locking herself in the science lab, disappearing for days...

She'd found the place a few weeks ago now. The buildings were rundown, but some were in better shape than others. She concentrated on one, since it had a couple of rooms and a fireplace. She gathered some stores she'd found in the other buildings into one of the rooms, brought in a table, assembled a bed, of sorts. She also started tearing down one of the outbuildings to repair it. And she started collecting wood.

What would she do with the babes? The Cole curse had given her twins again. Children of the hated enemy. Maybe she could leave them at the Matlin's camp; let them deal with raising them.

*****

"Ethan. Ian's dead. Been gone 20 years now."

"Twenty years? That long? What the hell's been going on?"

"Dylan's Alpha. Some things have changed, but we're having a tough time of it. Especially lately."

"You know about the virus, right? The one that was taking the women? " Ethan nodded. "The council brought back the new blood edict."

"You're shitting me!"

"No. It's true. Ian brought in three human females, as required. Young, pretty. And, well, you can probably figure out how that went."

Ethan shut his eyes, and shook his head slightly. "Yeah. How long did they last?"

"We took them in the fall, just before winter hit. He ended up killing the first one about three months in. He never did get one of them pregnant."

"In the spring we came across a female in our range. She ran away from the McKennas. Ian, Dylan, and Lewis tried to catch her, get her back to the compound but she slipped away. Lewis said she was really fast. The McKennas came after her, looks like she was their Alpha."

"Alpha? And she ran away? Wait, I thought Devon's wife was dead."

"She was a captured human female that he ended up mating and marrying." They both turned at the smell of someone coming.

"Owen, I'm not here, OK? I'll find you later." Ethan shifted and took off.