Chapter 11 - Annika
I hear the chaos at the front door, but can’t bring myself to go forward and see what’s going on. I heard Heinrich’s voice already, and I know he just entered, along with a drone of other footsteps, as if he weren’t alone.
“What’s going on…?” I whisper the question to myself, forefinger curled against my lips in contemplation, foot tapping impatiently behind the door, my mind unsettled because there’s a part of me that wants to go out there and check what’s going on.
But I am not ready to face Heinrich again.
Even then, I thought I heard loud howls in the distance just now, a few faint screeching cries, and felt an unsettling tingling sensation in my fingertips. I refused to look outside, refused to see the source of those sounds, and maybe it’s because I’m in denial.
I still am as I hear footsteps leaving the cabin and see the shadows of two figures passing the curtain, which remains closed even though it’s daytime.
Perhaps I’m somewhat of a coward, hiding in this very same bedroom as if it’s become a place of sanctuary instead of the prison it was initially.
But something in my chest—the tug of my heartstrings, maybe, or the way my heart beats uncontrollably—compels me to finally open the door, just in time to hear a raging cry of pain.
“Gah!”
I follow the sound to the main bathroom, only to find the door thrown open, and Heinrich sitting on the edge of the bathtub, dripping blood from the arm he’s trying to patch up.
“Heinrich…?” My first instinct is to rush into the bathroom, suddenly compelled to see what the hell is going on, and help in any way I can.
He lifts his eyes to mine, the soft orbs full of sadness and pain, and my heart tugs.
“What happened…?” I ask softly as I drop to my knees in front of him, grabbing a gauze swab and the alcohol from the floor.
“D-demons…” he croaks in a hoarse tone, nodding at the bottle I’m holding in a trembling hand. “Can you pour that over the wound?”
I nod fervently, wincing when I notice the full extent of the damage. The wound is ghastly, flesh ripped from bone, a horrifying bruise spreading from the elbow outward. Closing my eyes as if I’m bracing for the sting, I pour it over his injury, hearing him suck in a breath through his teeth.
“Sorry…” I grimace, opening my eyes and pressing the gauze over the wound. He sucks in another breath, his face contorted with pain as I apply pressure to stop the bleeding. I’m no professional, but I do know the basics.
“Do you think you can stitch me up?” he asks, voice hoarse as he stares at my face.
His breath is hot and ragged as he leans in, head bent over the pain, shoulders slouched with weakness I never thought I’d see from the man, and my heart aches for him.
It’s a deeply ingrained ache I feel, and no matter how much I might have hated him before, seeing him in this condition torments me as much as his suffering.
And while I feel the pain for him, my mind is filled with one thing plaguing my thoughts.
The demons are real.
Heinrich Rudolph wasn’t spewing lies when he told me about them. He wasn’t lying about anything.
“I can try…” I relent with a hesitant nod, and he gestures to the medical aid kit on the floor.
I reach out with trembling fingers toward the medical kit, finding a suturing needle and the thread while he clutches the gauze to his arm.
Working purely on instinct, I thread the needle with precision, tongue pressed into cheek as I squint my eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I readjust myself on my knees, fingers full of worrisome tingling, and I gulp hard as I meet his weary eyes again.
“Ready?”
He nods shortly, then removes the gauze with a wince, turning his face away and bracing for what’s to come.
I place one hand on his upper arm, and get the shock of my life when the tingling sensations burst from my fingertips and spread outward onto his skin, and suddenly, the torn skin begins to magically crawl over the exposed bone, weaving together without the use of a suturing needle going anywhere near his arm.
“What the—”
Heinrich turns back, mouth agape as he watches what’s happening with wide eyes, his skin coming together to neatly knit the wound, while I can’t seem to remove my hand from his arm. I’m too shocked to move it, frozen as I stare at the spot, my jaw dropped.
His eyes flicker to mine, a warmth passing over the greenish-blue depths, a softness tugging at his brows and the corners of his eyes.
I feel as if my hand is stuck to his arm, an invisible bind on my wrist, keeping me glued there.
I barely breathe, my breath hitched in my throat, and only when the powerful tingling stops can I remove my hand and gasp.
I stare at Heinrich’s arm in disbelief as he moves it, then touches the spot that was nastily wounded, now miraculously healed, and all that’s left is the bruise and a glistening, fresh scar where his skin was torn.
“H-how…? H-how is this possible…?” I murmur, falling back onto my heels as the needle slips from my quivering fingers.
Heinrich takes a measured breath in as he meets my dubious gaze. “I would say it’s because I’m a werewolf with quickened healing abilities, but as I told you before, my strength, my powers, have been declining because of the demons.”
“What are you saying, Heinrich…?”
He gulps before he speaks again. “I’m saying that this is the reason you are my fated mate, Annika. You allow me to regain my strength, but you have healed me because you are a witch.”
I’m knocked over onto my rear as the single word erupts like fire in my eardrums, my vision blurring, heart hammering with a range of incomprehensible emotions I can’t make sense of.
“No…no…that’s impossible…why are you saying this now…?” I shake my head with desperate denial, but all he does is stare at me with a serious expression, not indicating that he’s lying.
“Because it’s true, Annika. The ritual we performed to find my fated mate… it wasn’t just a fated mate I was looking for, but the second witch who will help us defeat the demons for good. You are a descendant of the wolf pack that was wiped—”
The heat burning my insides suddenly has me looking up at him with a ferocious glare, seeing red, feeling red all over, and I rise onto my feet, a bout of furious rage taking over my body and filling me with undefined strength, my hands shaking with ripples and surges of the sensation.
“I. Don’t. Want. To. Hear. It,” I grate through gritted teeth, blowing fuses from every inch of my being, nostrils flaring as if I’m about to explode with the deep-seated anger that suddenly surfaces.
Heinrich suddenly gets to his feet, too, staring warily at my face. “Annika, you need to calm down…”
“I am calm,” I retort with a grunt, but then I feel it in my palms, and look down, turning my hands over as I notice my veins simmering with crimson color. “Oh, no…what’s happening to me?”
“You need to calm down, Anni. I’m serious,” Heinrich says as he places both hands on my shoulders. His touch is frightfully calming, shocking me, and I gasp as I slowly turn my face toward my right shoulder.
I’m already calmer somehow, my racing heart slowing down steadily enough to return my vision, and I blink, lifting my eyes back to his.
“I know this is a lot to take in, but you really need…”
The rest of what Heinrich is saying seemingly drowns out in my eardrums, becoming an echo in my head that I can barely hear.
I blink at him as I frown, trying to make sense of what he’s saying, but finding nothing.
I feel strange, like something is happening to me that I don’t understand, something completely out of my control.
My eyes flit to his lips as they move, but I’m no lip-reader.
However, I become heavily focused on his mouth, the plump buds seemingly tantalizing in a way that washes a new sense of heat over my body.
It’s a wave of awareness that has me doing the unthinkable in a moment of heightened emotion, and I lift my hands to his face, cup his cheeks, and pull his face toward mine. I reach on my tiptoes to meet his lips, crushing him in a brutal kiss that doesn’t ask for any permission.
I don’t know what has taken over me, but my lips move against his of their own accord, drinking in the sound of his guttural groan as he plants his hands on my waist and draws me in dangerously close to the hardness of his muscled body.
Mine, softer and pliable, melds to his frame as if I was made perfectly to fit him, and while my heart swoons, I realize how much calmer I feel, the heat rushing from my nerve endings and concentrating at the apex of my thighs.
Breaking the kiss only to catch my breath, I lug in a deep breath and feel way steadier than I was a few seconds ago. Our eyes meet, and a wave of calm passes through my bones.
Heinrich gulps, lips swollen and moist from the passionate kiss, eyes searching my face for something I can’t quite comprehend.
“You’re calmer,” he observes, voice soft and silky as if he’s caressing my insides.
My heart skips a beat, and I’m left staring into his eyes with a sense of recognition, and maybe it’s because being in his arms and kissing him did actually make me feel calmer, and perhaps that’s what I’m clinging to so that I don’t dwell on what he said about me being a—
“Kiss me again,” I breathe, because it’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing I want, because it just feels right.
Heinrich hesitates, eyes flitting to my lips and back up. The tension between us is palpable, almost like stardust between the mist of our breaths, and he returns his eyes to mine, searching again.
“Anni…I don’t want to take advantage of you.”