Chapter 50: 8

When Mackenzie woke, she was stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor. Judging from the light coming through the window, it was morning. She had spent the whole night on the floor. Mackenzie picked herself up and used the washroom connected to her room. She wondered if Gordon was still in the outer room. She supposed if Gordon was dangerous, he would have killed her by now, but he had not.

She decided the time had come for the “Get to know you” conversation they had been avoiding. It seemed Gordon had a bigger secret than she did, and Mackenzie needed answers.

She pushed the dresser back into its rightful place, and then she unlocked the door. She stepped out into the living room to see Gordon had slept on the couch. When he heard the door, he sat up and looked at her making no attempt to come near her. Mackenzie slid along the wall keeping her distance from him. She was still nervous. He certainly looked human this morning. “You feeling better?” He asked. She nodded. “You ready to talk?” She nodded again. “You want to come to sit with me?” She shook her head, no. She did not want to get close to him; she was still seriously freaked out. “I imagine you have questions.”

“How did this happen to you?”

“Nothing happened to me. I was born a Lycanthrope.”

“I thought werewolves became werewolves because they were bitten.”

“That’s not true. That is Hollywood propaganda. You can’t turn into a Lycanthrope. You either are or aren’t.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Not many. Over the centuries, human hunters have hunted us to near extinction. There is no telling how many of us are left in this world, but here in Colorado, there is a pack of fifty men, women, and children. We are the largest pack in over four hundred years.”

“Pack?”

“Yes, pack.”

“So, your wife and daughter…?”

“Lycanthropes.”

“Your friends…?”

“Lycanthropes.”

“Your foster kids? Aurora? Charlotte? Stanton? Darrell?”

“All Lycanthropes.”

“Katelyn?”

“Well, now she is human. She’s more of an honourary pack member.”

“What are you in this pack?”

He smiled with pride. “I’m the Alpha… I’m the head of the pack.”

“What is growing inside me?”

She shrugged, looking baffled. “I wish I knew. This has literally never happened before. I didn’t even think it was possible,” he stood up and slowly walked toward her. “All I know for sure is whatever it is. It isn’t human, and it isn’t Lycanthrope. This is as baffling to me as it is to you.”

What she was carrying could very well be some type of musted monster. “I need to have an abortion.”

“No!” He rejected the idea quickly. “No doctors of any kind. If they take that baby out and see it isn’t human, you will become a prisoner and a test subject. Not to mention, it is proof of Lycanthrope's existence. Hunters will come from all over, and my pack will be exterminated. My species may be completely wiped out of existence. No, you can’t have an abortion, and you sure as hell cannot go to any doctor.”

“Well, what exactly am I supposed to do? Have the… whatever this is in the bathtub at home alone?”

“God damn it,” he growled with frustration. “The pack has a midwife. She helps the ladies birth their cubs. She can help.”

Mackenzie felt like he was not telling her something. “What is it?”

“The midwife is Melissa,” he confessed.

Mackenzie laughed. “Your wife?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have another midwife?”

“Nope. She’s it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she is going to be stoked to help out.”

“Mackenzie, I’m really sorry. I had no idea this would happen. If I thought this was possible, I would have just worn the condom.”

“You lied to me.”

“No, I just didn’t tell you certain facts.”

“You said you had a vasectomy.”

He frowned. “Yeah, ok, that was a lie.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were?”

“I would have had to kill you. We kill humans who find out about us. To protect ourselves.”

“Oh, God,” she panicked, keeping her distance.

“I’m not going to kill you, so calm down.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you are pregnant with… something. Things are slightly more complicated than usual.”

“Wait,” she said, catching him in another conflict of information. “You said Katelyn was human. You also said you killed humans that knew about.”

“Katelyn is another complicated case. We would have killed her, but she proved herself by sacrificing everything to protect the pack. She earned her way into the pack.”

“So, are you going to wait until I give birth, keep whatever this is, then kill me to keep your secret?”

“I’m not going to kill you. I like you too much,” he smiled at her.

“Normally, I would be pissed off and send you packing, but since I have no idea what to do in this situation, I’m going to keep you around,” he smiled and came toward her, but she placed her hand on his chest and kept him at bay. “I am still supremely pissed off.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “So… are we… still dating?”

“You want to know that now?”

“I just want to know where I stand.”

“I don’t know how I feel right now. I’m angry and confused and scared.”

“Understandable.” Gordon looked down at his hands, which were fidgeting nervously now. “Are you scared of me now?” His tone was sad. She could see he did not want her to fear him, but after what she saw last night, she was freaked out.

“You can stay,” she said. He looked up and smiled at her. “On the couch,” his smile faded away.

“Oh, alright.”

“I think it is time for us to get to know each other a little better.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, turning to go back into her room.

“Would you like me to make you some breakfast?”

“Why?”

“Well, you are growing a life. You should eat.”

She was a little hungry. “Ok.”

***

Gordon made up a stack of pancakes. It had been a long time since he had personally dealt with a pregnant woman, and given this particular child was a hybrid, there was no telling what they were in store for. What he did recall from when Melissa had been pregnant, the child sucked all the strength and nourishment out of the mother. The more it grew, the worse the hunger would get. Mackenzie’s metabolism was going to go through the roof. She would be burning thousands of calories a day. If she and the baby were to remain healthy, she would have to eat enough to shame a sumo wrestler just to keep her strength up. If she did not, she would likely become frail and malnourished.

He made a tower of pancakes along with hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, eggs and fruit salad. When Mackenzie came out of the shower feeling clean and refreshed, she was shocked by the amount of food he had made. “Dear Lord, are you feeding an army?”

Gordon chuckled as he put the last plate on the table and pulled out a chair for her. “Trust me; you’re going to eat it. Lycanthrope babies require a lot of nourishment to grow. It’s going to suck the life right out of you if you don’t eat enough.”

Mackenzie walked over and sat down. “I am starving, and it all looks so good.’ She said, grabbing some sausage and taking a bite. “Am I going to get fat eating like this?”

“I doubt it. Your problem is going to be keeping the weight on. I mean, you will grow a baby bump, but besides that, if you don’t eat enough, you will be a skeleton with a baby bump.”

“Oh God, this is so bizarre,” she said, taking two pancakes and putting them on her plate.

“So how about that getting to know your stuff?” He asked, sipping his coffee. Mackenzie grunted as she stuffed her face. “You know my biggest secret. Perhaps it’s time I know yours. You can start off by telling me what has you so unsettled lately besides the obvious,” he had noticed that she tossed and turned at night more than she usually did. He could sense something had been bothering her, but he never asked about it. He had not wanted to send her running for the hills by pushing, but now it seemed like they needed to catch up and quickly.

Mackenzie swallowed and put her fork down. She seemed anxious again. “Next week is the anniversary of my parents’ death.”

That had not been the answer Gordon had been expecting. He did not know how to react. “How did they die?”

“They were murdered,” she said sadly as she stared at her food. “I was sixteen. I went to school in the morning, as usual. My parents were supposed to go to work afterwards. They were lawyers. They should have walked out the door right after me. I waited until I was sure they would be at the office.

Then I ditched school and headed home. It was foolproof. They shouldn’t be home until after dinner. I went through the back door so the neighbours wouldn’t see me and tell my parents...

“I walked in on a man cleaning up a huge pool of blood on the kitchen floor. My parents' bodies were lying only a few feet away. He looked at me, and I couldn’t look away. He got up; he was going to kill me too. I ran away. I got to a police station and told them what I saw. They investigated and found parents. I spent two days in the police station with a forensic artist trying to get a drawing of what he looked like…

“It was two weeks before they told me that the man I saw was the son of a mob boss. My parents had been causing trouble for them. So they had them killed. I saw his face. He went into hiding, and his father vowed to silence me. The FBI put me in witness protection. I was moved out here to be hidden.

As far as I know, the mob boss and his son are still looking for me. I couldn’t tell you; I would have had to tell you the lie the police made up for me. Now it seems foolish not to tell you.”

“Is that why you can’t sleep soundly?”

“This time of year, I’m haunted by the memories. I have nightmares. You don’t know what it is like to lose your parents like that.”

He knew better than she thought he did.

“I was ten when my parent’s died,” he confessed. “We were minding our own business, living out in the country away from humans. Some hunters came across us. They came in the dead of night. They set the house on fire to smoke us out. We tried to run. My father stood his ground, took them on in an attempt to slow them down so my mother and I could get away. We ran and hid in the woods. But they tracked us. They found us. They shot my mother in the head, right in front of me. They turned the gun on me and pulled the trigger. They were out of bullets,” he smiled. “So, I struck. I let the change happen, and I ripped his throat out. I killed four hunters that night and lost both my parents. I was orphaned and alone in the world.”

“That’s terrible.”

Gordon sighed. “I wish I could say the story was mine alone. Unfortunately, it’s all too common. Most Lycanthrope parents never live to see their children grown. Most of us are orphans. A lot of us tell the same story.”

“You lived to see Aster grown,” she pointed out.

“That’s only because of the pack. As I got older, I started finding other Lycanthropes. We stuck together because there was safety in numbers. We protected each other. Hunters come from time to time, but we strike back. We don’t take chances. Over the years, more and more Lycanthropes found us and stayed. The pack grew and grew, and now we are the largest pack in the world. Perhaps in history. The safety of the pack is absolute. We take care of each other, and it’s the only reason we have survived this long. I know how hard it is to let go of the past, but sometimes it’s the only way to have a future.”

“I guess we are not so different. We were both orphaned. I never thought I would ever find anyone who could genuinely understand what it was like to see my parents murdered.”

“We have more in common than we both thought,” it was strange how sharing such painful memories made him feel better about the two of them.

“How did you get past it?”

“You don’t. You just learn to live with it.”

Mackenzie sighed, then she smiled. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

“Too bad, you had to get pregnant for us to have it,” he grinned. “Come on, eat your breakfast before you waste away.”

Mackenzie cut a piece of pancake and put it in her mouth. “You really are a great cook.”

“I’m full of surprises. Later I’ll change your oil and tune up your engine,” he joked.

“Great, you can put my winter tires on while you are at it,” she winked at him.

“You know what Red Green says… If the ladies don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy,” he quoted his favourite childhood program.

Mackenzie gave him a funny look. “Who is Red Green?”

Gordon closed his eyes and took a breath. God, when she said stuff like that, he felt seriously old. “It’s not important.”

“Well, you’re the complete package. You’re handsome and handy.”

“Thank you.”

“And a really good lay.”

Gordon laughed out loud. “Thank you.”

“After breakfast, I think we should go into the bedroom and make up.”

“Should I go by condoms?” He teased.

Mackenzie giggled. “Kind of seems pointless.”

“Good,” he leaned in and whispered, “I don’t like them anyway,” he sat back, and his expression became serious. “You know, I thought maybe you should come to stay with me in Feral. Just for a while. Just until we figure out what to expect from this pregnancy, there has never been a hybrid before, and I don’t know what to expect. Things might get really weird. I think it would be better for you to stay with me. Where the pack can protect you and the baby.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the problem. I think it’s the smart thing to do.”

“If you really think it’s necessary.”

“I do.”

“I’ll pack my bag,” he’d feel better with Mackenzie someplace he could keep a watchful eye on her.