"You have some serious nerve showing up here." An annoying, high-pitched voice resounded in my head.
"Now, now sister, that's no way to say hello," I smiled.
Sitting across a brown-haired woman with a very angular face on which sat striking but pretty visuals. Wrapped in darkness, engulfed in the soft incense-like wafts that danced all around my feet, up to my knees, sending a subtle chill right into my bones. The only thing I could see was endless space and two seats with dim lights only in the middle where the seats were. Incense rose and fell in a dance all around the floor, all around my feet. It was almost hypnotic. But I knew better than to give in to that enticement. "How long has it been?"
************************************
"Come in," I called out, responding to the knock on the door.
"Luna, she is awake," I nodded and stood up from the bed, and walked out after Melissa.
I have been waiting for several hours for the she-wolf to wake up. I didn't know what else to do with myself after the fight I had with Malik. "Alpha Malik," I blurted out, immediately correcting myself.
"What was that Luna?" Melissa asked, turning to face me.
I shook my head. "Nothing, don't mind me."
After I left the waterfall, I ran back to the pack house and locked myself in our room. After showering and dressing up. I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. While I was ecstatic to leave today, I could not push away or ignore the gnawing feeling in me. What I was about to do today would take me back to the memories I have been trying to run away from for almost ten years now.
"Luna," the doctor greeted me as I entered the hospital room.
"How is she?" I asked.
"She has a fever and hallucinations, and she has been having convulsions for about three hours since she woke up. We gave her anesthetics to stabilize her, but she isn't asleep."
As expected, "So she can't survive surgery then?"
"No," okay, things are going to be nasty, awkward, and absolutely intrusive.
"I'm going to need a sample of the thing in her womb," the doctor's eyebrow went up.
"You want a sample of the child?"
I chuckled. "Both you and I know that what is in that she-wolf's womb is not a child, so please get me a glove and hold her down."
He hesitated, looking down. I could tell he was trying to avoid eye contact. Malik did order them to call and treat me as a Luna after all.
"Doctor?" I asked
"Raphael, Doctor Raphael," I nodded
"Look, I can get why you're hesitant, okay, but you have to understand this is no longer something you can solve with what you learned in medical school."
"Then if it isn't, how are you supposed to help her if the doctors can't? You're just a healer."
I know he did not just call me just a healer.
"Just a healer, just a healer?" I yelled. I opened my mouth to say something but stopped myself. Yelling would get me nowhere. Are all the men in this pack so chauvinistic? "Look, even if I may not wear your pointless lab coats or carry the stethoscope, I have my methods. Besides, healers have powers you can't even comprehend, and I am more than that." I sighed.
"What are you then?" He retorted as if trying to stop me from saying more. I see the respect was very short-lived.
"You're a smart man. I'm sure you can figure it out." The look of confusion etched on his face disallowed me to say more until he knew a complete truth.
I combed my hair with my fingers and sighed. "I am a witch." His eyes widen and he took a step back. At least he has some sense.
"B-but, that c-can't be right. Witches aren't supposed to be on this side of the world. Unless-" his breathing hitched, I could tell cause he was almost hyperventilating. Poor guy, his strawberry blonde mustache shivered above his lips. He was ripped, the sleeves of his lab coat were fitted and I could see his muscles through his shirt, but that didn't stop him from being so terrified. "You are the one the prophecy talks about," he chuckled. "Thought that was a myth."
"Well, it isn't, and by the goddess, you believe in her, right?" He nodded, and I grabbed his shirt. Forcing the much larger man to look me in the eye. "Alpha Malik does not know about this. No one does, not even my friend Aria. Tell anyone and I will kill you. Understand?" He nodded.
"Good, now go do what I asked you." Doctors and their stupid pride.
He went out of the room and almost immediately returned with the gloves. "What about the people?" I asked after he returned alone.
"I am more than capable enough," his were words curt and emotionless
"Fine," I nodded, pulling on the gloves. "Let's do this"
************************************
"Are you guys done yet?" I asked.
After I got the sample I wanted, I put it in a petri dish and took it to the lab. Just to appease the doctors, of course. It was no straightforward task since I had to do it without surgery. There was only one more available hole in a woman's body that led directly to the womb. Yes, I stuck my hands in there. Again.
"Fine, you can have it," a nurse handed the petri dish with the black goo to me. I smiled and walked back to the room where the She-wolf was, sat on the extra bed I told them to prepare. I rubbed the goo on my palms and placed them together and closed my eyes. I felt myself slipping away and the last thing I remembered was my head hitting the pillow before it all went black.
************************************
"So you show up after what? Ten years? And you're not even here," she hisses.
"The beauty of Astro projection, eh?" I shrugged.
"What do you want?" She signaled towards the chairs in the center of the room. Walking towards them, I followed behind. When we were both seated, I answered, "the baby you took."
Her brows went up. "Iris," she finally smiled. "I didn't know you were pregnant?" She was clearly toying with me. Of course, she knew I wasn't. I sighed, trying to control my anger. It was like knowing how to breathe, showing too much emotion when facing off with a west witch and you are ready to lose.
"I don't have time for this, Lily. Give me the child and I'll be on my way."
"Or, it's someone close to you?" Her brows went up in a questioning look.
I can't give any emotion, I reminded myself. This was Lily I was talking to. She was a master at manipulation, just as I could heal others. That was her special gift. And I can't let her think I came here for more than business or things are going to get ugly.
I scoffed. "Close to me? Please."
"Okay, but what's in it for you?"
"You took a woman's unborn child from her womb and replaced it with a life-force-eating demon," I spat.
"Yes, I'm well aware of what I did. What's in it for you? Why are you doing this?"
"I just told you why,"
Her brows furrowed in confusion once again. Unlike her name, she was a brunette-haired beauty, as all witches were. But Lily had these naturally arched brows that framed her green eyes perfectly. But anytime she made that face, she looked absolutely wicked.
"So you are telling me that you did it because you have a heart?"
"And?" I replied
She burst out laughing, "tell that lie to someone else, Iris."
I huffed, "fine, I'm getting paid. I am in need of money."
She shook her head. "So after what? Ten years? Who would have known the much loved and favored Iris will become a beggar? Giving her services to mere wolves for money," she whined, "so pitiful."
I can't let her get to me, let her believe what she wants. I don't care.
"I don't get you, Iris" Lily stood up off her chair and walked around the room, entering and exiting the darkness. Slithering around, but with much grace. I just sat there watching her.
"You had everything," her voice came from the darkness. "Everything Iris. Mother loved you so much."
"She loved you too," I murmured.
"Oh? She did, didn't she?" her voice came closer. "Then why were you the only one that got to sit on her lap? Why were you the only one that got to be treated when you were hurt?"
"That was because I could heal," I quickly interrupted her. As memories from this place flowed back into my subconscious, memories I fought so hard to push away.
"Why were you the only one that didn't experience the pit?" She spat.
"Lily," I whispered as I could feel her get agitated
"Not only were you mother 'best girl', she never treated you as bad as us, always pampering you, treating you like a diamond. As if you could do no wrong, miss goody-two-shoes," she yelled.
Nothing I said now could make anything better.
"I hated you, Iris," big surprise "but not because of the love or the fact that you were different. What makes my blood boil is the admits all that special treatment you still broke mother's heart," she yelled.
"What?"
"Oh, don't give me that Iris, we all knew the only reason mother treated you like that was because of the prophecy. Just the right amount of love and she wouldn't turn against us. She wouldn't be the end of us"
So that's it, the stupid prophecy gosh. How did I end up back here after everything, after all the running?
"Even after you escaped, she wouldn't let us go after you and kill you like all the others. She let you live." it was my turn to laugh.
"That was because she did not know how to kill me."