8 months later

Carmen and I have gone fully insane – and we are loving every second of it.

We act the part, it's not real. But still...

In the Wilder Mountains, we're in the log cabin. We turned off our phones and isolated ourselves from the world.

All mirrors are smashed. All windows are covered.

Carmen has built a scarecrow she calls her Sloan doll. Her voodoo revenge doll.

We've built a circle around the cabin made of snow and salt.

Because yep, it had been snowing, but the winter was coming to an end.

I'm heavily pregnant, and even so, Carmen and I are blasting the old radio music and just dancing around while we clean up the cabin and prepare to go outside to eat dinner.

Carmen and I have cooked up some canned beans, but we're happy with it.

When we're ready, go outside on some fold out camping chairs to overlook the mountain around us.

Our haven.

"So, Carmen. While you've been reading up on magic, I've been reading the bible again," I laugh as I eat my beans over my ginormous belly, "I decided I'm going to baptize the babies in the river, which means I have to give birth next to it. And hopefully I don't die."

"You'll have supernatural strength, and me protecting you," Carmen puts her binoculars to her eyes, as she scans the forest at the bottom of the rocky slope, "Heheh... when I went hiking today alone... I saw clear Lycan footprints in the snow... Silvia... can you believe it –?"

"Bullshit," I spit my food out, but she shrugs, "Tell me you're joking!"

If Carmen was just playing with me, I wasn't going to appreciate it. I was about to give birth any second. We had successfully been hiding off the grid for almost my entire pregnancy and I was confident we had found a way to live freely of demons.

But –

"No, I'm not lying, I just didn't want to tell you before – until I was sure..." Carmen's voice tapers off, she pushes the binoculars to her eyes even harder and leans forward slowly as she starts to smile.

"Now you're sure?" I whisper, putting down the beans entirely. The too large spoon rolls off the table and hits the paved porch. I lose my appetite and my throat starts to feel... parched.

My nostrils flare as I follow her gaze.

"Yup, I'm sure, there is definitely a Lycan in the forest right now, just one, looking up at us," Carmen takes off her binoculars and passes them over to me, "Don't worry about a thing, gorgeous mama – the salty snow will repel him," she grabs the table salt shaker and pours some in her hand – throwing it over me for extra protection.

She was a very confident vampire-witch nowadays.

And a good one too.

Every time Carmen stabbed that scarecrow once a day in a new place, I heard Sloan scream come out of it's straw mouth. Carmen was positively evil. I think it was the vampire in her. But also, she did have a justifiable hate-love long distance relationship with Sloan.

Despite the rocky new path in our lives since encountering demon spawn, I still loved seeing this side of her develop. For the last 8 months, Carmen took control and looked after me while I was dealing with my changing body. I trusted her magic. I trusted her planning.

But.

I look up at the sky. I didn't trust that. Dark rain clouds. Rain would wash away the salt and our protection.

And I still hope she is joking about the Lycan.

I tentatively hold up the binoculars and place them to my eyes, to focus on the forest below in the fading sunlight. Hmm.

I don't see anything.

Okay. Am I missing something? I take another look. Nothing. Just trees. A crow here. A crow there. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I'm pretty sure at this point Carmen is playing a joke on me, so I put down the binoculars and give her a dirty side-ways look, waiting for her to laugh and smile. Instead, she shrugs and looks confused.

I reach for my beans again, but as I do so... I'm looking up at the sky and I've noticed something. The low mountain clouds have slowed to a stop. The air is still. One of the small birds looks frozen in flight. There is a red tinge warming the sky... and it's getting more and more saturated. As I simply take it all in, in shock, I feel my huge pregnant belly contract. At the same time I feel a ripping sensation spreading through my core. This isn't normal.

I scream in horrific pain and the next second, my stomach is moving.

I can see the babies kicking and fighting within.

The pain abruptly stops, but as I rip up my shirt to stare at what happens next, all I can do is watch helplessly.

My stomach is getting smaller. One contraction. Smaller. Two. Smaller. Three –

"They're taking my babies from inside," I whisper, "Carmen, they're taking my babies from inside my body!" I scream it louder, and even as she jumps up and comes to me, it's already too late!

A few more sudden contractions, and my entire stomach has shrunken.

As if I was never pregnant.

The next moment, water rushes down my legs. And it's not clear. Or red. Or brown.

...it's totally black... the colour of the ash soil in hell.

Now I am just frozen. Shock and horror is all that's left.

The red hue in the sky, had consumed the landscape, but now it fades, the clouds start to move, the bird flies away – and the wind brings forward a cold front of harsh rain.

It splatters across my face like blood from a stab wound.

I close my eyes as it slaps me again with more cold wet rain. Heavy drops.

Carmen has fallen to her knees by my chair, her eyes on the black water on the ground, sinking into the cracks of the pavement, as if sinking back down toward hell.

Unholy magic just stole my babies.

I don't know who.

Phantasy.

Onyx.

Someone else.

B-but – they're gone.

My pups are gone.

I stand up off the chair and I turn around toward the windows we had covered on every side. In a rage I walk up to the cardboard we pushed against the windows and I start tearing down the tape.

"No, you can't, Silvia!" Carmen tries to grab my arm, but some kind of motivation only a mother can feel has surged right through me. I manage to tear down the cardboard, even as Carmen claws at me from the side, "Stop!"

I manage to get to the reflection of the window pane, as the water hits it, I look deeper into the dark mirror.

My rage calls him forth.

Onyx, after 8 long months alone without me, he will get to see me for the first time in so long.

His black mating fur shows through the window pane, I'm about to look into his eyes – as the reflection gets clearer and more vibrant, when the whole window shatters instead.

Carmen has thrown a loose brick through it.

She was quick. I didn't get to make eye contact with my Lycan King.

I didn't get to show him my pain. Or my rage.

I spin to her and she is worried, but nothing she can say will stop me.

I turn around and I walk toward the tree line.

"It isn't safe –"

"It's raining Carmen, and our cover is blown," I snarl back, "And we're all out of salt. You should burn that Sloan doll before he comes to rip your head off again."

As I remind her of her own troubles, I see her run back inside to work out another protection spell.

I focus my total rage toward the trees – and I go for a run toward the river.

****

I run for a long time and I don't get tired. I'm in survival mode. I'm searching. I reach the river, wet and freezing, but the rain was thankfully just a shower, so it's now dry again.

But the river itself is moving faster, and I'm looking down at it with apprehension.

I came here to see a reflection, to find Onyx, to scream at him for my babies to be returned, but after the rainfall, the river is moving too fast to give me a clear reflection.

I turn back toward the trees.

It's now night, and I quickly realise I can't see very far ahead of me.

I had moved so fast I didn't track my path.

I'm lost.

There are no stars and no moon.

The overcast clouds block out any potential light.

As I stare out into the trees, my nostrils flare again.

Pheromones.

I see a flash of red eyes.

Ah, here we go.

"Onyx," I say his name, clear and defiant, balling my fists up –

"My name is Sardonix," a reprimand.

The Lycan I cannot see well, growls back at me – but he doesn't sound anything like my mate. He sounds... younger.

I watch him move forward quickly toward me, quick but also slow at the same time. Hesitancy? Why?

Who was this?

As I step back toward the river, weary of this stranger, he finally steps out of the tree line to show himself.

I feel like I am dreaming.

He looks just like Onyx, holding a pair of jeans, but as he shifts toward a human form, he turns away from me and quickly slides on the jeans.

I am patient and intrigued at the same time, my hand flittering up to my chest. My heart is jumping with joy...

It wasn't pheromones I could smell before, but it was the scent of familiarity, the scent of home. I think.

The Lycan turns back toward me, now human – and it is not Oswald who looks at me.

This young man has red eyes and blonde hair.

"You're–?" I start to whisper, but he cuts me off.

"Don't come for me, just go back home," Sardonix tells me, forthright and calm, but full of authority too, "Don't search for me – forget about me. I am who you think I am. I'm telling you from another time. You need to change your decision to find me. Starting now."

I gulp down the lump in my throat.

"...why –"

"Because I love being like this, ma," Sardonix tells me, finally admitting it. My son. However, something about what he is saying doesn't ring true.

"You're lying," I can smell it on the air.

"You'll die if you try to take me back!" he screams this at me now, just like his father, "Don't come for me. This is the first time I've seen you alive. Bitch. Stay here. Leave me be down there..." Sardonix starts to cry with rage, "I still end up the same, ma. But in one life you're there and the other you're dead."

"I can save you. Who kills me if I come for you?" I ask.

"You can't save me. The devil will eat you in front of us, your sons," Sardonix tells me straight, "Stay here. I have to go. I can't be here. I'm astral projecting from the future and it fades quickly. What you decide next, changes everything."

He doesn't let me get another word in.

Not because he turns away, nor because he runs into the trees.

Sardonix runs toward me and wraps his arms around me so tight, sweeping me off my feet and twirling me in a circle as he buries his nose into my hair, to smell my scent.

I embrace my future-son back, and when he lets me go and stands back, he is crying but he's smile is so vibrant and beautiful.

"I love you, ma," Sardonix nods at me respectfully, turns around, shifts into a Lycan... and evaporates into the darkness.

On the ground are his Lycan paw prints.

They steam with a strange magical grey fog.

I approach the tracks and kneel, putting my hand into the print within the mud.

Peace surges through me, at the same time that my heart breaks. My babies were gone but my babies would be okay after all –

I hear a snap from a branch and I look up, expecting anything other than Carmen.

She suddenly walks out, hands up, "It's just me..." she whispers, terrifies, after clearly crying for some time, "...you were talking to the air... are you... okay, Silvia?"

"I'm okay," I answer very calmly, standing up, "I'm sorry about before, and I wasn't talking to the air – I was talking to my son, from the future, he came to warn me, he used magic to – " as I speak, my voice tapers off when I notice Carmen isn't putting her hands down as she just stands awkwardly in the clearing.

Was she being used as bait?

I quickly scan the area, eyes wide.

In the far, far, distance, a flashing of a red and blue light touches the sky.

W-wait.

...the police...?

I watch as a moving shadow pushes forward. A line of undercover police switch on their flood lights, flip them up and it burn my vision. I can't see anything!

Then they scream.

"Put your hands up and get down!"

Carmen drops to her knees, and I'm next to follow.

Fuck. Our adventure in the mountains is over.

I never thought the authorities would catch up to us before Onyx would.

I keep my gaze down, before I'm tackled into the ground, with my mind racing.

I already know this time we're not going to the local hospital.

If they suspect I was a part of Doctor Vos' murder... and if they blamed Tim's death on Carmen...? Then they'll soon find evidence we turned to witches in the forest, in a stolen property, with a voodoo scarecrow, stabbed multiple times... while I wrote a journal about carrying multiple Lycan pups to full term... and they all just heard me talking to the empty air, admitting it was my 'son' from the 'future'.

This time, and there was no doubt this time, we were going to get the real special treatment. And we weren't going to be let out into society ever again.