Page 110 of My Little Doe
“Thank… God… Aspens… not… here,” she slurred out.
I tilted my head. “Who’s Aspen?”
“Sister… she’s baby…” she said.
“Oh,” I replied.
Shortly after, she disappeared for the night.
Times like these made me wish either of my parents were still here. Right then, I needed my dad. He was also bound with my mom, who wasn’t a werewolf either.
After that night, I found myself asking about parties they were going to, trying not to be obvious. It seemed that there was a party at their house quite often. I vowed that I wouldn’t introduce myself or make any moves until she turned eighteen. Unlike Benji and Daxyn, I had morals. I figured out that Benji also had something for her. Both of them were friends with her, Paxton, and Maggie. They hung out even outside of parties.
Every party I went to, I’d hide out in the corner observing Zalayuh. Taking everything in. Come fall, when Julie came to visit, I broke up with her. I knew it was for the best. Even if Zalayuh didn't want me, I couldn't stay with Julie knowing another woman had my attention. I may not have acted on it, and Zalayuh didn't even know I existed, but it felt wrong. Julie and I shouldn't have been a couple anyway. She was eleven hours away, she wasn't the one, and I couldn't trust her with my secret. We had been friends since we were toddlers. She gave me a piece of something I missed, but I knew she wasn't the one I was destined for.
I decided that on her next birthday, I’d introduce myself. Maybe she would be interested. I drove myself that day instead of riding with my cousins. When I walked in, Daxyn was sitting next to her, and they were laughing about something he’d said. He knew I liked her, but then again, Benji liked her too. I retreated into the dining room. I never got the opportunity to say anything. She and Daxyn drove somewhere. I left. At least he waited until she was legal.
I should have told them that I was bound to her. They would have respected the werewolf code and left her alone completely, but I hadn’t. I was worried about what they would say or how they would use it against me. Benji and I got along better than Daxynand I, but we were all cousins at the end of each day. Most of our problems stemmed from werewolf hierarchy bullshit. Before any of us shifted for the first time, we didn’t care about that.
I was a year older than Benji and two years older than Daxyn, so I shifted before them—at nineteen. The first full moon after our nineteenth birthday, if we were to shift, that would be the time it happened. Nothing could have prepared me for that first shift. Ravik barely taught me. Part of it was my fault. He’d been my favorite uncle until my dad and he fought, and he had my dad killed. I knew it was wolf politics, but I could never forgive him. I didn’t think he could forgive himself for that either; he barely could stand looking me in the eye. Of all my siblings, I looked the closest to my father.
The full moon was five days after her birthday, and I casually asked Daxyn about what was up with him and Paxton’s sister. He said they were only friends… I pushed more, and he finally admitted they had hooked up, but it was just a hookup because he was beyond horny. He knew he couldn’t get attached to anyone. He was supposed to marry Annabelle, something their parents arranged when they were little. To join packs and strengthen the bloodline on her side. Her father had only been half werewolf and bound with a human woman, despite his parents’ wishes. Daxyn hadn’t really wanted that, had objected from the beginning, but started to accept that it would happen. His only way out would be to bind to someone else, which hadn't happened. Leave it to the fates to make Daxyn near infertile and then hand him a pregnancy anyway.
I hadn’t had time to decide what I was going to do or when to tell Daxyn or Benji that she was mine. Weeks later, I was summoned to the cellar that was way out of town. I thought he wanted to talkabout using the cellar again for newly shifting kids, but that wasn’t it at all.
She was lying on the cold ground, passed out. As soon as I saw who it was, I immediately dropped my eyes. I couldn’t let Ravik know what she meant to me. I wasn't even sure why he’d taken her, or what the hell was happening. Then, piece by piece, he revealed that Daxyn had gotten her pregnant. I almost puked right then. Instant regret hit me hard in the chest. If only I’d told them that I’d bound with her, if only. We wouldn’t be in this situation.
Why did the fates do this to me? To her? If she was meant for me, then why did she get pregnant by the person who was supposed to be infertile? He ordered me to watch over her, to make sure she didn’t go anywhere. As if she would, she was one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, with barely any muscle mass to her.
I wanted to grab her up and get the hell out of there, but that would have been a death sentence, because where the hell would I go? I didn’t have a plan. Who has a plan for something like that?
I turned it off. Every ounce of guilt. Off. Sadness. Off. Anger. Off. I had to shut my emotions off. I couldn’t be nice to her. At first, it seemed like I’d only be watching her for a short time while he came up with a plan. The first time I was able to leave, I marched in and demanded he tell me what the hell he was doing. I got reprimanded again. The more I questioned him over the years, the more he chose violence to remind me he was in charge.
He figured out quickly from my behavior and questioning my cousins that we all liked her, but that I’d been asking a few too many questions. If he had plans for someone else to do this, it changed to me. She was my weakness, and he figured it out. He refused to give me details on what his long-term plan was, other than that she must remain alive and captive.
He brought a midwife in who made it clear that Zay was not doing well. She needed to be fed better. Ravik didn’t care. I went to the kitchen staff and told them they needed to send me meals as well. I paid them under the table to make my plate healthy and full of protein. I gave her my plate and ate what she was given. I called my Titi and played hypotheticals. She quickly figured out that I was in deep black water. She knew it wasn’t a hypothetical.
I started making plans. I wasn’t sure exactly how this would work, but I had to try. I had my Honda Civic stashed away in a storage locker. Ravik thought it caught on fire in some field, but I couldn’t bear to be rid of my father's prized car. In the evenings, when I’d be let go, I’d work on the plan. I had the car painted and a darker tint added. My father had a trust fund for each of us children. He was a financial genius and had everything set up for us to have rolling CDs, always having money each year. Once we turned twenty, we had access to it. Ravik had no idea they existed. My Titi was in charge of it before then. All three of us siblings made a pact not to let him know, even Raphael, who had shown loyalty to him. I slowly started taking money out and hiding it in the car. I packed a suitcase of clothing, as well as some birthing supplies, that Callie had secretly gathered in case it happened in the car.
She knew about Zay. She was the first person I told. I then had to tell my Titi, because she became an integral part of my plan. She told me to wait until she was closer to thirty-six weeks. That would give them enough time to get my cabin ready. It was a family cabin I’d inherited, mostly used to go to when it was time to shift. It hadn’t been used or taken care of since my family came to Tennessee.
I knew that she might hate me by the end of this and that there was no redeeming myself. I accepted the role I had to play. If I started being nice to her and Ravik caught wind, I was afraid hewould pull me away. Who knows how they would treat her? Hell, Jimmy only watched her for a couple of hours, and she went into early labor.
Once we moved to the main house, it made it that much harder to make plans, as I was essentially cut off from the outside world, too. When she fell asleep at night, I’d lock her in the room, find Callie, and relay messages through her. He didn’t watch Callie’s movements, and she did a lot of talking to my Titi for me, making sure everything was going to plan. They had gotten everything cleaned, and some furniture brought in. They had started to bring baby gear in.
I wasn’t sure how she would feel about this, but I was sure it was better than what I heard Ravik say. He planned to kill her right after she gave birth to the baby, then take the baby. I wasn’t even sure Daxyn fully knew what his father's plans for her were.
Once I heard that, I knew what I was doing was the right thing, even if it meant I’d be damned myself. I thought it would be a normal night. I’d finally get to call my Titi, but fucking Daxyn always had to throw a wrench into my plans. I didn’t get to call her that night to check in because Daxyn caused us to be late. He shifted right there at the house. I barely made it into the woods before I shifted. I didn’t get to call her in the morning because I had to come straight back to the truck, which I had to leave at the pack house.
As soon as I got near the house, the coppery smell of blood hit my nose, and it only got stronger as I went into the house. I walked upstairs. The closer I got to the room, the stronger the smell got. My heart pounded faster and faster with each step. Distress radiated from the room. I unlocked the door, and Jimmy lay on the bed sleeping. My head turned to the nursery-converted-room, and the door was closed. My eyes locked onto the padlock on thedoor. My heart sank into my stomach. Fear, sadness, and copper filled the air. I was afraid to open the door. She always had some amount of fear and sadness emitting from her, but blood—no.
I walked to the door as fast as I could. Jimmy sat up in bed, startled by my feet stomping. I broke the padlock straight off the door. I pulled the door open and stared at her. There was blood all over the mattress. She was as white as a ghost. She cracked one of her eyes open and barely looked at me before it fell closed again. Her other eye was purple and swollen shut.
I yelled at Jimmy, who came to see what I was yelling about. He stood there, eyes wide, in shock. Something snapped in me. I started punching, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to end his life, but I finally got myself stopped. He took off running out of the room and down the hall.
I stood back up in the doorway. Looking all around the room, trying to figure out what was actually happening. My eyes locked on the tiny little body cradled in her arms. She gave birth, and the baby didn’t make it. She was far too early to deliver. That fucking bastard locked her in here, and she gave birth alone. My heart shattered. Every emotion I had turned off flooded back in.
Footsteps pounded in the room behind me. She kept going in and out of consciousness. Ravik and a bunch of the other guys stood next to me, all staring at her.
