Journey to a Life Worth Saving

It would’ve been very easy for me to fall into a total overprotective, controlling, possessive, domineering husband and father role, but then Erin would’ve yelled at me. I don’t think I could’ve hidden it from her, so I didn’t even try.

But I wanted to.

There would always be that part of me that wanted to bundle up Erin and the baby and hide them away in the middle of nowhere, like up high on a mountain in one of those one room cabins. We’d be all alone, just the three of us.

During the day we could play with Gideon and teach him all the little things you teach babies, and at night Erin and I would huddle underneath a big blanket, snuggling and using our body heat to keep each other warm.

That would be the life, but I didn’t think it would ever happen. Life can only be so perfect until it blows up in your face. I think living with Erin and Gideon in the lake house was as perfect as it could get.

~*~*~*~

I woke up early one morning and looked at Erin sleeping next to me. The circles under her eyes were as dark as they’d been when we were in the Arbour House. Leaning over her I pressed my lips to her hair, thinking she’d wake up, but she didn’t.

It was obvious she was exhausted. Even with me around, she worked hard taking care of Gideon, and with Thane off looking for his mystery girl, Erin had taken to watching the front door. She would look over at it time after time, and I knew she was waiting for him to come back.

I think she was worried, that he might not come back after they were finally getting along, finally connecting the way siblings usually do. Once he got back, she wouldn’t worry as much, but for now, she would.

Slipping out from between the sheets, I pulled on some clothes and checked on Gideon, quickly changing his diaper before he had the opportunity to whimper. I carried him out to the kitchen and set him down in his car seat, buckling him in. “Wait right there, little guy, and I’ll get you something to eat. What’d you want, formula or red stuff?”

He burbled at me, grinning and waving his arms around in circles. “Sorry, Gideon, we don’t serve helicopters in this house, and you can’t really drink them.”

“I wouldn’t try sticking one in a blender. You might break it.”

I turned at the sound of Erin’s voice and saw her walking over in her bathrobe, her hair pulled back. Her eyes were heavy, like she was half-awake and somehow able to walk, and her feet shuffled against the floor.

I filled a bottle with formula as Erin picked up Gideon to cuddle, and stole him away from her. “I won’t. We have a really nice blender.” Settling the baby back in his car seat, I held up his bottle for him and pulled Erin up against my side. “Why aren’t you in bed, pretty girl? You look terrible.”

“Thank you so much. You really know how to make a girl feel wanted.”

“You know what I mean.” I tipped her face up towards mine and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’ve barely gotten any sleep between taking care of Gideon and waiting for your brother to show up. Go on back to bed and I’ll drop off our first born at the main house so they can take care of him.”

Erin pressed her face into my shirt, rubbing her cheek against the fabric as her hands grabbed hold. “No, don’t take him away.”

“Then go back to bed and I’ll watch him out here.” My arm slid around her shoulders and squeezed. “You’re just about dead on your feet, and I don’t like seeing you so tired.” I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. “You go get some more sleep, and Gideon and I will have some father-son time.”

She chuckled and nodded, a tired smile curving her lips. “Okay, but don’t go teaching him any of your bad habits.”

I gasped in mock anger. “I have bad habits? Since when?”

Rolling her eyes, she turned and kissed Gideon’s cheek. “Have fun with Daddy. Don’t listen to him too much. You might pick up some strange quirks.”

Gideon burbled at her as she headed back to the bedroom, his pudgy little hand reaching out for her. Picking him up, I bounced him around before settling him at my shoulder. “Don’t worry, little guy. Mommy needs a big nap, and your Uncle Thane is a stupid vampire for making her worry so much. When he comes home, you’ll get to play with a not so tired Mommy.”

My palm stroked his back, moving in slow circles until he burped. “Keep that up and you’ll win burping contests in college, if you want to go to college. It wasn’t so bad. Maybe one day I’ll go back and get a degree. I don’t know what in.” I sat down on the couch, Gideon leaning into my chest, and my eyes drifted over to my guitar case. “I could go back to studying music, or film.”

Gideon grabbed onto my shirt, his body growing heavy as he drifted off to sleep. “Hey, how am I supposed to teach you things when you’re falling asleep?” Chuckling to myself, I moved to lie down on my back and settled Gideon on my chest, his hand curled up by his mouth. “You’ll be up and whimpering for a clean diaper soon enough. I’ll share some of my secrets with you then.”

The TV remote was on the coffee table in front of me, so I reached out and pressed the on button. Since Gideon was asleep, I turned down the volume and channel surfed for as long as I could before falling asleep.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was a gun pointed at me.

The second thing I saw was the woman on the other end of the gun looking at me with an unbalanced look in her eyes.

At least it wasn’t Erin.

She looked familiar, but my mind couldn’t focus on where I’d seen her. I think it was because of the gun pointed at my head.

I glanced down to make sure Gideon was still asleep, and the woman smiled a smile full of pleasure and insanity. “Don’t worry, he’s still asleep. We don’t need to wake him up just yet.”

“No, we don’t.” I stayed where I was so I didn’t upset her, and tried to keep my voice steady. Inside my head, my wolf was snarling, wanting to sink his teeth into her. “Is there something you’re looking for? I don’t have a lot of cash, but I have some if that’s what you want.”

The woman shook her head, her face flushed with blood. “I don’t need cash.”

“Then what do you want? Maybe I can help you find it.”

“I want your baby.”

My heart stuttered in my chest and thumped against my ribs with enough force that it made it hard to breathe, but I worked to keep my face blank. “Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you right.”

“You heard me just fine, werewolf. I want your child.”

“Okay. Is there a specific reason why you want him?”

The grin that spread across her face made my blood run cold. “There’s never been a documented case of a vampire and a werewolf having a child together. There were always rumours of couples hidden away out of the public eye, choosing to keep the pregnancy a secret and hiding away the child, but then you two surfaced with your ‘miracle’ baby. It’s in the vampire’s medical files that she had your child. It’s in the baby’s file that he’s part vampire and part werewolf.”

She started laughing to herself, my opinion of her shifting from crazy to psychotic and deranged. “So, you’re going to give me your half-breed baby, and I’m going to take him somewhere so they can study him, see what he can do and how strong he is.”

The hand holding the gun trembled slightly as she waved it at me. “Now get up, put the baby in the car seat, and hand him over.”

I got up slowly, cradling Gideon against my chest, and took my time walking to the kitchen. I buckled him into the car seat, looking down at his sleeping face as I fought to keep my wolf inside my head.

Foolish pup. A human comes into your den with a gun, threatens you, demands your child so others can perform experiments on him, and all you do is what she asks of you? What are you thinking? Let me out, I’ll rip her arm off, show her what happens when she tries to kidnap our pup.

I tried to tell him that I had a plan, that I knew what I was doing, that she wasn’t going to take Gideon from us, but he wouldn’t listen.

It took long moments to push him back into submission, moments I didn’t have, and the woman pushed the barrel of her gun into my back. “Stop stalling, werewolf.”

“Okay, okay.” I reached out to stroke Gideon’s cheek, and turned to keep my body between him and the gun. “What about his diaper bag? He’ll need changing soon, and I imagine you wouldn’t want him crying because you don’t have anything to change him into.”

“I don’t need your stupid diaper bag, I’m not an idiot.” She took a few steps back and waved the gun at me again, her hand trembling more than it had before. “Hurry up and give me the damn baby!”

Her shout echoed through the house. I wondered if the sound woke up Erin, but then Gideon murmured behind me. I looked to see if he was still asleep, and saw him with his eyes closed, his chest slowly rising and falling.

The woman screeched at me, her entire body shaking. “You’re not listening! You’re ruining everything! Why can’t you do what I want and hand over than damned freak of a baby?!”

I clenched my jaw, somehow refraining from biting her hand off, and saw something move in the corner of my eye. I didn’t look at it, in case the woman planned on shooting me if I did look away, and kept my eyes on her. “He’s just a baby.”

“No, what he is is something new, something unexpected, a freak of nature. Who knows what he’ll be capable of when he grows up? He needs to be contained and studied, kept under lock and key so he doesn’t hurt anyone. Now hand him over or I’ll shoot you!”

Something moved again, and I saw Erin appear behind the woman, quickly trap her arms, and sink her fangs into the woman’s neck.