Chapter 26 Wen
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Wen
The shriek yanked me out of sleep so violently I nearly fell off the bed.
I sat up with my heart pounding and my vision blurry from swollen eyes. Bella was standing in my bedroom doorway with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide with shock.
“Krystin! Daphne! Get up here NOW!” she screamed down the stairs.
Oh god. I must look like absolute hell.
Thundering footsteps on the stairs and then all three of them were crowding into my bedroom, talking over each other in a cacophony of concern and confusion.
“What happened?”
“Are you okay?”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Why is there vomit in the bookstore?”
“Your door was wide open!”
I held up a hand because my head was pounding and their voices felt like ice picks drilling into my brain. “Can you maybe not yell?”
They immediately lowered their voices but didn’t stop the barrage of questions. Krystin sat on the bed next to me and grabbed my hand. “Wen. Babe. We’ve been trying to call you for two months. Two. Months. We thought you were dead.”
I blinked at her. “Two months?”
“Yes! You said you were taking a few days off and then you just disappeared. Your phone went straight to voicemail.” Krystin’s grip tightened on my hand.
“After two weeks we were going to file a missing person report but then we realized how the hell would we explain to the police that you might be with a werewolf from another dimension? They’d think we were insane.
So we just kept waiting and hoping you’d come back. ”
Two months. Time moved differently between the realms. I’d been in Lytopia for maybe a week and a half, almost two weeks total. But here it had been two entire months.
The realization hit me and I started crying again. Just broke down sobbing right there in front of all of them.
They didn’t demand explanations. Just climbed onto the bed with me and held me while I cried into Krystin’s shoulder. Bella rubbed my back in slow circles. Daphne stroked my hair and made soothing sounds. They let me fall apart without asking for anything in return.
When I finally calmed down enough to breathe without hiccupping, Krystin pulled back and looked at me seriously. “Okay. Now you need to tell us everything. And I mean everything.”
So I did. I told them about being dragged to another realm against my will.
About werewolves and castles and councils and nobles who looked at me with contempt.
About falling in love with him despite my better judgment.
About completing the bond and what that meant.
About the heat and how intense it was. About the assassination attempt in the library.
About him rejecting me in front of his entire court and sending me back here like I was trash he needed to dispose of.
They listened without interrupting. Their expressions went from shocked to furious to devastated on my behalf.
When I finished, Krystin spoke first. “I’m going to kill him. Actually kill him. I’ll find a way back to that dimension and rip his throat out myself.”
“Get in line,” Daphne said with uncharacteristic venom in her usually dreamy voice. “He sounds like he deserves to suffer. Maybe we could curse him? Do you think the portal spell would work in reverse?”
“He’s in another dimension,” I pointed out. My voice was hoarse from crying and talking. “You can’t exactly get to him.”
“I don’t care if he’s a king or a werewolf or whatever,” Bella said quietly. She was usually the shy one but her eyes were blazing. “He hurt you. That makes him terrible no matter what realm he’s from.”
I loved them so much in that moment I almost started crying again.
***
My friends didn’t leave my side for weeks.
Took turns staying over at my apartment.
Made sure I ate even when I didn’t want to because food tasted like ash in my mouth.
Forced me to shower and change clothes when I would’ve been content to rot in bed.
Ran the bookstore downstairs so I didn’t have to deal with customers or make small talk or pretend I was okay.
Krystin moved in temporarily and slept on my couch. Said she wasn’t leaving until I was functional again. Bella brought over meals she’d cooked and wouldn’t leave until I’d eaten at least half. Daphne handled all the bookstore finances and inventory because numbers made my brain shut down.
They were the best friends anyone could ask for. The family I’d chosen. The people who showed up when everything fell apart.
By week three I was starting to feel a little better emotionally. The crying jags were less frequent. I could make it through most of the day without wanting to curl up in a ball and cease to exist. The sharp edge of the pain had dulled to a constant ache instead of a stabbing wound.
But my body wasn’t cooperating.
I was throwing up constantly. Felt dizzy whenever I stood up too fast. Couldn’t keep food down no matter what I tried. Everything smelled wrong and made me nauseous. Even things I’d loved before made my stomach revolt.
I thought maybe it was just stress. Heartbreak manifesting physically. Depression doing weird things to my system because my brain chemistry was completely fucked.
But Krystin had a different theory.
“Wen,” she said carefully one morning after I’d just finished puking in the bathroom for the third time before noon. “Is it possible that you’re... you know.”
I stared at her from my position on the bathroom floor. “No. No way.”
“Really? Because you just told us you had a magical werewolf heat where you couldn’t think straight and were basically in bed for days.” She raised an eyebrow. “Did birth control even cross your mind during that?”
Shit. She had a point. We hadn’t been careful. We hadn’t been anything close to careful. The heat had taken over and neither of us had thought about consequences beyond the immediate desperate need.
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
Daphne appeared in the bathroom doorway holding her car keys. “We’re going to the pharmacy. Right now. All of us.”
They dragged me to the nearest CVS and bought every pregnancy test they had. Five different brands. Brought them back to my apartment. Made me drink three bottles of water and then take all the tests.
I sat on the bathroom floor and waited for the results while my friends crowded in the doorway watching me with concern.
Positive. Every single one.
Positive positive positive positive positive.
I was pregnant with a werewolf baby from another dimension whose father had rejected me publicly and sent me back to Earth.
My life was an absolute goddamn joke.
***
Four months went by in a blur of doctor’s appointments and morning sickness and trying to wrap my head around the reality of my situation.
The nausea that should’ve been called all-day sickness because it never stopped.
My body changing in ways I wasn’t prepared for and didn’t know how to handle.
Trying to come to terms with the fact that I was going to be a single mother to a half-werewolf child who might or might not have magical powers.
I was about five months pregnant now and my belly was definitely showing.
Not hidden at all anymore. I’d had to buy an entire new wardrobe just to accommodate the bump.
Loose dresses and flowy tops became my uniform when I worked in the bookstore because even though the bump was visible, at least the clothes were comfortable.
And standing on my feet all day while running the shop was getting difficult. My back ached constantly no matter how I positioned myself. My ankles swelled by mid-afternoon. I got tired so easily now that sometimes I had to sit down between customers just to catch my breath.
Maybe I needed to hire someone. Get some help so I wasn’t doing everything myself and could actually rest.
People didn’t ask me about Mal anymore. They’d learned better after the first few attempts ended with me either bursting into tears or snapping at them with enough venom to make them back away slowly.
My friends had spread the word that the topic was completely off-limits and thankfully most people respected that boundary.
The shop was running fine. Actually better than fine considering I’d been gone for two months and my friends had kept everything going.
The money was finally enough to live comfortably without constantly worrying about rent or bills or whether I could afford to fix the ancient plumbing.
I could afford regular doctor’s appointments for the pregnancy.
Could start saving for when the baby came and I’d need diapers and a crib and all the things babies apparently required.
Small mercies in the middle of a disaster.
I hadn’t spoken to Aurion since that first day back. Hadn’t seen him around even though I knew he was somewhere in the city watching me from a distance like he’d promised. But I’d heard rumors. Lots of rumors.
Stories about a mysterious wealthy man who’d appeared out of nowhere and started a real estate company.
Someone who was buying up land across different towns and cities.
Building apartment complexes and commercial developments.
Making millions in just a few months through deals that seemed almost too good to be true.
The descriptions matched Aurion perfectly. Tall. Handsome. Accent that people couldn’t quite place. Unnaturally good at reading people and knowing exactly what they wanted. Throwing around money like it meant nothing because to him it probably didn’t.
I’d heard he’d opened an office in one of the nicer buildings downtown. That he had a fancy apartment somewhere with a view of Ryeville’s modest skyline. That he drove a sleek black car that probably cost more than my bookstore was worth.
The car thing surprised me. He’d learned to drive? In four months? A werewolf prince from another dimension had figured out Earth technology and transportation and apparently mastered it well enough to navigate traffic?
Damn. I was kind of amazed honestly. I’d left him alone for a few months and he’d built an entire business empire from scratch. Started a company. Hired employees. Became a local success story that people gossiped about at coffee shops.
He was already rich beyond measure. Why would he want to work more? What was the point of accumulating more wealth when you had literal pouches of gold and jewels worth millions?
I just didn’t get it.
Or maybe that was my exhaustion talking. Maybe I was just jealous that he had the energy to do anything productive while I could barely make it through the day without wanting to lay in bed and never speak to anyone again.
This pregnancy was rough. Rougher than I’d expected based on what I’d read online and in books.
My doctor kept saying everything was progressing normally but nothing about this felt normal to me.
The baby moved constantly. Kicked hard enough sometimes to literally take my breath away and make me gasp.
And I swore I could feel something else underneath the normal pregnancy symptoms. Something that felt almost like static electricity buzzing under my skin.
Magic maybe? Wolf traits manifesting early? I had no idea and it wasn’t like I could google “pregnant with werewolf baby symptoms” and get useful results.
My doctor had asked if I knew who the father was. If he’d be involved. I’d told her no on both counts and she’d given me a sympathetic look that made me want to cry. Added “single mother” to my chart and moved on.
And it didn’t help at all that the mate bond had never vanished entirely.
Even across dimensions, even with whatever rejection ritual Mal had performed in front of his court, I could still feel him sometimes.
Little flickers of emotion bleeding through the connection.
Sadness that felt like drowning. Anger that burned.
Longing that ached. Pain that mirrored my own.
It was the worst fucking thing ever. I was connected to someone who’d hurt me that badly, and occasionally I got unwanted glimpses of what he was feeling.
Some pathetic part of me still wanted him despite everything he’d done and said.
My heart hadn’t gotten the memo that he was a bastard who didn’t deserve my love.
I tried to close my end of the bond. Tried to shut it down completely and sever the connection.
But I didn’t know how. Didn’t have anyone to teach me the mechanics of mate bonds and how they worked.
So I just had to live with it. This constant reminder of what I’d lost. This ghost of a connection that refused to die.
When the hell was I going to be finally happy? When was life going to stop kicking me while I was already down on the ground? When would I catch a break that didn’t come with some terrible twist?