Julia's baby, Bk 2 - Oh, Mama.

Chapter 25 - Desperation makes good people do bad things.

Oliver's stress levels rose, and he wasn't sure why, his hands clenching on the side of the boat as it cut through the waves. Levi looked pretty tense too though. The smell of blood had set them off, and neither of them could tell what it was from, except that it came from the vague direction of Yasmine's little cave.

Fuck. He'd waited a month. He hadn't even known it'd been a month, he'd been so fucking destroyed by Julia's death, and only got a sense of time when Randy reminded him. Levi hadn't been much better though. It'd been hard enough to care for the babies, though he'd tried, hard to get out of bed, to feed them, to shower himself, and he still hadn't shaved. For three weeks. It wasn't even a nice beard, it just looked scruffy, but it worked well for a disguise- no one expected the pretty boy Alpha to be scruffy.

They hit the beach, and the two of them hit the sand, jumping out, Oliver's skin pulling over his body as he paused. Randy and Levi didn't need to do this- both were wolf-bound already, both had it in them, and it took him precious minutes longer to get his change done. He would have ordered them to go ahead but Randy wouldn't have listened and Levi wouldn't have wanted to go alone.

The fire across the bush made it impossible to go directly there. So they had to go around, edging, more precious minutes lost as paws burnt on hot ash, as flames licked their fur, smoke burnt their noses. The roar of the flames was also drowning out the fight, more or less, but he heard shouts from time to time, his ears flicking in that direction, the shouts driving his instincts to avoid fire and burning bush to one side. There wasn't time to be afraid of fire.

Of course, his pack-father disagreed with this, the golden wolf's form following close by Oliver, running alongside. Afraid of fire was wise. Fire was dangerous. Burns were dangerous. A burnt wolf couldn't smell, hear or fight.

They finally came around the burning bush to the clearing.

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Julia stared at Amanda for about thirty seconds, her heart racing, as the croonies circled around them. Her heart raced, swallowing, only to hear Yasmine scream as one of the wolves grabbed onto Yasmine's leg and held on. She was trying to back into the cave. Maybe there was a gun there, or something, she was desperately trying to get back into cave. A boat went past but it was gone too fast for Julia to yell or anything.

Amanda's hand grabbed Julia's neck, shoving her against the cave, a couple of her still human werewolves coming up to grasp Julia's arms and hold her there. She smelt a lot of blood now, from Yasmine, smelt it and couldn't do a thing to help.

It drove her crazy. Julia struggled as Amanda tugged off something, a knife, and advanced on her. She ran it slowly down the edge of Julia's face, just enough to split her skin and cause a dribble of blood, eyes slightly mad.

Julia gritted her teeth, eyes locked in Amanda's eyes, refusing to give in this time. She wasn't sure why she used to think Amanda looked like her. She didn't. She was crazy, fucked up in a way Julia refused to be, and sick in the head if she'd ordered someone to be hurt like this.

“Pretty face. Won't be pretty when we're done with it. Her. You can have her, if you can get her out of that doorway.” She pointed the knife suddenly at Yasmine, as the wolves tore at her leg, and Julia realised what it was. Yasmine was trying to stay inside the doorway, holding on with everything she could, and they were trying to pull her out. “Force her to submit.”

“Alpha, the law of the Southern Pack-” That was the man, the one that hadn't wanted to force Julia, and he seemed almost reluctant to speak.

She swung the knife back at him, barely missing him, Julia's blood flicking at him. “I'm the fucking Alpha. That law's void. You can all have a go with them. I didn't give permission for anyone to be here with Julia, did I? To help her? Fuck them till they're bleeding to death. Then tie them up and let them bleed out.”