Stefan’s POV
I catch Gwen just before she hits the couch behind her. Her limp body falls into my arms and I lift her, holding her against my body.
This is not one of the scenarios I had in mind when I imagined how it would be when I saw her again.
I imagined she’d be mad and say she hates me–and I could see that in her eyes when I walked into the room a moment ago.
But I didn’t imagine seeing me would be so horrible for her that she’d pass out. “Where’s her room?” I ask the vampire. “Can you get the healer? I’ll make a call.”
When the vampire came to me not long ago, I wasn’t at the pack. I was in possibly the hundredth town I’ve been to in the past five months, looking for her.
“This way,” he says, leaving the room. I follow him into the hallway and up a flight of stairs. He branches off on the third floor. He opens a door to the east and I walk through it into a large bedroom.
“Make the call,” the vampire tells me as I lay Gwen on the bed. “I don’t want to spook anyone.”
I left Levi in charge of the pack, so he is the one I call. He wants to know more but there’s no time for that. Not until I know Gwen is alright. The vampire leaves right after.
“Gwen,” I whisper her name, stroking her face. I can’t believe she’s right in front of me. I’d thought I would never see her again.
We’ve looked places, fished for information from werewolves and vampires alike. Some knew of Alexander, but none knew where he lived. To some, he was the stuff of legends–they didn’t even think he was real.
We were only ever able to find one of his houses–the one located in what used to be Gwen’s tribe’s territory five hundred years ago.
It was Eric’s idea to look around there.
But it turned out he hadn’t lived there for decades–the only person who could recall him was an elderly neighbour.
What was odd was that despite not having been lived-in for decades, it looked well-maintained. The neighbour was unaware of any caretaker.
We camped in the area for two weeks, waiting to see who’d show up. Nobody did. I tried to follow the house’s paper trail but ended up nowhere.
I only found out a few minutes ago that Alexander died five months ago. The fact that no one among those who knew him were aware of that shows I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere any time soon.
‘How did you not know?’ Eric asks.
My eyes move to her swollen belly. That’s what he is asking about.
I let her leave like that.
She had no family, no friends, no home. And I let her leave like that.
“I don’t know.” If she’d been fertile when I was with her, I would have known. But I’d just turned her and maybe the transition messed up everything. There are many tangents in many things when it comes to humans who were turned into werewolves.
‘I thought there was a chance that even after everything, if we ever found her, she’d somehow forgive you. But this…’ he trails off.
Eric is right. It doesn’t matter why things ended up like this. There are some things you can’t go back from, and this is one.
What if Alexander had never found her? What if he had, but hadn’t been good to her? She would have been dead or she would have ended up in the wrong hands.
Every night while I lay in bed unable to sleep, I go back to that day she left. And no matter how many times I think about it, I cannot fathom how I was so cold. How I could have looked at her leave and not said a thing.
I regret not breaking the bond between me and Mari the moment I found out it was still there. That was the mistake I made, and it’s the mistake that has cost me everything.
I don’t deserve Gwen’s forgiveness, so I don’t dare hope for it.
A breeze blows through the room, and then the vampire appears with the healer right beside him. When she sees me, she steps away from him quickly and towards me.
He said he didn’t want to spook anyone, but she looks like she’s about to throw up. Her anxiety changes to concern when she notices Gwen lying on the bed.
Forgetting about the vampire, she hurries to Gwen’s side. I step back while she checks her and opens the bag she brought.
The room feels like a vacuum for a few minutes before she reports that Gwen is doing okay and so is the baby. When she says the baby should be coming soon, I tell her she must be wrong.
Even if she conceived the very first time we slept together, it would be too soon.
The vampire speaks up. “When Alexander found her, she was dying and he fed her his blood. It affected the baby.”
I frown at him. “What do you mean it affected the baby?”
“His blood got into her system,” he says. “Don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing. But that's why she has grown faster.”
He keeps saying she. “Is it a girl?”
He nods.
“So Gwen’s been going to a clinic? One of ours?”
He shakes his head.
No?
‘Vampires can tell a lot of things just by using their senses,’ Eric informs me.
I don’t know what to think about the new information. He says it’s not a bad thing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a concern. Alexander’s blood affected her growth rate in the womb, what about after she is born? Does that mean she has vampire blood in her veins?
“Luna?”
The healer’s voice brings my attention back to Gwen. Her eyes are open. She looks at the healer, who’s asking how she’s feeling.
“Where’s Phillip?” she asks.
The vampire steps forward. “Here. Do you need anything?”
“I want to be alone,” she tells him.
He looks at me.
I take a step forward. “How are you–”
“Where’s your mate?” she asks, her eyes finally find me. The look she gives me is cold, detached. It’s way worse than the one she gave me when she saw me in the library. “Does she know you are here?”
I swallow. “Gwen–”
‘I don’t think now’s the right time to tell her about her sister,’ Eric interrupts.
“If you don’t leave,” she says, “I’ll leave.”
She gets up on her elbows, as if she is ready to walk out of the room if I don’t disappear in the next second.
Phillip moves forward, blocking me from her. “You should wait downstairs,” he says.
I don’t need him to tell me. I know I’ll only make things worse if I insist on seeing her right now. I can wait.
“Where are we?” I ask Phillip as we head downstairs.
“Far northeast, near the border.”
I falter and stop to look at him. “What?”
Northeast, near the border? There’s nothing but jungle up there.
He nods.
“How close to the border?”
“A hundred miles or so.”
“There are no settlements that close to the border on the northeast.”
“Come,” he says, heading to the far end of the hallway, where there’s a window.
It’s a moonlit night, so I can see the expanse of the jungle that goes on and on to the horizon.
“There’s nothing but trees for at least a hundred miles all around,” he says.
I look at him. He can’t be serious.
“Alexander lived in seclusion,” he says, turning away and moving back down the hallways. “It was perfect for him.”
I go after him. “And Gwen has been staying here all along?”
“She loves it here,” he says.
“Does anybody else stay here?”
“No.”
Holy hell. Of all the places I imagined she could be, living in the middle of a jungle with only a vampire for company never crossed my mind. Never would have in a hundred years.
If Phillip hadn’t come to get me, I would have never found her.
I head outside to get some air and think.
‘I said she’ll probably never forgive you, but maybe, if you explain…’
“There’s no excuse,” I cut Eric off. It’s the first time he has tried to sympathise with me. Most of the time, he is blunt. I prefer that over him feeling sorry for me.
‘It was not your fault. It’s your nature–’
“I should have fought against it when I could.”
‘You tried sending Mari away,’ he reminds me. ‘You did everything you could.’
I shake my head. “I could have rejected her. Why didn’t I?”
‘There’s no use berating yourself now,’ he says. He’s done feeling sorry. ‘What’s done is done. What matters is she’s doing okay.’
Yeah. She has been doing well. And now here I am, to shake up her life again. Like the way I shook it up the night I abducted her from that nightclub all those months ago.
‘Let me talk to her,’ Eric says.
“What?”
‘Lend me your body. She might not want to talk to you, but maybe I have a shot.’
He is right. But…
“Is that possible?” I ask. “You taking over my body?”
‘You take over my wolf, don’t you?’
“You’ve never taken over my body before.” Sure, he is in my head and some of my physical abilities are all his, but that’s it. We’ve never switched so I’m the one in the head and he is the one controlling the body.
‘Because it’s dangerous.’
“Dangerous?”
‘If I tried to take over your human body by force, there’s a possibility you’d never get it back.’
“What?”
‘If I wasn’t doomed to die young, I would have robbed you of it a long time ago. But since I need you to take care of her when I’m gone, I can’t do that.’
He is an absolute psychopath.
“You think I’ll give it to you now that I know that?”
‘You’d be a real asshole not to. I’m just asking for one chance to talk to her after waiting for five hundred years, and it’s all to help your sorry ass–’
“Fine. Fine.”
‘Not to mention I’ve been absolutely generous with my wolf.’
“Got it.”
I guess we are really doing this.