Braelyn felt all the blood drain out of her face. This was the person who’d been sending her the hate letters. God, why hadn’t she shown Skylar the letter yesterday? Too caught up in their lovemaking, she hadn’t remembered until they were on the road to Roxie’s place. If she’d shown it to him earlier maybe they would have been more on guard when they walked into the house and her mother hadn’t answered their calls.
“I can see by your face that you did get my letters,” he said with an ugly smile. “I do like to leave a lasting impression.” He straightened to his full height. “I’ll get your mother, and then I have preparations to make for the little party you and I are going to have before I rid the world of another whore.” He laughed as if what he’d said were a big joke and walked out of the room.
Roxie, who was closest to Skylar, nudged him with her feet. “Skylar, wake up.” He didn’t as much as groan. But Roxie did.
The intruder returned with her mother in tow. He forced her down beside Braelyn and tore off the piece of duct tape across her mouth. “The three of you will sit here, and don’t even think of trying anything. I’ll just be in the next room and will be able to see you.”
Since there wasn’t any dining room, the living room was attached directly to the kitchen. A pair of French doors separated the two rooms. The intruder walked through them and shut them behind him. Braelyn watched him as he paced back and forth in front of the glass doors, loudly talking to himself, waving the gun he held around. Not only was he a stalker and potential killer, he also appeared to be psychotic.
“Mom, are you all right?” she asked in a low voice.
“Yes. I’m more concerned about what he’ll do to you. He kept asking if you’d gotten the letters he’d sent.”
“This is all my fault,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “I should have gone to the police when I received the first threatening letter. I just thought it was some harmless nutcase and that getting hate mail was something I’d have to put up with.”
“The police might not have done anything,” Roxie said. “They more than likely would have taken note of it, but what else could they have done? I betting there isn’t a return address on any of those letters.”
“There wasn’t.”
“See? There would have been no way for the police to track down who sent them.” Roxie suddenly stiffened. “Oh, crap.”
“What’s the matter?”
Roxie sucked in a sharp breath. “Crap, crap, crap. My water just broke. I guess what I thought were just cramps were early labor pains.”
Braelyn looked at Roxie’s lap and saw a large patch of wetness had darkened the material of the pants she wore. “We have to tell him you’re in labor. Maybe he’ll let you go.”
“I wouldn’t,” her mother said. “There’s no telling what that man will do. He’s crazy. And I don’t think he’ll care about your friend going into labor.”
“Roxie?” she asked as the other woman breathed a little faster.
“I’m okay. Just another pain.” Once it seemed to pass, she said, “We just need Skylar to wake up and then the asshole in the other room will get something he never expected.”
Braelyn ran her gaze over Skylar. “He hit him pretty hard with that pipe. Skylar might not wake up, ever.”
Roxie chuckled. “Skylar has a hard head. Plus it takes a lot more than that to permanently incapacitate one of my kind.”
“One of your kind?”
“This was the talk Skylar wanted the three of us to have. Skylar and I aren’t like you. We’re werewolves.”
“What did you just say you were, dear?” her mom asked.
“Werewolves.”
“Um, Rox, are you sure your labor pains aren’t messing with your head?”
“They aren’t that bad, yet. I’d shift to prove it to you both, but at this stage in my pregnancy, there is a chance it could harm the baby. And now that I’m in labor, I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to tap into the magic inside me to make the shift. Crap, here comes another pain.” Roxie took deep breaths until it passed.
Braelyn quickly glanced over to the kitchen and saw their captor continued his mad pacing. “Do you know how farfetched that sounds? Werewolves can’t exist.”
“Why not? Just because the majority of the population doesn’t think they can be real doesn’t mean they aren’t. Skylar said you and he played a game where he was hypothetically a werewolf. Whatever he told you about what his werewolf would be like, I’m sure he told you the truth.” She sucked in a breath. “Another one.”
Braelyn waited until Roxie breathed normally again. “The truth? Are you saying werewolves can live to be three thousand years old, can only shift into wolf form, and they can’t be turned unless someone special who has more magic than the average werewolf uses a spell?”
Roxie smiled. “He told you the truth. And that someone special would be me. Only I can use the spell that can turn a mortal. Now that you’re mated to Skylar, you’ll have to decide whether you want me to use it on you or not.”
If she hadn’t been in the middle of a hostage situation with a crazy man preparing to do god knows what to her, Braelyn would have laughed off what Roxie had said and told her she had to be kidding. Or delusional. “Mated to Skylar?”
“Yes. I’m sure your mom isn’t going to like hearing about her daughter’s sex life, so I’m going to apologize ahead of time. The first time you slept with Skylar, you had to have felt something out of the ordinary pass between you, and not just amazing sex.”
Her mother groaned. “No, I definitely don’t need to hear this.”
“Sorry, Mom. And, yes, I felt something that first time.”
Roxie nodded. “That sensation is the mating bond being formed. A piece of your soul joined with a piece of Skylar’s. Once mated, there is no going back.” She gasped, breathing with deep breaths.
“Ah, I hate to say this,” her mom said. “But your labor pains are coming only two minutes apart. I don’t think it’s going to take hours before you deliver.”
“I’m not going to have this baby while being held hostage by a man who needs to be locked up in a nut house.” Roxie nudged Skylar with her feet again, hard enough to make his head move. “Come on, big guy. Wake up. You’re supposed to be one of my Protectors. Right now, you’re not doing your job.” Skylar groaned. “That’s it. You can do it.”
Skylar blinked open his eyes and quickly shut them again with a groan. “The room is spinning, and I feel as if I’m going to throw up if I move.”
“Just lie still,” Roxie said. “Oh god, here comes another one.”
“Another what?” Skylar asked.
Braelyn answered for Roxie as she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. “She’s in labor.”
“Shit.” Skylar’s eyes snapped open, and he tried to move his arms. He froze when his bindings kept them in place. “What the hell is going on? All I remember is something slamming into the back of my head.”
Able to talk once again, Roxie said, “It would seem your mate has a stalker. He has sent her threatening letters and followed her here. He thinks she’s a whore and wants to kill her. You need to shift to free yourself and take care of the asshole before he hurts her, or before I end up delivering this baby, which will be kind of hard to do with my legs tied together and my pants on.”
Skylar’s gaze shifted to Braelyn. “I guess now I should be telling you about me being—”
“No need to,” Roxie interrupted. “I told both her and her mom what we are, but I don’t think either one believes me.” She started to breathe deeply again. “Another one. They’re coming closer together now.”
“Don’t you dare have this baby now,” Skylar said to Roxie as he moved his gaze to her.