Ethan

I had essentially been absent from the pack for five days, without any warning to my Beta or Gamma. To say they were confused and slightly worried…was an understatement. I hadn’t said why I was leaving the pack in their hands for the week or why I had locked myself in my suite…because quite frankly I was still trying to wrap my head around it myself.

Not only had my mate resurrected from the dead…she had immediately gone into an incredibly intense heat. For the three days it had lasted, we hadn’t left our bed. Her scent once again filled our entire home…our home…I never thought I’d get to say that again. Each morning I had woken up with her securely in my arms, breathing in the summer meadow scent of her aroused state…none of this should be possible…every time I awoke I expected her to be gone, that everything was an illusion created by my mind descending into complete madness.

I didn’t know how, or why…but she was mine again. My wolf couldn’t care less what had caused this to happen, he had his August back and hadn’t stopped linking her since our mates appeared. I didn’t know if it was something I did or simply April’s purity, but the moon goddess had given her back to me and I vowed to guard her gift this time with everything I had.

Her mark on my neck sat vividly once more, a deep silvery pink, more distinct than before. I had rubbed it so many times, making sure it was real, that it was still there.

It had been two days since her heat had come to an end. Yesterday she had slept all day and hadn’t stirred till the late evening. After devouring her dinner she had fallen back to sleep, I had found myself laughing, elated that she was as food orientated as ever.

…I hadn’t laughed in 18 months, I hadn’t really smiled, I hadn’t felt a single ounce of joy. The world had been a mass of grey and now it was as though I was seeing colour for the first time.

But today, I needed to somehow explain all of this.

Jude and Carrick were a day away from breaking down my door to demand that the hell was going on. I had no clue how I was going to go about telling them. They were going to think I had finally gone insane…I would just have to show them and roll with it.

“Sweet” I whispered against her temple, where she lay on my chest still dozing “do you think you can wake up?”

“Mmmmfff” she murmured, clearly not wanting to move or wake.

Goddess, I’d keep her here forever, wrapped in my arms, in our own bubble. But that, sadly, wasn’t a possibility.

My hands stroked her bare back and pushed the red locks from her face, pecking her lips gently and urged further “if you get up and showered, I can make us breakfast?”

Her eyes fluttered open instantly, revealing those beautiful icy blue eyes with a small smile.

“Ok” she grinned, forcing herself into a sitting position on my lap.

Once we were both fed, clean and dressed, I mind-linked Jude and Carrick to come to my study. I hadn’t gotten rid of any of her clothing…I couldn’t bring myself to remove anything of hers, wanting to hold onto anything she had once touched. Now I was glad I hadn’t.

My two leaders would be here any second, so I sat April down in the study ready for when they walked in. There was no plan here, it was just do it and whatever happened, happened.

I heard them enter the front door and quickly met them in the hallway.

“Hey! Sorry I went AWOL with no warning…you aren’t gonna believe what I’m about to show you” I enthused, leading them to the study.

They looked at me like I’d grown a second head, for the last 18 months all they had seen from me was a dismal and melancholic mentality.

“Did you eat a whole bottle of Prozac or something?…And who the hell’s scent am I smelling?!” Carrick called from behind me.

“Ethan…why do you have a mark on your neck?! What the actual f**k is going o…” Jude’s voice died as he entered the room, his eyes landing on April and mouth open.

Carrick was beside him with an equal incredulous expression.

Here went nothing…

April

I had been struggling with my memories. Most of it felt a little fuzzy, as though it was there but just out of my grasp. My memories of Ethan had gradually returned, the good…and the bad. But they had all shaped our bond, making it what it was as we learnt from our mistakes. I knew I had lived as a rogue and that I’d been hunted…but that part of my life, I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t even remember my parents till Ethan showed me the small picture he had kept.

Looking at the two men in front of me now, memories of them had started to flow back to me. It seemed that seeing the faces helped me remember and the faces I was currently seeing was that of utter disbelief. The silence seemed to span hours but in reality it was only a few minutes.

“Hey…” I tentatively greeted, unsure what else to say.

They looked between myself and Ethan, silently prompting us to explain what they were seeing.

“Why don’t you two take a seat…this is gonna be a lot” my mate said as he sat next to me, taking my hand and beginning where this all started.

———-

“So you really don’t remember anything?” Jude asked from beside me, still holding onto my hand. He had teared up the most once his shock had eased.

“I remember the fight with Nicholas, well bits of it…and I remember being shot…but that’s it.”

I looked across to Ethan, who had now sat opposite me. His entire form had tensed at the mention of that battle, his jaw set tight. I might have had limited memories of that night, but they were ingrained in his mind and still haunted him.

“Julia’s gonna think I’ve lost my damn mind when she hears this. She always was the sceptical type.”

Jude snorted “what and you’re not? You’re the one that studied physics, doesn’t this go against your laws of nature?”

“Actually, I’ll have you know; energy is neither created or destroyed, it’s transferred. So who really knows what happens after…” Carrick looked strangely serious in thought. The side of him I remembered was always so sweet and ingenuous, it was different to hear such a deep and philosophical side of his personality.

“Kit’s gonna think I’ve been drinking! Just don’t tell him I cried like a baby” Jude laughed while looking a little embarrassed.

“If memory serves, I recall he might need all the ammunition he can get on you” I teased “where is he anyway?”

“You remember Maeryn? His coven peer? She gave birth a couple of weeks ago, a little girl. She’s the first vampire born in his coven for over 20 years so she’s had a lot of attention” he chuckled. I had a feeling most of that attention had come from himself. I remembered now how he was with wiccan children…oh the children!

I could just about picture them, but their faces were still blurred in my mind.

“How are the wiccans? Did they settle in alright? The kids must’ve grown so much by now.”

“We actually took in another small Family, they’re fauna wiccans though. They’ve made a little settlement just behind the pack house in the woods with Kit’s coven. The kids are still looked after by Juniper and Acacia and their familiars” Carrick summarised for me.

“I actually wanted to adopt them…but they need to be raised with other wiccans. It can impact their powers to be away from the Family, some can even lose their power and become a normal human” he sighed.

I patted his hand, I was sure their time would come. Both of our species were so long lived, he and Kit had plenty of time for children in their future.

“You know, we should really take you to go see Julia. Do you think she’d come in for April?” Ethan asked his Gamma.

“Oh in a heartbeat! I’m only sorry I can’t be there to see her pick her jaw off the floor!” Carrick laughed, loudly “just don’t shock her too much and bring my baby into the world early.”

———-

“Thanks for coming in for this Julia, there wasn’t really anyone else I trusted with this” Ethan spoke from beside me.

Dr. Haynes sat opposite us with a bewildered expression as her hand rested on her large stomach. She would be going on maternity leave soon and had come in on her day off to give me a quick health check. With coming back from the dead and all and going into heat straight away it would probably be for the best to make sure I was actually ok. Though I hadn’t told Ethan yet, both August and I knew something had changed in us in the last day or so. I wasn’t entirely definite on what, but I knew what I felt.

“…Yeah…I honestly thought Carrick had hit his head or something when he told me. Well, I suppose let’s get these tests done…” Julia said, still clearly in absolute shock, as she wheeled herself over to prepare sample pots despite all the questions that must have been whirling around her head.

After a couple of hours of being prodded and poked again that brought back another wave of memories of having done all this before, Julia sat us down to go through the results.

“Well, I definitely could have come up with a few easier ideas to trigger your heat” she laughed a little awkwardly “but…you’re perfectly healthy.” owns all © content.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything that would indicate how any of this happened?” my mate asked from beside me, though I doubted any of my situation could easily be explained.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Ethan” she answered honestly “at this point, ‘space unicorns’ make more sense…I never really believed much in the whole moon goddess thing, well, I suppose I was more agnostic about the whole idea…but now?…I’m not quite sure what to think anymore” Julia uttered quietly, with an introspective and reflective look.

“But there was something that did show up on the b***d test, very early, but the spike is there” Julia looked to me and then Ethan with a sly smile “you certainly didn’t waste much time, Alpha…you’re pregnant, April.”

I knew it!