Page 69 of Loup Garou

The bright sun shone all around me. I didn’t have sunglasses on and it burned my eyes as I ran in search of Eion. I could feel him, his pain, his confusion. I spotted him standing near the corner of the building, slamming his fists on it over and over again.

“Eion, stop!”

Turning, he looked at me with tear-soaked cheeks. “Go away. Go back to him.”

I rushed up and took hold of his face. He pushed me off and I did it again. We continued until he gave in and dropped his head down to me as I pulled him into my arms. Rocking him gently, I ran my fingers through his hair. “I should have come straight to you, but I just found out the other day. I swear. I didn’t know you’d be here or I wouldn’t have come. I never meant to hurt you.”

He snorted as he cried harder. He wasn’t a weak man. Eion’s tears were more than warranted. “Three years, Lindsay. It’s a long time to keep the door slammed shut in my face only to open it for me to see you with my cousin—my best friend. Why? Do you hate me that much?”

I shook my head. “No, Eion. I don’t hate you. I never hated you.”

He pointed towards the doors. “Why him? It’s to punish me, isn’t it? I swear to you that I didn’t know it was happening. I didn’t. Myra and Gina showed up, and took me looking for you. I didn’t know. You said you were going to be busy, not to worry and that we’d meet and finish going over plans for the wedding. I didn’t know, Lindsay.”

“Stop. Don’t do this to yourself.” I hugged him tighter. “No one knew. Do you think Tim would let them do that to him? Do you think he’d let them do that to me? To us? To himself?”

Eion shook as he lifted his head. “No. He would never let them hurt you. Never. If they hadn’t—”

“If they hadn’t sent one of their people in to get to know us, make us trust them, then he wouldn’t have died. He didn’t know. How could you have? You have many, many gifts, Eion. The gift of foresight isn’t one of them.”

Confusion covered his face. “But if you don’t blame me, then why shut me out? We spent almost eight years together. Eight fucking years and you just end it all with no explanation, no goodbye. You just leave, don’t take my calls, use magik to keep me away and pretend I don’t exist. Why? What was I guilty of? Was it loving you? I won’t apologize for that. Was it pushing you to marry me?”

He thrust magik out and let it hit the cement building. “I should have forced you, Lindsay. I gave you too much space. I thought you just needed time. I thought you’d come around. I thought when you told me about the baby that you’d finally accept me fully. You didn’t. You never once could even bring yourself to say three little words to me. ‘I love you’ never once fell from your lips. Don’t think I didn’t notice. I did, Lindsay. I noticed everything.”

“Shh, Eion. Stop.”

Thrusting more power out, he shook his head. “No. I won’t stop. You were so excited when you found out you were pregnant. When you called and told me you needed to see me as soon as possible, I thought something was wrong. When I got to you and found you in tears, I thought you were going to tell me goodbye. The second I realized you were crying because you were happy, I gave up that last piece of my heart I kept protected, shielded, from the knowledge that you didn’t love me like I loved you. I surrendered to you.”

Looking down at the ground, I fought hard to keep myself together. It was a losing battle. “I was there, Eion. I know.”

“Do you know how fucking happy I was? I wanted to shout it off the rooftops. I wanted everyone to know that the woman I loved had my child growing in her. You said no. You didn’t want it to ruin my ‘image’. You let everyone think you were dating other men. I know you weren’t. Tim knew you weren’t. Hell, he even laughed up the drunken threesome ordeal the tabloids ran about us. He acted like it was morethan it was just for the sake of keeping the two of us looking like we were available for the female fans. He never touched you and we all know that.”

I tried to calm him down. He ignored my efforts, not stopping long enough to pay me any mind. “I agreed. I hated it but I agreed. The tabloids did their bit and got out, it made you happy. It never made me happy. I wanted you on tour with me. I wanted to crawl into bed at night, hold you and know our baby was safe. You refused to let that happen. Why?”

I didn’t have an answer and I wasn’t sure he really wanted one. “Why didn’t you tell me that you went to my father?”

He snorted. “Because I knew you’d be pissed. You love him so much and he loves you with all his heart, Lindsay. He deserved to know his daughter was going to have a baby and I owed it to him to ask for your hand—not sneak around like we were children. We weren’t!” He smacked his chest. “We had nothing to be ashamed of, Lindsay. We created a life! That’s a miracle, not something you keep from your best friends even.”

Blinking back tears, I nodded. “I know that now. I just couldn’t—”

“Couldn’t what, Lindsay? Couldn’t love something I helped make?”

Anger shot through me. I let my magik up and used it to give him a good shove. “Don’t, Eion! Don’t you dare accuse me of not loving her. I was terrified and I didn’t know why. The entire pregnancy I had this sick feeling in the pit of my gut telling me something would go wrong.”

He tried to hug me but I pushed him away. “Lindsay.”

“No! I knew, some part of me knew something horrific would come and take her from me—from us. I didn’t want to tell you about being pregnant but I couldn’t keep it from you, Eion. It meant everything to me. You meant everything. I couldn’t ask you to give up all that you had in your life for me and I didn’t understand the nagging in my gut not letting me say yes to your proposals.”

Something passed over Eion’s face and he gasped. “Oh, sweetie, every time you’d wake up in a cold sweat, clutching your stomach you…”

I let him pull me into his arms as I nodded. “I was dreaming someone would take her from us, Eion. I didn’t know there was a real threat out there. I didn’t. Had I known, I would have stayed with you or even went to stay with my father through the pregnancy. I thought I was overacting because of how much I’d always wanted children and was finally going to be blessed with one. I thought it was normal anxiety. I was wrong to keep it from you—to push you to stay away.”

“Dammit, Lindsay. When Myra showed up out of thin air I knew something was wrong. She hates borrowing power from outside sources. I thought you’d miscarried. I never expected to have to search for you—that she and Gina only came to me because they knew I could track you. She’d sensed you were pregnant and knew without you confirming it was my baby. She also knew that for Fae, it meant we were linked now. That we’d merged essences. For a pair who aren’t destined mates, that’s a hell of a thing to pull off. We did.”

I held him tight, wishing I could take his pain from him.

He continued, “I still can’t get the images of you, of those sick fucking bastards, of what they did to you, out of my head. They did—” he closed his eyes, “—the most horrific things to you. I’ve seen evil. It’s in my bloodline. Hell, Exavier’s father, my mother’s brother, is notorious for his torture techniques, but I have never seen evil like that.”

He openly sobbed as he clung to me. “They knew the baby couldn’t survive that. That you would. They took you to the point that if they stepped even a bit further you would die and they pulled back—let you heal and then…”

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