A Cursed Bloodline
Page 72

“Celia, what are you—”
Koda never finished. I broke his nose with one punch. Before he could bleed, I nailed Gemini in the chest with a river rock. Aric snapped out of his shock and attempted to restrain me. “Celia, what the hell are you doing?”
I struggled against his hold. “They were going to kill you—right in front of me. I was going to watch you die!”
At last his Warriors understood the cause of my outburst. Guilt and shame spread along the planes of their faces. One by one, they slowly bowed their heads. Aric watched them with sympathy instead of anger. “They were following orders, love,” he said. “I was dangerous. They had no choice but to obey.”
“There’s always a choice, Aric. Just like I chose to save you!”
He shook his head. “Celia, this is the way of our Pack.”
Aric’s statement infuriated me. I broke from his grasp. “Well, the Pack sucks. If you think we’re raising our baby according to Pack laws, you and your buddies are out of your damn minds!”
Dropping a pregnancy bombshell had a funny way of silencing even the yappiest of werebeasts. No one said anything for a looong time, their blank expressions convincing me that perhaps a singing telegram might have been a more subtle way to go.
Liam rose from his fetal position on the ground. “Baby? Did you say…baby?”
Gemini shifted his attention to Aric. “You’re going to be a father?”
Koda wiped the dried blood on his face with the back of his hand and laughed. “I can see this isn’t the first time you’ve been alone.”
Aric’s face split with astonishment, elation, and doubt. He dropped his head and stared hard at his feet. When he returned his gaze to mine, heartbreak shadowed his strong features. “Celia, are you sure the baby is mine?”
I picked up another river rock, this time to throw at Aric.
The other wolves scrambled for cover as he caught me in an embrace. I just missed dropping the stone on my foot. “Of course I’m sure, damnit!”
“You haven’t—I mean, after the way I treated you…”
I took in the light brown eyes of the man who warmed me with his soul and touched me with his smile. “Since the first time I saw you, you’ve been my love and only lover. There’s no doubt that you’re my baby’s father.”
The heat sizzled between us, stimulating our mate bond and allowing me to sense the surge of happiness that sprang from his chest. His lips swept sweetly over mine. But when he dropped to his knees and kissed my belly, I couldn’t stop my tears.
I clutched him against me, smiling. “Sorry. This isn’t the way I’d planned to tell you.”
“I don’t care how you told me. I’m just glad that I know.” He rose and rubbed my belly. “A baby…I can’t believe it. Celia, you’ve made me so happy.”
The wolves collectively howled and approached us, bowing slightly before offering their congratulations and embracing us.
“The first to continue the Connor lineage,” Gemini said, clapping Aric’s shoulder. “This is cause for celebration.”
I stilled, worried he could be wrong. Aric stilled too, for different reasons. His hands fastened on my hips. “Did I hurt you anytime last night or this morning?”
Koda threw back his head, laughing. “Anytime last night or this morning? I’m surprised you weren’t expecting sooner, Celia.”
My cheeks burned. “I’m fine, Aric.” I cleared my throat and addressed the wolves. “How did you find us?”
Liam chuckled. “Let’s just say CIA ops are not in your sisters’ future.”
Koda pulled out his phone and hit the notes icon. “They took off a few days ago. Their excuse? They’d won tickets to The Price Is Right and they were headed to Burbank.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Shayna loved that show. Koda smirked and showed me a phone number he’d recorded. “Of course, they never erased their caller ID. This is the phone booth you called from. I traced the number to this area. We’ve been tracking you for days. It was only around dawn that we finally found traces of your scent.”
“They’ve texted from prepaid phones, just to tell us they were safe and claiming Emme won a toaster. We thought they went to search for you, but we never found them.” Gemini took in the shack. “And judging by your situation here, they never found you either. Where are they?”
This time it was my turn to lower my head in shame. “They’re in El Salvador. I sent them after Lucinda to force her to cure Aric.”
Koda hit Shayna’s number before any of us could blink. She answered with true cheerleader jubilation. “Whaddup, puppy?”
His voice grew tight. “I seriously think you’re trying to kill me. We’re with Celia and Aric. He’s…cured—and his scars have vanished. Now: Where. Are. You? And if you tell me you won a year’s supply of mac and cheese, I’m not going to be happy.”
Joyful squealing bounced through the other line as Shayna shared the news. When she returned she spoke to the gargantuan pissed-off being she affectionately called puppy. “Now, sweet love, don’t be mad. We had to help Aric. Especially since you guys tried to kill him and all.”
And just like that, Shayna turned the tables on him. Koda cleared his throat before he spoke, although it did little to fade the flush to his skin. “What happened with Lucinda?”
The playfulness in Shayna’s tone disappeared. “We killed her the night your scars healed. She didn’t leave us a choice. We panicked, thinking we’d lost our opportunity to save Aric. But from everything you say, it sounds like in killing her, we broke the spell that kept the burned weres from mending their scars.”
Aric leaned toward the phone. “How is Lucinda’s death related to the demon that burned us?”
There was some fumbling and then Danny came on the line. “We discovered that both Lucinda and her daughter had raised the demon. Lucinda escaped before the Alliance realized she’d been involved. In awakening the demon, she formed some kind of bond with him, allowing his power to linger after he returned to his dormant state. When she died, the last of the demon’s power died with her, allowing the weres to finally heal.”
The wolves and I exchanged looks. If it hadn’t been for Danny and my sisters, all who had been burned by Ihuaivulu’s fire would have remained scarred and Aric would have met a painful death. His lids closed tight. “You saved my life and spared my kind from suffering.” He buried his face in his palm. “Dan, I almost killed you. There are no words to describe the disgrace I feel. I beg you to forgive me—”