Chapter 16 Lina
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Lina
The world tilted as Noah threw me over his shoulder with the casual efficiency of someone who’d clearly done this before. Through my fever haze, I registered the twins’ reaction, which was not at all what a responsible parent would hope for.
“Mama’s flying!” Rowan shrieked with delight, running after us with her arms spread wide. “Me next! Me next!”
“This is not a game,” I tried to say with authority, but it came out more as a wheeze against Noah’s back. The man moved fast for someone carrying a full-grown woman, already at his car before I could formulate a proper protest.
He deposited me in the passenger seat with surprising gentleness, then somehow managed to buckle both twins in the back with the speed of a NASCAR pit crew.
Rowan went willingly, probably because Noah smelled interesting or whatever weird criteria my son used to judge people.
Thea required bribes of seeing “the puppies” which, what puppies? When had puppies entered this equation?
“You’re kidnapping me!” I gasped as he slid into the driver’s seat, my fingers fumbling uselessly with the door handle. The child locks were on. Of course they were. “This is literally kidnapping! I have a business! People will notice I’m gone!”
“It’s a rescue,” Noah corrected, starting the engine and pulling away from my house with zero regard for speed limits. “That bite happened what, twelve hours ago? You’re already showing symptoms that take most people days. You’re dying faster than normal, Lina.”
The words sent ice through my already confused system. “So I’m not turning into a beast?”
“Oh, you are.” He took a turn that made my stomach lurch. “Your friends will understand when you’re not dead.”
“Mama, are you dying?!” Thea’s voice came out small and terrified from the backseat.
My heart clenched. “No, baby. Mama’s just sick. This nice man is taking us to get medicine.” I forced cheerfulness into my voice despite wanting to strangle Noah for scaring my kids. Die was a banned word from now on.
“Special medicine,” Noah added, catching my glare. “Your mom’s going to be just fine.”
“Special like us?” Rowan asked quietly.
Noah’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Yeah, buddy. Special like you.”
Great. So apparently my kids’ weirdness was connected to whatever was happening to me.
I tried to focus through the fever fog as he drove, recognizing the route with growing alarm. He was heading toward the forest road, the one everyone in Pine Valley avoided unless they had a death wish. The one that led to...
“No. Not there. Anywhere but Ravenshollow.”
Noah’s jaw clenched but he didn’t slow down. The trees closed in around us, creating a tunnel of green that seemed to swallow the afternoon light. My fever-bright vision made everything look threatening, though honestly, this road was creepy enough without supernatural enhancement.
“You can’t take us there,” I protested weakly as another wave of heat washed through me. “No one goes to Ravenshollow. It’s cursed, everyone knows that.”
“Everyone knows wrong,” Noah said firmly, but even he couldn’t completely hide his tension.
“Really? Because the evidence suggests otherwise.” I shifted in the seat, trying to find a position where my shoulder didn’t scream.
“That town’s been there longer than Pine Valley, completely isolated, refusing all contact.
Mail gets delivered to a box at the town limits because even the postal service won’t go in. ”
“That’s for their protection,” Noah said carefully.
“Whose protection? Theirs or ours?”
He didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
“My friend’s cousin tried to drive through once,” I rambled, fever loosening my tongue. “Came back three days later with no memory of where he’d been. Had claw marks all over his truck. Said he just remembered wanting to leave really badly but couldn’t explain why.”
“Propaganda,” Noah muttered, but he was driving faster now.
“Is it though? What about the hikers who disappeared? The photographer who went to document the town and came back with blank memory cards and a broken camera? The delivery driver who-”
“People who venture too close sometimes choose to stay,” Noah interrupted. “Or they’re encouraged to never mention what they’ve seen. It’s for everyone’s protection.”
“But I don’t know what I’m protecting them from!” I snapped, frustration breaking through the fever fog. “Nobody ever told me the truth about anything!”
Noah’s head whipped toward me so fast I thought he might crash. “He didn’t tell you?”
“No.” The word came out as half sob, half snarl.
“He didn’t tell me a damn thing. Just showed up bleeding, fuc-” I stopped myself, “Hugged me senseless, and vanished. Everything I’ve figured out has been my own deductions, my own guesses based on my kids doing impossible things and this town’s paranoia about beasts. ”
“That son of a...” Noah cut himself off, glancing at the kids. “I’m going to kick his ass.”
“Get in line,” I muttered.
A weathered sign appeared through the trees: “Ravenshollow - Population 5,000 - Visitors Not Welcome.” Someone had added graffiti underneath that said “This Means You” with what looked disturbingly like claw marks through the metal.
“Friendly place,” I muttered.
“They have reasons,” Noah said defensively.
The trees thinned and suddenly we were driving through what looked almost like a normal town.
Pretty houses with well-maintained yards.
A main street with shops and cafes. People walking dogs and pushing strollers.
It could have been any small American town except for the details that made my fevered brain scream wrong, wrong, wrong.
A child in a yard jumped to catch a frisbee, leaping at least eight feet in the air. A man loading a truck hefted boxes that should have required a forklift. Two women chatting on a corner turned to watch our car pass, and their eyes reflected the light in a way human eyes definitely shouldn’t.
“A town full of werewolves,” I said faintly. “I’ve brought my children to a town full of actual werewolves.”
The truth I’d been dancing around, making excuses for, explaining away with increasingly ridiculous theories, stared me in the face. My kids weren’t weird. They were part wolf. Because their father was a werewolf who’d knocked me up and vanished.
“Most of them,” Noah confirmed. “Ravenshollow is a sanctuary. Has been for over two centuries.”
“Mama, look!” Thea pointed excitedly. “That man is so strong! And that lady is running super fast!”
“They’re special like us,” Rowan said with quiet satisfaction.
“Are there puppies?” Thea asked hopefully.
Noah glanced at her in the rearview mirror, and I caught his careful expression. “Something like that, kid.”
We pulled up to a modest two-story house on a sequestered property, far from other homes. The isolation made sense now - werewolves probably needed space for their wolfy activities or whatever.
“Your house?” I asked as Noah came around to help me out.
“Yeah. Safer than taking you straight to the pack house.”
Noah carried me inside despite my weak protests that I could walk. The interior was as normal as the exterior, all comfortable furniture and family photos. If this was a werewolf’s house, they’d really committed to the suburban disguise.
“You have a nice house,” Thea announced, already touching everything within reach. “It smells like trees!”
“Thanks, kid,” Noah said, settling me on the couch with surprising gentleness. “Make yourselves at home.”
Thea took that as permission to explore every inch of the living room while Rowan stood in the middle of the room, nose tilted up.
“Smells like the forest,” he announced with satisfaction. “Safe here.”
Safe. Right. Because we were definitely safe in Werewolf Town with me dying from a werewolf bite.
I was burning up now, each heartbeat sending fire through the bite wound. When I looked down, dark veins had started spreading up from the bandage, creating a spiderweb pattern on my skin that definitely hadn’t been in any medical textbook I’d ever seen.
“How long?” I asked Noah. “How long before...”
“Before you turn feral? Or before you, you know, d-word?” His bluntness should have been shocking, but I appreciated the honesty. “At this rate? Maybe six hours before your body gives out. Less if the fever spikes higher.”
“And then?”
His face went grim. “With a feral bite and no intervention? You’ll become one of the rabid ones. Lost to bloodlust.”
“A monster.”
“That’s why we need help. Fast.”
“The person who can help,” I managed through chattering teeth. “You said expert. Who?”
Noah’s face went carefully neutral in that way people did when they were about to deliver terrible news. “Look...”
“Oh no. Don’t you ‘look’ me. Who is it?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s... It’s Knox.”
My brain short-circuited, because of the name, because of the fever, I didn’t know. “Matthias?”
Noah grimaced at the name. “Yes, you know him as Matthias.”
“No!” I tried to sit up, which was a mistake. The room spun violently and I had to grab the couch to keep from falling over. “Not him! That bastard? I’d rather di - Just no!”
I caught myself before saying ‘die’, but the sentiment remained. Of all the people in all the supernatural towns in all the world, it had to be him?
“Don’t say that,” Noah’s voice came out harder than I’d heard it. “You don’t mean it.”
“I do!” The words ripped from my throat. “You were there that morning. You opened that door. You saw what he did. I’m not letting him freaking touch me!”
My voice cracked on the last word, five years of buried humiliation rushing back. The memory of his cold eyes, his cruel words, the way he’d reduced everything we’d shared to nothing.
“I won’t give him the satisfaction of saving me just so he can make me feel like a who - Like I’m worth nothing again!”
“He’s been losing his mind for five years,” Noah said quietly.
“Good,” I said, even though the word tasted bitter. “He hurt me. Why should I care if he’s hurting?”
“The rejection has been affecting him slowly. He’s our Alpha, our strongest, and he’s been weakening every day since that morning.” Noah’s expression was pained. “But that’s not the point. The point is your children need you alive.”
“Find someone else. There has to be someone else who can help with a werewolf bite.”
“There isn’t. Not for this. He’s your…” He stopped and stood, clearly done arguing. “He’s the only one who can save you.”
Why? I wanted to ask, but I knew he wouldn’t tell me shit yet. The twins had stopped exploring to watch our argument with wide eyes. Noah noticed and immediately shifted gears, kneeling down to their level.
“Hey, kids. I need to go get someone who can help your mom feel better. You two behave, okay? Take care of your mama. Can you do that for me?”
“We’re good helpers,” Thea assured him solemnly. “I know when she needs water and I can get it super fast!”
“That’s perfect,” Noah said, ruffling her hair. “There’s juice in the fridge and snacks in the pantry. Help yourselves.”
“Is the man you’re getting nice?” Rowan asked suddenly.
Noah paused at the door. “He’s... complicated. But he’ll help your mom. That’s what matters.”
“Please,” I whispered as he headed for the door. “Anyone but him. Please-”
But he was already gone, leaving me on a stranger’s couch in a town full of monsters, burning up from a supernatural infection while my four-year-olds decided the throw pillows needed rearranging. The fever made everything feel surreal.
“Mama needs water,” Rowan announced, watching me with those too-knowing gray eyes.
“I’ll get it!” Thea raced toward what I assumed was the kitchen.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the pain and the memories and the horrible irony of it all. Of course Knox would be the only one who could save me. Of course I’d have to see him again, weak and dying and desperate. The universe had a sick sense of humor.