Branches of the Willow 3 (14 page)

“Now, isn’t the time for this.” I told everyone, as I quickly wiped at my face. “Let’s go figure out what to do to make this better.” I knocked on the closed door before me. When it opened, a waif of a woman stood there, her golden hair hanging in ringlets over her right shoulder, while large blue eyes took me in. I smiled at her then, trying to ease the wariness I saw there. “Hello. I’m Jessica St. Marks De’ Lune.”

My name registered with her immediately. She bowed, and kept the pose. I gently placed my hand on her shoulder to get her attention. “No, please, that isn’t necessary. May we come in and visit with you?”

“This is your domain, you have no need to ask.” She had the same Eastern European accent that I came to identify with Mikael and Evan, only hers was much thicker. The girl was no longer looking at me. Her eyes were locked on someone over my shoulder, and they were shining. I turned to see Evan directly behind me, on my right. His eyes were locked on the woman too.

“You are the guests of this pack, and guests of mine. This is not your prison. We must take certain safety precautions, for our pack, as well as for you ladies. We are not barbarians though, and will not barge into your space without invitation.” The lovely woman’s blue eyes snapped back from Evan to me in a heartbeat. A small smile appeared on her face then.

“Please, come in.” She stepped to the side demurely, and waited for each of us to pass. Evan was the last person through the door, and as he came through he lingered beside the blond.

I turned towards her then, “What is your name?”

“Natalia Andros.” Her voice was whisper soft, and yet obvious pride lingered in her tone as she spoke.

“Natalia,” Evan answered for her at the same time. I smiled at them both, before Mikael put his arm around my waist to guide me over to another woman. My mother was sitting in front of her, rubbing her chubby fingers.

Her threadbare dress hung off of here everywhere except for the area around her protruding belly. My stomach did this weird little flutter thing when I saw the woman. Hope sneaked up on me that my own pregnancy wouldn’t be doomed because of what happened to me. This woman had, after all, suffered a week of barely any food, and miserable conditions, and there she was with a healthy glow about her.

“Are you okay?” Mikael spoke softly to me, and it was only then that I realized I had stopped walking to take in the sight of this woman, and what her belly meant.

I shook my head. “I’m ok. It’s just a little overwhelming.” Mikael rubbed his fingers across my back to comfort me, before I finally pulled away, and walked closer to the woman.. “Hi, I’m Jessica.”

“Allo.” The woman didn’t look up.

“You are Tatianna?” Upon hearing her name she looked up, finally.”

“You are,” she thought a moment, then shook her head and added, “lupul alb?”

“She’s asking if you are the white wolf.” Mikael offered the translation from behind me.

“Yes, I am.” I shook my head to indicate the affirmative, since I wasn’t sure how much English this woman spoke.

“Nu vreau să păstreze copilul.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears, and I turned to look at Mikael, waiting for a translation. He looked taken aback by her statement, whatever it was.

“What did she say?” I had to ask, because he still hadn’t offered up a translation for me.

“She said she doesn’t want to keep the baby.”

When I turned back to Tatianna, shame colored her cheeks red, and she took my hands. “Please,” her accent was even thicker than Natalia’s had been. “It remembers me…” She was struggling to put her thoughts into English, but then continued. “Aceasta îmi amintește de ceea ce a avut loc.”

“It reminds me of what took place.” Mikael translated without being asked this time. He was trying to remain calm and neutral, but it was not a natural thing for our kind to abandon our young. Tatianna asking to give up her baby had a lot of stigma attached to the request. I understood how she felt though. If Zach had managed to have his way with me while I was still drugged, and possibly in heat, I’m not sure how I would feel about my pregnancy. The best thing I could do for Tatianna though, would be to honor her request.

“We will honor your decision, but maybe you should wait until you have the baby to make a final decision.” I looked back at Mikael, and he offered up a translation to make certain Tatianna understood what I was saying.

“Thank you.” She managed, again with a thick accent that made it hard to understand. I turned to my mother then, who was still there beside the pregnant woman.

“Did you know?” My mother shook her head indicating that she did not. “I think Sierra will be needed after all. I will talk to her as soon as we are done here.”

I spent the next few hours getting to know most of the women, at least a little, and learning their stories. A few of them were added to my mental list of people to deal with sooner, rather than later. They were the ones that seemed to have developed Stockholm Syndrome, and were in love with their previous captors.

Ashley had come by to bring fresh clothing, blankets, and food with some of the other women from the pack. I had seen Asi come in with her, but now that I was ready to go, I looked around and noticed that the men were all absent. Well, all of them except Evan, who was off in a corner talking to Natalia.

“Where are the guys?” I asked Ashley.

“I sent them outside a while ago. Some of the women in here were starting to get that hungry look in their eyes, and I thought it best if those two were gone. Evan can fend for himself.” She was laughing as she nodded in his direction. Another woman had walked up to talk to him, and Natalia was’ not having it as she shooed the other woman away. “That’s the reason I thought it was best to send our men out. I’m not sure I’d care what they’ve been through if they tried to get their grubby little paws in my man, I might punch one of them.” Ashley eyes me for a moment. “Hell, you might punch somebody, yourself.”

I laughed. “Well, let’s just be thankful you had the foresight to send them away then, and call it good. Ashley and I made our way over to the door, and I called to Evan. “Hey, Ev, we’re heading out, are you coming?” He held up a finger, and continued talking to the golden blond. The last time I’d seen that look on Evan’s face, it had been aimed at me, in a club on the first night we met. It was strange how things had a way of working themselves out, and not always how you imagined it would go.

As soon as we got outside, we found Asi and Mikael talking to my father. “Well, what do you think?” My father asked me when I finally left the meeting hall later that evening. My stomach betrayed me, and growled out a loud protest about the fact that I hadn’t eaten since this morning.

“I have a list of women who cannot stay here, and who need to be transported to another pack as soon as possible. Perhaps, they even need to be taken back to a pack overseas.”

“That’s drastic, especially considering how the old capital is now on a steady influx over here.”

“I know, but they have emotional connections to Antoine or Malachai, and I wouldn’t put it past any of the ones on that list to do something stupid in order to earn more favor with Malachai.”

“Okay, we’ll start making arrangements right away.” My father leaned in, and kissed me on the top of my head. “Why don’t you guys head back to the house, and get some dinner.”

“I still have to go see Sierra.”

“I think she can wait. Unless of course, you want Sierra to think you’re there to eat her. Your stomach has already given you away, and if you wait much longer it’s going to grow a mind of its own, and make you eat the first thing you see.”

I laughed at my dad. It’s the same thing he used to tell me when I was a little girl, and didn’t want to stop playing to come in to eat.

“Seriously, your body’s been through enough, let’s get it taken care of today.”

“Yes, sir.” I turned to see if Mikael was behind me still, but I didn’t see him. Evan came strolling up though. “Mikael is going to be coming along in just a minute. He’s doing something for me.”

“Oh, okay.” I turned back around and started heading toward my parents’ house. “Are you hungry, we’re going to have dinner.”

“Sure, I could eat. I thought I might take something over, and keep Natalia company though.”

“Speaking of Natalia, I saw that look between the two of you earlier.”

“What look?” Evan was laughing at me as I said it.

“Mmm, you know what look. The one that said, given the right place and time, and you’d be marking her the same way you marked me on the dance floor of your club.”

“Technically, it wasn’t my club yet.”

“You still had that look.” I laughed at him for trying to change the subject.

“She’s been through a lot. I don’t want to push myself on her.” A worried crease in his brow told me exactly how much truth there was to his words.

“I don’t think she’d mind at all, but maybe it’s wise to take your time.” I elbowed him in the stomach playfully. “I think she could use a bit of a good thing in her life.”

“Oh, so now you think I’m a good thing!” Evan was teasing, but the words still stung a little too.

“I’ve always thought so. You were just meant to be someone else’s good thing.” I smiled up at him then, and pulled me into a giant bear hug that reminded me of the ones Jack used to give me, which made me smile all the more.

“I am so sorry for all the trouble I’ve brought into your life, Jess. First my family, and then I couldn’t even do right by you. You deserved far better than what I had to offer.”

“Don’t you dare apologize. You brought me Mikael.” My face lit up as I said his name.

“You’re glowing. Did you know?” He smiled down at me again. “I wonder, if my brother was smart enough to figure it out yet?”

“Figure what out?” I watched as Evan scrutinized every fiber of my being with those cobalt blue eyes of his.

“You’re pregnant. I can see it all over you.”

Shock colored my cheeks, and painted my lips into the shape of a giant O. “How?” It was all I could manage to get out before he pulled me into another giant hug.

“My brother is one lucky bastard!” He spun me around once, and then put me back down on my feet. “And if I have to tell you how, then maybe my brother wasn’t the best match for you. I’m pretty sure you should have known how it happened.” Evan quirked up an eyebrow in a highly amused gesture.

“I know how it happened, idiot!” I smacked Evan’s chest playfully. “I meant, how did you know?”

“I told you, you’re glowing.” He took everything about me in once again. “He doesn’t know yet, does he?”

“No.” When disappointment flashed across Evan’s face I figured I had to finish telling him why. “I just found out, myself. I wanted to wait. My body has been through a lot and, well, to be honest, I’m worried that something’s going to happen and we’ll have had our hopes up for nothing.”

“But you feel okay, right?” Concern quickly overshadowed his earlier disappointment.

“Other than being tired, and a little nauseous once in a while, yeah.”

“Then, why the worry?” Evan stopped dead in his tracks then. “You don’t think it’s not my brothers do you?”

“What? No!” Why would you think that? I’ve never been with anyone else.”

“I didn’t know if anything had happened while you were, you know…”

“No. Nothing happened. It’s Mikael’s. I just worry that I will get his hopes up, get my hopes up, only to have it all pulled out from underneath us. I don’t have the best of luck with this happily ever after stuff everyone keeps going on about in the fairy tales.”

“Jess, you’re time is now. You should tell him. He’s going to be angry if he finds out you’re keeping it from him.”

“I know. Just, give me a little time to tell him, please?”

“You got it, but seriously, the sooner the better. I’m not making up weird excuses about you swallowing a watermelon whole on a dare or anything in a few months.” He held his hands out in front of his stomach, miming how it would look to be pregnant.

I rolled my eyes at Evan, and then found myself standing in front of my parents’ house. “Seriously, Jess, the rest of us can handle things around here while you get some more rest, and catch Mikael up on what he needs to know.”

“These girls can’t wait. None of you seemed to understand why they were too afraid to go take a damn shower. I’m not saying I have all the answers, just that, maybe because of what I’ve been through I can see things from their perspective a little better.” I sighed, as I climbed the porch steps.

“Don’t downplay your strengths, Jess. You’re right. Hell, my family held those girls, and you, captive. I never knew they had it in them to do those things. Every time I go in there, I see some of them cringe, and I used to think it was because they were just shell shocked, but when you started talking about Stockholm Syndrome earlier, it clicked. A few of those girls tried sucking up to me when we brought them back with us, rather than being afraid. Malachai looks a lot like me. Do you think they all thought I was there, and taking them for the same reasons my father and brother had? To do what Antoine and Malachai had done to them?” Evan was lost in thought for a moment before he spoke again. “What about Natalia? Do you think she feels that way?”

I smiled then. “No, I think Natalia is a different story completely. Don’t give up on that one. I saw the way you both looked at one another. There’s something there.”

“She was the newest.” Evan mentioned as we made our way into the house.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure where my father found her, but she was the newest one to join his little prison camp. I never asked her directly, but the other women say she was lucky, in that she was untouched, because they found her somewhere in the Czech Republic right before my father came here. He had his men take her to the cells while my family continued on with their travels to come meet you.”

“That’s a good thing, Evan. At least you won’t have those thoughts tainting anything in the future.”

“What’s my brother mucking up now, that his future will be tainted?” Mikael had finally caught up to us, and leaned down to nip at my neck as we found our seats around my mom’s kitchen table.