Chapter 29 Chapter Twenty Nine - Lover's Quarrel I
Chapter 29 Chapter Twenty Nine - Lover's Quarrel I
Dallas's hand moved to Carter's stomach before he'd even fully sat up, his eyes wild with panic. He grabbed Carter by the shoulders and hauled him closer despite the doctors' alarmed protests, his hands frantically roaming over Carter's torso, checking for injuries, or for signs of damage.
Then he pressed his face against Carter's abdomen and inhaled deeply, his entire body going rigid.
"The baby," Dallas rasped, his voice hoarse from three days of disuse. "Tell me. Is the baby—"
"At first we weren't certain," Dr. Thorne interrupted, stepping forward with his clipboard clutched tight. "The trauma was severe, and at such an early stage of development, it seemed highly unlikely that…"
"Is. My son. Alive." Dallas's voice dropped into that Alpha commanding tone that made everyone in the room flinch, so much so that the younger doctors took an involuntary step backwards.
Isaac cleared his throat nervously, his hands fidgeting with his stethoscope. "Yes, Alpha. Somehow, miraculously, the fetus survived. But we'll need to keep Carter under close medical supervision for at least the next few weeks to ensure there are no complications and no delayed—"
"Then he will never leave my sight," Dallas cut him off, his arms tightening possessively around Carter's waist.
He finished, his eyes dark with distrust, "I'm taking him somewhere else. Somewhere hidden where Marcus can't find him. He will stay there, safe, until I can hunt down my brother and make him pay for what he's done."
“Hold on… What?”
Carter looked frantically from Alpha to doctor and felt the chains tightening around him with those words, it felt as though walls were closing in on him so fast he couldn’t breathe
The reality of his situation crashed over him, along with the fact that he’d almost died, in fact he had actually died, but instead of freedom or some sort of escape, he was being dragged even deeper into Dallas's world.
Every second he stayed here with these or was an even bigger threat to his life. It was all too crazy and yet they were talking about moving him around like a piece of old luggage, as though it was all perfectly normal, he couldn’t take it.
He shoved Dallas's arm away and stumbled to his feet, his legs shaky, struggling to hold his own body upright. "I can't let you do that."
Dallas's expression hardened, his jaw setting into a stubborn line. "You have no choice in the matter. You're coming with me until I can guarantee your safety and ensure this never happens to you or our wolf cub ever again."
"No." Carter's voice was shaking but firm, as loud as he could make it. "I hear you saying a bunch of words, but they don’t have shit to do with me, because I’ll be going home. To my real home. In London. You people..."
His mind was spinning, reeling from everything that had happened in the short span of a few days.
Carter was quickly realizing little control he had over any of this. How his thoughts and emotions kept swinging wildly between somehow caring for Dallas and wanting him gone, between fear and a feeling so dangerously close to affection that he couldn't wrap his head around it.
All he knew was that he couldn't stay here anymore and wait for Marcus to come finish what he'd started.
He wasn't even sure if he was awake or if he was just trapped in some never-ending fever dream, judging by all the impossible things he'd witnessed.
"This is insane," Carter said, his voice rising with each word, his hands gesturing wildly. "How come none of you seems to understand just how insane all of this is?”
“Carter, calm yourself.” Marcus started.
“I’m perfectly calm!” Carter yelled at the top of his voice, causing a few of the hearing-sensitive werewolves to wince, before realizing he actually wasn’t calm at all.
Carter took a long, shaky breath to steady himself. “What I was saying was…I was ripped apart three days ago. Clawed open and bleeding out on a bathroom floor like some kind of sacrifice. I have never felt hurt like that in all my twenty sex years on earth.”
“ I saw the white light in the distance and everything. My heart stopped beating." He pressed his hand against his chest, feeling the steady thump beneath his palm. "But somehow I'm standing here as if nothing happened? My arms should be useless, my stomach should be— This isn’t possible, I—"
He couldn't finish the sentence, nor could he fully describe what he'd seen when he'd looked down at his own gory, bloody mess of body; even a writer like him couldn’t find good enough words to do it.
“It's an old werewolf skill, Carter. I’ll tell you all about it if that’s what you want, but now is not the right time for—"
Carter cut Dallas off, laughing like a maniac “Your brother grew fangs and claws right in front of me, and it was like something out of a horror movie. I’m never going to get that image out of my head.”
He continued, his breath coming faster as he relived the trauma in his memory. "The doctors claim you absorbed my pain through some kind of magical werewolf ritual that should be scientifically impossible. None of this makes sense! None of it!"
"Carter—" Dallas tried to interrupt, pushing himself further upright despite the visible pain it caused him.
"No! Let me finish!" Carter's voice cracked, raw with emotion. "I've spent the last week being told I'm pregnant with a werewolf baby despite being biologically male, which is still a bunch of bullshit if you ask me.”
He shook his head frantically, “The other day you told me that we're mated for life because you bit me, instead of just admitting you have a weird kink.”
“I have told you this a million times, pet, and I will tell it to you a million times more until you finally understand it. You are my mate, and I am yours—"
“I said, let me finsh!”
Dallas frowned deeply, his face full of grim irritation, clearly fed up with Carter’s antics.
Meanwhile, Carter didn’t show any of the same fear the other wolves were starting to show at the sight of their very pissed off Alpha, nor did he seem to realize the danger he was in. Instead, he continued to rant...