The Witching Hour: 11 Enchanting Novels Featuring Witches, Wizards, Vampires, Shifters, Ghosts, Fae, and More!, page 155
His face is drawn and pale, like he’s lost a few pounds. Why didn’t I see that yesterday? Oh, right, because I was caught up in my own problems. “Let’s go somewhere,” he repeats. “Belize. Prague. Tokyo, wherever you want. I’ve got a little bit of money from when my grandparents died. Let’s just go.”
I consider it. We could escape from all of it: cancer, abused werewolves, my mother. I could see a little bit of the world, finally. Maybe even write a few freelance articles, which could kick off my whole career. And I could be with Will, no strings attached, knowing I wasn’t endangering him. Hell, I could even tell him about the Old World, since he’s probably not going to be around long enough for it to be a problem.
But I can’t think like that. I don’t want Will to be with me for a few months nearly as much as I want him to have a long, happy life, even if I can’t be in it. Running away from the situation is just a great way to find ourselves with even bigger problems.
“You have to stay here,” I tell him, “I understand why you won’t do chemo and radiation again, but you need to look for a bone marrow donor.”
“My sisters and my mom were tested when I was a kid,” he replies, his voice even. “No matches.”
We both know the odds of finding a random donor are miniscule. My mind whirls, searching for possibilities. I’m already in the National Donor Database, of course, so if I’m anywhere near a match it’ll be flagged. What else can I do? I think about the Old World side of my life for a moment, consider if there’s a solution there. Aside from my father, who I have no way of contacting, I am the most powerful thaumaturge witch I know of. I could probably look into helping Will become a vampire, but I don’t actually know any vampires personally, and I’m not sure what it actually does to people. Would he still be Will if he turned? Would he want to live his life that way?
There’s the other option, of course. I could ask one of the werewolves to bite him. Astrid probably owes me a big enough favor now. But not every person who is bitten actually changes—many of them can’t tolerate the blood magic, and they die a very painful death. And even if he does make it through the change, what if becoming a werewolf poisons Will’s soul with the same violence and rage that’s infected Luke?
Maybe I’m just being selfish. If I’m being honest with myself, maybe I just don’t want Will to become a vamp or a werewolf because then we wouldn’t be able to be together. I’m a witch; even if I wanted to I couldn’t tolerate being with a werewolf. The very idea makes me shudder, and Will tightens his arms around me in response.
“I think I’m in love with you,” I whisper, so low that when he doesn’t respond right away I think he hasn’t heard me.
But after a moment he lets out a huge sigh. “I think I’m in love with you, too. And I’m dying. We’re like a goddamned Nicholas Sparks novel.”
I chortle. Then a spark of an idea flares to life in my mind. A stupid, reckless, unethical idea that would change my whole life. But what was I doing with my life anyway? Wandering around in it?
If this works, if it actually works, maybe Will and I could start over somewhere, not running away from our problems, but making a conscious decision to start a new life together.
18
Astrid
The first few days are more about humiliation than anything else.
Caroline sits with me while I heal, and when Luke finally shows up to make sure I’m dead, she calmly explains that I have decided to capitulate. That I give up. His eyes narrow, and even if I couldn’t smell the confusion and anger radiating off him, I can see it in his body language. He’s still thinking about killing me.
Of course, I can’t entirely blame Luke for not trusting my surrender. I did, after all, do my damnedest to kill him first.
But Caroline goes to bat for me, and after a lot more arguing, which I sit through meekly, trying to look harmless, Luke relents. Instead of killing me, he makes me grovel for my life. Then he goes away and lets me finish healing—it takes days, longer than I’ve ever needed to heal anything since becoming a werewolf. When he comes back I have to crawl over and show him my belly. Literally, and then metaphorically.
This goes on for a while.
After a few days, though, Luke starts treating me more or less like a human wife—or at least, a human wife in the 1950s. He makes it clear that he expects certain things from a mate, and that includes taking care of his home.
We fall into a routine. Every day when he’s done at his current construction job, he comes home to the duplex, smelling of sawdust and earth and sweat. I make him dinner—I’m not a great cook, but I can handle simple things like pasta and steak—and then we watch television or go for a walk. We both have jobs that start early, so we usually go to bed by nine or so. Most nights he wants sex, and I submit without protest. My mantra goes from “don’t start a fight” to “never say no.”
The benefit to all this is that Luke’s wolf begins to calm down, little by little. He goes from being explosive and mercurial to short-tempered and irritable, which is pretty much on par with most werewolves. He stops hitting me entirely after a week or so, a sure sign that whatever messed-up magical instincts were telling him to get a mate have started to relax.
Time passes this way. I can see that Luke’s wolf doesn’t completely accept me as its lifelong mate; this little bit of him is always sort of…detached from me. I understand, and even Luke seems to understand, that this is because I haven’t given my heart to him. My body, my energy, my soul, even—but Luke cannot make me love him. I wish he could.
It’s an odd existence. As long as I say yes to anything he wants, Luke is perfectly tolerable, even nice to me. He starts talking about moving me into his house, and I nod and smile. I am starting to get confused about my place in the world, in the pack. About who I am. Is it rape if you never say no, if you even participate sometimes? Is it abuse if he never hits you, doesn’t yell at you, just quietly expects your complete submission?
The thing that throws me is that really, it’s not a bad life. In fact, a lot of people would love to have a stable financial situation and a solid commitment from an employed man who doesn’t hurt them. I have a place to live, where there’s always enough food, and the women in the pack are starting to invite me to brunches and barbecues, so I even have friends.
It’s a perfectly good life; it’s just not one I ever wanted. I dreamed of going to New York or LA and trying to be a musician. I wanted to play in a band and go clubbing every weekend and maybe try sleeping with women, just to find out if I like it. That’s where I thought I would be at twenty-eight. Not here, making fried chicken and mashed potatoes for my alpha at 5:00 on a Wednesday.
I moved in the weekend before, although you can hardly tell—most of my surviving possessions are still at the duplex, waiting to be packed up. Luke’s house is bigger, nicer, and better lit than the duplex, but I miss my shitty little hole anyway. Mostly I miss being alone. I am always self-conscious now, always aware that I am being watched. Luke mostly trusts me at this point, but every once in awhile he still eyes me like I’m going to try to kill him. After the last time, though, I have no intention of attacking Luke again, ever.
Well…maybe a better way to put it is that I will hold off as long as I can. Because the next time I go up against Luke, he’s not going to let me survive. If I ever attack him again, it will probably be years from now, and it will be a suicide mission.
Luke gets home at quarter after five, and he comes straight in the kitchen, bringing his work-scent with him. I actually don’t mind the smell of the construction site; it reminds me of new beginnings and good honest work. I say hello, and he kisses the back of my neck as I work over the stove. I smile and do not flinch. It only took me a couple days to train myself not to recoil every time he touches me.
The doorbell rings a few minutes later, and we look at each other in surprise. “Did you invite someone for dinner?” I say lightly, glancing at the amount of chicken I’ve done so far. Probably not enough for a guest, not the way we eat.
But Luke says no. “Wait here,” he instructs. “I’ll go see who it is.”
A moment later I hear the doctor’s voice coming from the foyer. Since it’s not any kind of pack business, I continue working on Luke’s dinner. I can tell when they move into the living room, and hear the creak of the couch as they sit down. I’m not trying to eavesdrop, but I start catching a few words, and then I am listening in earnest.
“Why?” comes Luke’s voice. He sounds curious but distant. If Noring doesn’t know him well, she might not realize that means he’s already made up his mind about whatever she’s asked. Now he’s just toying with her.
“He’s ill,” she says. Her voice is brisk, businesslike. “Cancer.”
There is a long pause, and I can imagine Luke leaning back on his couch, stretching his arms out to either side. “You’ve been at the Mayo for…what? Twelve, thirteen years? And you’ve never asked me to change a patient before. Not once.” I flip off the burner and go still, my whole body tuned in to the conversation. Noring asked Luke to change someone? That’s…that’s just not done.
“So what makes this kid different?” Luke continues.
A pause, and then Noring says in a tight, reluctant voice, “He’s dating my daughter.”
Luke laughs. “Sashi’s going out with one of your patients? That’s rich.” He’s quiet for a second, then adds, “Wait, is it that snot-nosed kid, the one with the shitty pickup truck and the bad manners? Will, right?”
I remember the boy who drove Sashi to my house to check on me, back at the beginning of the summer. He had looked so strong and capable. If you didn’t know that Luke had a supernatural advantage, it had actually looked like the kid could take him.
That seems like such a long time ago now.
Noring must have nodded, because Luke laughs again, even louder. “Then definitely not. I’m more than happy to let that kid die. Hell, I’d do it myself if he looked at me twice.”
Noring doesn’t speak for a moment, and I wonder if she’s considering asking Luke to kill the kid. But no, that’s not her style. She’s all about saving lives, not taking them.
“Please, I’m…I’m desperate.” I feel my eyes widening. What the hell? Noring is begging Luke for something? Did the whole world lose its mind while I wasn’t looking? “I just want him away from my daughter. She’s considering drastic measures to help him, when she should be going back to school and focusing on her future.”
“What drastic measures?” Luke asks, his voice dangerously interested.
No, Noring! Run away! I yell silently.
She must pick up on the note of menace herself, though, because I hear the rustle as she stands up from the couch. “I should let you get back to your dinner,” she says in her crisp British accent. “You’ve given me your answer. Thank you for your time.”
“Sit down,” Luke says. He does not raise his voice, but the command is so strong that I almost plop down on the kitchen floor just by force of habit.
The couch cushion exhales as Noring drops back onto it.
“What drastic measures?” Luke repeats. “Do not make me ask a third time, Doctor.”
Noring hesitates, but all three of us know she doesn’t have a choice. When you dance with the devil, he gets to lead. “She dropped out of school, is all I meant.”
“No, it’s not. Last chance, Stephanie.”
A sigh. “The boy needs stem cells, preferably a bone marrow transplant, but there aren’t any donors who match him. I found Sashi’s birth control pills this morning, and she hasn’t taken any in two weeks. I think she’s trying to get pregnant in the hope that the baby will be a match.”
“Huh. Will that work?” There is simple interest in Luke’s voice now, like they’re discussing a new vacuum cleaner.
Reluctantly, Noring says, “It could. It works better in the other direction—a parent donating to a child—but it could. If it doesn’t, though…she’ll be left alone, with a baby.”
There is another momentary silence. I realize I’m just standing there holding a spatula. Should I be making noise, sounding busy? Will Luke be mad if he catches me listening, or will he understand that I can’t help it?
“That’s not why you want to stop her though, is it, Doc?” Luke’s voice is amused now, which is no less scary than when he was openly threatening her. “This is part of your big plan for xenophobic world domination.”
If Noring is smart, she’ll walk out now. Then again, I wouldn’t walk away while Luke is speaking either. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. You think you’re the only witch who’s obsessed with keeping witchblood in the family? Your kind are all bigots. This is about you not wanting your pretty little witch daughter with her strong bloodline to make a mongrel baby.”
Noring is at least gracious enough not to bother denying it. “I also don’t want the boy to die,” she manages to argue. “If he becomes a werewolf—”
“If he becomes a werewolf, in my territory, he is my responsibility,” Luke growls. “And I would kill you myself before I turned that little shit into a member of my pack.”
I hear feet on carpet as Noring gets up to leave, and I busy myself with dinner again. Luke approaches and leans in the doorway. “You hear all that?” he asks me.
No point in trying to deny it. I nod. “Most of it.”
He shakes his head. “I cannot believe that woman and her bullshit. Say what you will about our kind, but I don’t know a single one of us who’d sentence someone to being a werewolf just to keep him from fucking our kid.”
I nod, and very deliberately, I turn my attention to dinner. I can’t risk thinking about this in front of Luke. “So how was your day, babe?” I ask.
19
Astrid
It takes me a little over a day to work up my courage, and then I go see Dr. Noring at work.
This is much more complicated than I imagined. Of course I’ve driven past some of the Mayo buildings, but it turns out they’re scattered all over the place. Even after I park, I’m at the wrong side of the campus. I have to take a walking tunnel, which they call a subway, to the right building, and then I go to the information desk and persuade a volunteer to page a nurse, because you can’t just walk into the Mayo Clinic and demand to speak to a world-famous oncologist. I hand the nurse my pre-written note, and fifteen minutes later, she comes back out and leads me through the staff-only doors to an office suite where Noring is waiting.
The doctor gets up from her desk to usher me in, closing the door behind us. “Astrid,” she says, circling the desk, “what are you doing here? You can stop by the house, or preferably, go through Luke, if you have an injury.”
“I’m not injured,” I tell her, my voice matter-of-fact. “And I didn’t want to bump into Sashi.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I heard what you said to Luke yesterday,” I tell her. “I’m here to accept your offer.”
Her expression goes from benign surprise to outright shock. “You mean to say…”
“I’ll bite the kid. Yes.”
Noring leans back in her desk chair, absently tapping a fancy silver pen against her desk calendar. “You would be going against Luke’s direct orders,” she points out. “He could kill you for that.”
“Not if Will kills him first.”
She gives me a shocked look. I rush to add, “Look, if I want to take down Luke, I need a champion. No one in the pack will help me. But if I change Will for you…” I trail off, letting her fill in the blanks.
She frowns. “But why would Will be willing to attack Luke just because you say so?”
“He doesn’t have to attack Luke. The second Luke sees him, Luke will go after him.” I shrug. “All I have to do is wait until that happens, and then help Will win.”
I still had a silver letter opener hidden above the ceiling tiles in my living room.
It’s a hell of a risk for me, because I would be breaking not one, but two unbreakable pack laws: thou shall not disobey the alpha’s orders, and thou shall most definitely never, ever bite someone. Werewolves are not allowed to change people willy-nilly; otherwise you’d have a friggin’ shifter epidemic. On the rare occasions that one of us, say, wants to bring a human spouse over to the magic, we have to go to the alpha and he has to do it. Trying to bite someone myself is the pack equivalent of a five-year-old climbing behind the wheel of a cement mixer.
Noring is silent for a long moment, considering this. I wait patiently. One thing I know for sure about this woman is that she doesn’t like to be pushed.
“It takes, what? Forty-eight hours for someone to make the transformation?” she says, thinking it through. “What if Luke figures out what you did during those two days?”
“He won’t,” I promise.
She nods. “How soon can you do it?”
I think that over for a second, and smile. “Tuesday is Luke’s poker night.”
20
Sashi
After he checks out of the Mayo, Will and I spend every day together.
We mostly stay at his apartment in Winona, watching movies and playing board games. He doesn’t feel well for the first few days, but when my magic finally returns to normal I start secretly easing the symptoms of the leukemia. Soon he’s well enough to go for long walks, or out to dinner.
He asks me, the first night we are together, why it’s okay for us to be together now when it wasn’t a week ago. I know he thinks I’m only with him because he’s going to die anyway, so I tell him the truth: I didn’t know that I loved him until I found out he could die.
“Funny,” he replies thoughtfully.
“What?”
“I never thought I’d be grateful to the cancer.”
Sometimes we get crabby with each other and spend a little time apart, and sometimes neither of us feels like talking so we just read separately in the apartment. But when this happens we don’t mind, because we know that the occasional argument or need for breathing room is part of what makes it real.
