Taken by storm(41)

Her very pregnant stomach.

And then I woke up.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO





I HAD NO IDEA IF ARCHER HAD SEEN WHAT I’D SEEN, but as soon as he opened his eyes, I was right there in his face.

“Tell me that was just a dream,” I said.

You don’t know. Maddy’s voice echoed in my head. You just don’t know.

The only person who can help me is dead.

“The life-size mouse was a dream,” Archer said, his tone almost comically serious. “The forest, the cabin, the way she looked when you first saw her—that was all a dream.”

But her stomach …

“It wasn’t a dream, Bryn.” Archer’s voice was very soft, very gentle. “I knew there was something when I went into her dreams on my own. I couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but—”

“Maddy’s pregnant.” My voice was even softer than Archer’s. He didn’t reply, and I didn’t wait for him to. I just walked away—away from Archer, away from our camp, away from everyone and everything.

Maddy had left the Wayfarer in December, two weeks after Lucas had died. She’d been holding it together by a string, and she’d said she was leaving because she couldn’t get better with me in her head.

She’d said that she needed to be somewhere that I wasn’t.

Now, seven months later, she was pregnant—and judging by the size of her stomach, pretty far along.

The only person who can help me is dead.

I’d known objectively that Maddy had loved Lucas. I’d known that the time I’d spent fighting Valerie’s coven, she’d spent with him. But I hadn’t realized—

I’d never even thought—

She was pregnant when she left. I couldn’t hide from that realization, couldn’t deny it. And that means Lucas is the father.

Just like that, I was right there again, in the woods outside the Wayfarer, kneeling next to him, running my hand over the fur on his neck, telling him to go to sleep.

To die.

And now Maddy was out there broken and alone and pregnant. A wave of nausea crashed into my body, and I bent over at the waist, afraid that I might actually throw up.

The Senate didn’t know. Shay didn’t know. Because if they had, if they’d known that not only was there a female up for grabs, but also a baby, not even Callum could have kept them away.

There was nothing more important to Weres than children. Nothing. The idea that I’d let a pregnant teenager carrying a werewolf pup go off into the big, bad world alone would have seemed more monstrous to the other alphas than the Wyoming murder.

Was that why Maddy went Rabid? I wondered. Werewolves were wired for pack living. Lone wolves were under enough strain going it alone in normal circumstances, but werewolf pregnancies were notoriously difficult, notoriously painful. Most human women didn’t survive, but even for female Weres, it was far from a walk in the park.

It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone should have to go through alone.

With sudden clarity, I saw Maddy’s life stretched out before me, from the day she’d been Changed until now.

Viciously attacked by a Rabid, her human life torn away.

Forced to live under the thumb of the monster who’d done that to her—a sadist just as psychopathic in human form as he was as a wolf.

Then, finally, she’d gotten a break. Finally, things had gotten better. She’d had friends, a family. She’d been safe. She’d met a boy and fallen in love.

She’d gotten pregnant.

And then the one person she’d trusted—more than anyone—that person had killed the boy she loved, the father of her baby.

Pregnant, alone, heartbroken, in pain of every conceivable kind—was it any wonder she might have broken? Was it that unthinkable that a splintered part of her might have started craving other people’s pain?

Everything I touch dies, she’d told me. I didn’t mean to.

“Bryn.”

I was still bent over at the waist, but now I was actually on the ground, rocks and dirt digging into my kneecaps. Chase wrapped his arms around me, pulled my body back against his.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. How could anything be okay? How could it ever be okay again?

I pulled back from Chase’s grip, but he held tight, and I didn’t fight him. “Maddy,” I said, croaking her name. I didn’t have to finish.

“I know,” he said. “Archer told us.”

Now all of them knew—what had happened to Maddy. What I’d been a part of. What I’d done.

“Stop it.” This time, Chase’s voice wasn’t soft, and it wasn’t gentle. “Just stop it.”