Stefan’s POV
“Why did Alexander help Theodore?” I ask Phillip when he shows up in the library in the evening.
I’ve been in here most of the day, looking through Alexander’s books. Eric insists that I’m wasting my time. But time’s all I have.
Gwen has been avoiding me all day since our conversation in the garden this morning. I know I have to give her time. It’ll be a while before she wants to see me, leave alone talk to me.
While I wait for that time to come, I’ll not stop looking for a way to give her something she might want more than me. Eric says he is not the one she loves, but she hasn’t heard their story.
Maybe…what if…what if all this time, he was the one she loved?
She says if we break the bond, I’ll realise I don’t really love her. What if that’s true for her? Maybe without the bond, I’m nothing to her.
Because we were never meant to be. We only found each other because Eric chose me as his host. I’d never have gotten tangled up with her.
I only served to bring them together.
Eric doesn’t say anything about those thoughts. Maybe it’s because he knows I could be right. Their fates are intertwined. I just happened to be the middleman who brought them together.
But I didn’t know that back then, and I made the mistake of thinking she was meant for me.
“It was one of those things he did to placate the Maker,” Phillip answers. “So she wouldn’t get rid of him before he saw Ruby again.”
I frown. “How does helping a werewolf please the Maker?”
“His blood was too potent,” Phillip says. “At first, it would appear to increase their strength. But after a while, it’d backfire. Attack them from the inside.”
“But he gave the same blood to Gwen.”
“She was dying. Think about it like using a drug for the intended purpose versus abusing it. Theodore’s werewolves were not weak or sick. For her, it was healing. Also, the effect was amplified when they took on their wolf forms. Gwen cannot shift while pregnant, so she was safe.”
That explains what happened to Theodore’s werewolves at Red Creek. I had no idea vampire blood can be too potent for werewolves. Would it have killed them in the end?
I’m about to ask Phillip about that when I notice the change in his posture. He is stiff, brow lowered as if he is focusing on something. Like a faraway sound.
“What is it?” I ask.
He disappears.
Goddamn vampires.
I rush out of the room and down the hallway. I run up the stairs, heading for the third floor. The door to Gwen’s bedroom is open. I rush through it. Lucy the healer and Phillip are by Gwen’s bedside.
“She’s coming,” Gwen says breathily. “I can feel it.”
The healer asks Phillip to fetch some water and towels.
“It’s so painful,” Gwen moans.
I don’t hesitate. I rush to her bedside and take her hand without thinking. She holds on. She doesn’t push me away.
The healer moves down the bed and checks between her thighs. “We need to hurry,” she says, looking up at Gwen and then at me. “It’s time.”
“Why so sudden? She was okay all day.”
“It happens,” the healer says.
Gwen closes her eyes tight as her head falls back on her pillow. Her face is twisted in pain. I use my free hand to stroke her hair.
“Is there anything you can give her for the pain?” I ask the healer.
“Nothing that’ll work fast enough.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Just be here for her,” she says. Phillip gets back with an armload of supplies.
While the healer prepares, I get to my knees. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, looking at her face. I wish I could take away some of her pain. “I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes open and she looks at me. A tear slips down her cheek. “I don’t think I can do this.”
I shake my head and wipe the tear away. “You can.”
“If I die–”
“Don’t say that.”
She shakes her head and closes her eyes. “Call her Alexandra. Promise me.”
“You are not going anywhere.”
She is looking at me again. “Promise me, Stefan. He saved us.”
I nod. “Okay. Alexandra. But nothing is going to happen to you. You hear me?”
More tears flow down her cheeks, and I catch all of them. I hate to see her in so much pain, and I hate myself even more knowing I too have caused her so much pain.
***
Alexandra’s loud cry fills the room a few minutes later.
“It’s a girl,” the healer says, wrapping her up and handing her to Gwen.
She’s all wet and slimy and screaming her lungs out, but damn if she’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I have to blink a few times to clear up my suddenly blurry eyes as I look at the two people who mean everything to me in this world. I’m the biggest fool for not realising it sooner.
I don’t care what fate has in store for us. I don’t care how we met. I don’t care whether we were meant to be or not.
Gwen Rose is mine, and I’ll fight for her. If she doesn’t love me, I’ll make myself worthy of her love.
From this moment on, my life belongs to her and our little girl, and there’ll not be a second where I’m not loving them, where I’m not giving them my all.
I’m drawn from the beautiful scene before my eyes when the healer asks Phillip to get more towels and water. “Is everything okay?”
The healer gives me a worried glance. “She’s bleeding too much. Hold the baby.”
I reach for Alexandra and Gwen hands her over. She looks into my eyes and holds my gaze. It takes my breath away because in this moment, she doesn’t hate me. I can see it. I can feel it. More than anything else, it gives me hope that I’ve not lost her completely.
I hold Alexandra in my arms. Phillip gets back, but the healer does nothing.
“She needs a hospital,” she says. I can tell she is trying not to panic, but I can sense it.
“Take her to a goddamn hospital, then.”
“The nearest werewolf hospital is a hundred miles away,” Phillip says.
“You can get her there,” I tell him.
“Not in this state,” he says. “She is too weak.”
“Give her your blood.”
He does. He bites his wrist and presses it to her mouth. Gwen latches her lips at his wrist for a few minutes, but then she pulls away and turns to her side. She throws up blood on the floor.
“Her body is rejecting my blood,” Phillip says, getting to his feet.
I shake my head. This can’t be happening.
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Eric says. His voice is calm, as if he cannot see what’s happening right in front of my eyes.
“What should we do?” I ask the healer. My stomach sinks at the sight of the blood stain growing on the bed. It’s eating up the sheets as if it can’t spread fast enough. “Stop it!”
She turns to her bag and retrieves a bottle of medicine and a syringe. “This is the only thing that can help. If it doesn’t work–”
“You better make it work.”
Gwen pulls at my shirt, and I look down at her. A tear falls down her cheek as she says, “I love you.”
Any other time, I would have given anything to hear her say those three words to me. But now?
It sounds like goodbye.
I shake my head. “No. You are not leaving me, okay? Stay with me.”
‘She’s going to be okay,’ Eric says.
I hand Alexandra to Phillip and get on my knees so I’m closer to her again. I wipe her tears away. “It’ll be fine. You’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “Take good care of her, and of yourself–”
I press my finger to her lips and my forehead to hers. “Shhh. Save your energy.”
“Is it working?” I ask Lucy.
“I’m not sure. We need to wait a little.”
I turn back to Gwen and give her an encouraging smile. “Hold on, okay? Don’t be afraid, I’m right here.”
Her brown eyes are looking right at me, unwavering. A tear slips free from the corner of one eye and flows towards her ear and to the bedsheet. She doesn’t blink.
“Gwen?” I call, stroking her forehead.
That’s when the pain hits. It feels like something is tearing me from the inside, trying to claw its way through.
No.
Eric’s roar in my head is so powerful it feels like my skull is cracking open.
It can’t be.
I want to hold her and call her until she gives a response, but I have no control over my body. I’m only aware that I’m suddenly shifting. And then I’m crashing through the window, breaking through the glass and falling three stories down.
And then I lose consciousness.