THE NORD BROTHERS

CHAPTER 18

SHIT SHIT SHIT

There was no fucking manual for this. How to help give birth in a smelly warehouse. No way in hell anyone had ever written a book about it that she could google just about now. Plethora of potential safety hazards, hunters out for their blood and to top it all every wall looked like it was growing a new form of fungus. This was no place to deliver a baby! 

Before she could stop it, she was sputtering nonsense. "Can't you keep it in!?" 

"You're kidding, right?!" The horror on Natalie's face said it all. 

"You're right, sorry." Mariana gripped her hair in despair, her attention whirling from the door to her friend and back to the door. "Fuck." 

"I will sue you if that will be the first word that comes out from my babies mouth." Natalie growled, slowly sinking onto the ground. "The contractions are even. We have time, but not enough to wait out the hunters. It's my third child, but I really don't want to do it here-Aaaah!" 

Mariana sunk onto her knees besides Natalie while patting around for her brand new phone. "Hold on-" 

Mama Mia!

The blonde grasped her hand the second it was in reaching range. Mariana felt her bones crack under the fierce hold. Yup, labor meant suffering for everyone. She grit her teeth, desperate to ignore her arm was turning blue while she searched through the list of contacts on her phone. 

Logan's name was first to pop up. But three rings later it went straight to voicemail. Of all the fucking days to be busy with Alpha business it just had to be today! Why the hell he couldn't answer in two rings like usual!? Darn it. 

Caleb was their next best bet, however....

"Mari? What's up?" A female voice came from the other end of the line. 

"Gwen! Where the hell is Caleb and Logan!?" Mariana particularly yelled while trying to save her hand from a pregnant woman that suddenly posses the strength of a Hulk. 

"There's some trouble with hunters at the boarder. They went to check it out. What is going on?" 

"We have some hunter trouble of our own. And Nat went into labor. Get them here ASAP. I will tell you the address..." 

Frantic shuffling and about fifty "OH MY GODS" later Gwen finally had the address and the call ended. 

"Does Max know!?" Natalie grit out between deep breaths and pained moans. 

"Yeah. They're coming. You just have to hold on." Mariana winced, at this point having given up on her left hand altogether. "Just breath-" 

BANG!

Blood chilling noise of metallic door crashing down onto the ground echoed through the warehouse. Ominous thump of heavy footsteps was equivalent of a gunshot to her ears. Mariana shot to her feet, her shoulders stiff with tension and eyes sharp. 

Hairy Betty and his partner had turned out to be more trouble than she anticipated. And they weren't alone. Flock of men and women lingered behind them with equally nasty expressions. 

"Well, well, well...What was the saying? Two birds with one stone? Or should I say three?" The bearded hunter sneered, one massive boot slamming onto the floor to bring the rest of the bulk into the warehouse. "Almost too easy." 

"Infamous last words." Mariana retorted, moving to stand protectively over her friend. "If I were you, I would take your Girl Scout squad elsewhere and leave us be." 

"Or what?" A woman standing behind their group leader chimed in tauntingly. "Your pregnant friend is going to tear us in half?" 

"I wouldn't underestimate pregnant women." 

Specially not the one behind me. 

"A whole lot of pointless chatter. Why can't we finish this off quickly? I wanna go for a drink." Another hunter joined in, looking terribly bored. 

"Patience, Ritchy. We don't want to ruin our fun." 

Five hunters in total entered the warehouse, each one sporting a bolt of silver bullets knives and all kinds of different things meant to kill her kind. 

"Mari..." Natalies pained moan came from behind her. 

"Don't sweat it. They're amateurs." Mariana tried to assure her friend, but the lie came out crooked. At least three of them would cause major problems, bored guy and cocky woman aside. They didn't carry themselves like fighters. The rest were a different story. as hard as it was to take seriously a hunter with a name tad 'Betty' he could be a hard nut to crack. 

"We'll go for the rogue first. Then we'll kill the pregnant woman." 

"Cruel, boss. Shouldn't we kill her first. Ease the suffering, ya know?" 

A couple of them chuckled. Their guard was dropping. Of course this seemed like an easy job. Well, they had another thing coming. 

Mariana cracked her knuckles. "Eager to die, are we?" She didn't wait for their response. Her body set into motion with practiced ease. The burly man was far too slow to react before her fist met with his bearded jaw with enough force to make him stumble. The skin on her knuckles bruised, but she hardly paused to pay attention. One punch to the stomach, two to face, one more to the stomach and the guy was falling over with an earth shuttering thump. 

All hell broke loose. The four others pounced on her all at once. Four against one wasn't a fair fight. Mariana felt herself being swept under by angry fists. One of the hunters even produced a knife which she luckily avoided. 

But she was not lucky enough to avoid a baseball bat that came down hard on her head. The world stalled. Angry ringing of blood rushing to her head filled her ears. Like somebody had pressed a 'shut down' button, she felt her body gravitate towards the floor. Something warm trickled down the side of her face. Through blurred vision she saw Natalie scream, even if she couldn't hear her. 

Three hunters approached her downed figure while the forth one with a knife turned towards her friend. 

The fast pulsing of her heart reached her ears. There was no choice. She couldn't avoid it any longer. Her tattooed hand raised to her mouth while one of the hunters grabbed her hair, tugging her upwards to face his comrades. To win against monsters, she had to trigger one. 

Marina a smirked. 

Her teeth sunk into her arm. Deeper, deeper until the canines pierced her flesh and thick blood flooded her tongue. Sweet, metallic. A low growl came from within her. The creature she had forced to stay dormant for a very long time came rushing forth, eager to slaughter anyone in its way. 

Her pupils narrowed and the fiery amber color intensified. Strength rippled through her veins. Forceful and merciless against her own flesh. Her bones broke and shifted underneath her skin. 

And then everything went black. 

The woman everyone knew was gone and instead of her was a monster in form of a huge black wolf.