Twilight Embrace (Completed)

Chapter 17

Wolfe’s family was on the steps, waiting for their arrival when the car pulled up at the entrance. Vampuric jumped out and opened the door for Wolfe, offering to help him.

Wolfe shrugged him off, “I’ve got her! Don’t touch her!  I can’t deal with you right now.”

Vampuric nodded and stepped aside, understanding the anger inside his friend.  He watched Wolfe disappear inside the castle, greeted the family and retreated back to the car.

Cedric approached Lucas, extending his hand in friendship, “I hope this tragic incident will not destroy the understanding our families have with each other.”

Lucas shook his hand. “Time will tell,” was all he said.

“Amanda left immediately to find someone to bring Alex out of this paralyzing trance. Rest assured, Lucas, none of us will rest till Alexandria is awake again,” Cedric told him.

Lucas nodded, “Well I hope it will be sooner, rather than later.”

Monica and Layla stepped forward to help Wolfe with Alexandria but he shrugged them off.

“I have her, I can manage. She is my responsibility now.”

Layla gently squeezed his shoulder, “I understand, but we are all here for her. She is part of our family and we will do everything we can to help her.”

Layla helped Wolfe dress her and lay her in the bed, gently propping her up on the pillows, her unseeing eyes staring at them.  Layla stroked her forehead and gently ran her hands over her body to check for any other damage or broken bones, having been a nurse previously.

Wolfe looked on anxiously, noticing her stop over Alexandria’s stomach. She moved her hands from side to side and top to bottom around her, resting over her belly button for what seemed ages to him.  She looked up and smiled into Wolfe’s troubled eyes. “She is pregnant!”

Wolfe stared unbelievingly at Layla. What had he just heard?

“No!” she said. “Not Diego!” 

Wolfe breathed a sigh of relief, “Who then?” he asked, terrified it might be someone from the Colester family.

“Wolfe, would you not have felt it, if she had been with one of them?” she looked at him kindly.  “She was a virgin when you ….”

Wolfe stopped her. “You mean, she is carrying my child?”

“Yes,” Layla said. “So now it’s even more urgent we find some way of bringing her out of this trance. We have no idea how this pregnancy is going to affect her.”

Wolfe looked at Alexandria, shocked and stunned into silence.

Layla took his hand and placed it gently over Alexandria’s stomach. “While Alexandria sleeps you need to connect with your child, touch, stroke and massage her stomach gently, all the time, so the baby feels the connection, as I don’t think he or she can feel  their Mother right now.”

Wolfe gently moved his hand across her stomach. As if in answer to his touch, the baby kicked for the first time, Wolfe pulled his hand away shocked.

Layla laughed, “Your child is well and moving. Don’t be afraid, put your hand back.”

Wolfe gently placed his hand back on her stomach and again felt the thud against his hand. This time he gently rubbed the place where he felt the movement only to feel a ripple under his hand.

Layla smiled, “I’ll leave you three alone now to get acquainted. Call if you need me or if there is any change.”

Layla found Lucas and Monica in the hallway updating Dnate, who had been away visiting a neighbouring pack and a particular lady he was interested in.  But feeling his brother’s anxiety, he had returned home at once.

Layla told them all that Alex was pregnant. The concern in Lucas’s eyes was in the hearts of them all. How would this pregnancy evolve? Alex was no longer an ordinary human.  Would she carry to full term or would she deliver early? Would baby survive? Would Alex survive the ordeal?  She was so young, only 18.

‘Yes, the baby is Wolfe’s,’ she answered the unspoken question in Lucas’s mind.  He looked at her and smiled, “At least we have that to be grateful for.”

Monica replied, “Well, I am going to search for an answer to this dilemma. We must find some way of bringing her out of this trance.”

She turned and made her way into the library, a room filled wall to wall and ceiling to floor with books of every category imaginable, books of history going back centuries, customs and tales dating back so far in time. Surely somewhere in this mass of words was the answer they so desperately needed.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Three months later and Alex still lay in her paralyzing trance. The family was constantly at her side, Wolfe barely leaving her for a moment, eating by her bedside. He spoke to Alex throughout the day. Touching, stroking and gently massaging her growing stomach, whispering to his child, begging it to somehow wake its mother from her deep mindless sleep.  Her mind still shrouded in fog, unable to reach her, he silently laid his head upon her swollen stomach and his tears fell unrestrained across her belly, begging her to wake up.

As if in answer to his plea, baby kicked out fiercely, causing Alexandria to cry out! The first sound she had made in 3 months. Wolfe jerked his head in her direction and in his head he screamed for Layla who appeared at his side in an instant.

“I heard,” she said. “Please don’t get your hopes up; it could just be a reflex action from baby’s movements.”

Wolfe looked at her desperately, wanting to believe it was more than that, that she was finally waking up.  Alex was now seven months pregnant and Layla was beginning to feel anxious about the baby’s birth.  Every day she examined her, but never once saw the slightest sign of any difference in Alex’s condition until now.  There seemed to be a slight hint of colour returning to her pale cheeks.  But sadly, her eyes were still glazed over, her body still paralyzed, the only movement being the baby inside her stomach.

She smiled at Wolfe giving him hope. “Baby and Mother are doing fine,” she said encouragingly.