Hearts Aflame Collection IV: 4-Book Bundle (10 page)

Closing her eyes, Erin
tried again to steady her breathing, fearing what the sudden insurgence of
stress would do to her unborn baby, who was preparing to make its debut in to
the world.

The growling intensified
and became accompanied by a scratching sound upon Erin’s bedroom door. It
sounded like nails were being racked upon the thin wood. The noise made Erin’s
insides twist with dread. She wanted to scream out at whatever was there to
leave her alone, to let her be, but she sensed that it wouldn’t understand her,
that whatever it was, it wasn’t human and would fail to respond to words alone.

In any other circumstance,
Erin would attempt to defend herself but her labor left her almost completely
incapacitated. When her body wasn’t enduring another contraction, she was
trembling uncontrollably. Without the assistance of pain medication, she was
going in to shock.

The scratching upon the
door became more frantic. Erin knew that she was running out of time. Whatever
was beyond the door would soon be in the room with her. She looked over at her
en suite bathroom. The door was flimsy but it at least had a lock and would buy
her a few more precious minutes.

The en suite was located
just across the room but in her fragile state it might as well have been on the
moon. But Erin knew that her only chance of surviving lay within that room,
stowing herself away behind a locked door.

Summoning all the energy
she could muster, Erin began to slide over the bed toward the en suite door.
Each movement resulted in eye watering pain and Erin was constantly forced to
stop and cry out in agony. She no longer cared if the creature scratching at
the door heard her. It already knew she was in there; she was the reason it had
come.

Sweating from the
exertion, Erin reached the end of her bed and pushed herself off, hoping the
momentum would propel her closer to the en suite and relative safety.

She landed heavily on the
floor with a thud. She was almost within the en suite, at least the top half of
her was. Crawling along the floor, Erin tried to get inside, knowing that once
the door was locked behind her, she could relax at least a bit and catch her
breath.

The
phone.

Glancing back regretfully
at the bed, she realized she’d forgotten to grab the phone, the only connection
with the outside and with help that she had.

“Shit,” Erin hissed, still
gasping for breath. She paused on the floor, debating whether she had the
energy to climb back on the bed and retrieve the phone or if she should just
proceed in to the en suite but her mind was made up for her as her bedroom door
suddenly came crashing down.

***

“Not long now.” Frank had
smiled at Erin one evening as they both pulled in to their driveways at the
same time, both relieved to have completed another day at work.

Erin’s car was full of
balloons and flowers. It had been her final day at work before her maternity
leave commenced and her co-workers had seen her off in style.

“Let me help you with some
of those,” Frank kindly offered.

“Thank you.” Erin smiled
gratefully before handing him a vanilla tray back someone had made her, iced
with a good luck message.

“Do you always come home
with this kind of stuff or was today your last day at work?” Frank quipped.

“Last day,” Erin
confirmed. She was thankful to no longer have to drag herself into work as the
daily grind was draining her. Being pregnant was much more tiring than she ever
anticipated it would be, especially when she was struggling to sleep at night.

“Looks
like they gave you a good send off.”

“Yeah, it was lovely,”
Erin commented as Frank waited for her to unlock her front door before
following her inside with his arms laden with cake, balloons and flowers.

“If you
could just pop them on the counter.”
Erin glanced at the kitchen counter and Frank dutifully unloaded his
burden there.

He paused briefly after
doing so and glanced around the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in your
house before,” he commented somewhat sadly.

“No,” Erin agreed, “I
don’t think you have.”

“It’s nice,” Frank said
kindly, the sadness now replaced with polite formality.

“Thank you.” Erin still
felt saddened by his comment. She knew what he was feeling as she felt it each
and every day. He was feeling the weight of what might have been if Erin chose
men who were good and decent, loving and kind. Instead she chose a man haunted
by mad werewolf theories, who couldn’t stand by her while she carried his
child.

“Do you need anything else
brought in?” Frank suggested helpfully.

Erin wanted to tell him
what she was feeling. How she desperately wanted to keep him around, how she’d
been a fool not to see what a good man he really was. Sean was sexy and
alluring but what good were those qualities if, in times of need, he was
nowhere around?

“That’s everything,
thanks.” Erin forced a smile as Frank nodded and left the kitchen and
ultimately her house, heading back to his life next door.

Erin wished she could love
a man like Frank but she knew she never could because each time she thought of
Sean her body felt weak with longing. In spite of everything, she remained
incredibly drawn to him. It was as though she were powerless to resist him.
Erin hated the fact that if Sean showed up after months of no word, she would
still welcome him back in to her arms. He made her weak, he made her needy.
Sean was no good for her yet Erin already knew that he’d ruined her for any
other man. The sex with Sean was
electric,
it made
Erin feel impossibly alive with desire. No one could ever even come close to
replicating that and it meant that Sean would forever have a hold over her.

***

The bedroom door came
crashing to the floor, breaking free of his metal hinges with a loud snap. As
the door fell, a huge gray wolf pounced in to the bedroom, its huge white fangs
exposed and glistening with moisture.

It growled
,
the silver fur on its back prickled with hostility.
Sniffing the air, its head immediately turned to face Erin, locating her
sprawled upon the floor, an easy target. It pounced again, set to land upon
her.

Erin instinctively held
her arms over her stomach in an effort to protect her baby and closed her eyes,
preparing for the horrific moment when the wolf landed upon her and set its
monstrous teeth in to her flesh, tearing her apart as though she were made from
paper.

But the terrible moment
never came. At the point when Erin knew the wolf should be upon her, a deep,
resonating growl filled the room, followed by a swift flurry of movement.

When Erin dared to open
her eyes, the air was filled with a terrible squealing sound, like a pig being
gutted. On her bed, she saw the most brutal of scenes. Two wolves were fighting
each other. There was the wolf
who
had lunged at her
and another, new wolf.

The two creatures were
locked in a brutal battle. Snarling and ripping into each other, sending blood
and fur everywhere. As one wolf sunk its teeth in to the other, the victim
would scream out in pained horror.

Erin wasn’t sure what to
do. Tentatively she backed away from the dueling wolves and tried to finally
get in to her en suite.

The wolves were ferocious,
biting and chomping at each other with a horrid intensity. It was clearly a
battle to the death.

Finally, the new wolf
seemed to gain the upper hand as Erin pulled herself in to the en suite and
kicked the door shut behind her. She heard an awful, high-pitched squeal and
then silence.

Even from behind the
bathroom door, she could smell the unmistakable stench of fresh blood and the
underlying odor of death.

Trembling, Erin panted and
heaved, knowing that she had to calm herself, to regulate her breathing to save
her baby. She had no idea how far along her labor was, or if her baby was now
in distress. Sat up beside the toilet bowl, with her hands over her stomach,
Erin tried to shut out the crazed happenings that were occurring in her bedroom
and focus on the most important task at hand; delivering her baby.

Her mind wanted to fire
countless questions at her but she refused to let it. The questions would have
to wait. As crazy as it was that two wolves had just been fighting on her bed,
she couldn’t let herself think about it, not now.

Taking long, deep breaths,
Erin tried to calculate the time between her contractions. She sensed that she
was extremely close to giving birth. She continued to breathe slowly, rubbing
her hands over her bump, whispering reassuring comments to her unborn baby.

“It’s going to be
alright,” she promised, even though she wasn’t sure it was. “Mommy’s here, it’s
going to be alright.”

“Erin?” someone called
from the other side of the door, making her abruptly stop whispering and
subduing her in to stunned silence.

“Erin?” the voice called
again and it was instantly recognizable. She knew the deep, dulcet tones
immediately. It was Sean.

“Sean?” she called out
weakly. Her whole body ached and groaned with the final stages of labor, and
she was close to losing consciousness. The surge of adrenalin that had enabled
her to reach the bathroom had drained her of her final stores of energy.

The door to the en suite
bathroom opened, and Sean stood in the opening. Erin was too exhausted to be
shocked though her eyes did widen when she realized that he was completely
naked. As she looked at him, she also spotted splatters of blood upon his skin.

She didn’t want to query
where he had come from, why he was naked and covered in blood but a part of her
already knew the answer. She was too weary to deal with any of it now; all she
cared about was her baby.

“Are you okay?” Sean knelt
down before her and ran a comforting hand across her forehead.

“I’m having the baby,”
Erin gasped.

“Now?”
Sean looked alarmed. Erin nodded frantically in
response.

“That explains the
attack.” Sean cast a backward glance toward the bed, where a dismembered corpse
of a wolf now lay.

Erin wanted to press him
for more details, to demand to know what was happening, why he had suddenly
showed up at her house but the pain of labor clouded her thoughts and she could
do nothing except cry out in agony.

“We need to get you to a
hospital,” Sean declared decisively. “I’ll go call an ambulance, wait here.”

Erin watched him hurry out
of the room, unsure where he had disappeared to as there was a phone on the
bed, or at least there had been before the battle between the wolves had
ensued.

The contractions were much
sharper and almost on top of each other. Erin knew she didn’t have much time.

A few minutes later, Sean
returned. He was suddenly dressed and his face and arms had been cleaned of any
blood.

“The ambulance is on its
way,” he explained, taking Erin’s hands in his and giving them a squeeze.

“It’s going to be
alright.” His deep voice was soothing as he spoke.

Erin wanted to just lap it
all up. To enjoy finally having someone be there for her. With Sean’s sudden
appearance, everything was as it should be. She was going into labor with the
father of her unborn child beside her, literally holding her hand for support.
But Erin couldn’t suppress her need for answers, even as her body was burning
with searing pain.

“You’re dressed.” She
coughed out the words in an accusatory tone. Her mind wasn’t playing tricks on
her; he was most definitely completely naked when he had initially opened the
bathroom door.

A part of her regretted
her current state as the sight of Sean’s naked torso was a glory to behold. He
was perfectly toned with flawless, supple skin. His physique was the stuff
fantasies were made of.

“I stored some clothes out
back in your shed,” Sean explained casually as though that were a completely
normal thing to do.

“In my
shed?”
Erin asked, bemused.

“Guess you never go out
there.” Sean smiled and in spite of her confusion and suspicions, Erin felt
herself melt. Sean was so devastatingly handsome.

She wanted to shout and
scream at him for abandoning her for all these months but now, with him there,
she was powerless to do anything at all. The pain impaired her judgment,
meaning that for the time being, she was just thankful that he was there to
help her.

“
Owww
!”
Erin leaned
forward, her eyes watering as the pain became more intense. Sean rubbed her
back as beyond them, outside, the sounds of sirens bled in to the night.

“The ambulance is here,”
Sean explained. “I’ll be right
back,
I need to let
them in.”