“It’s really getting hairy out there,” Eli noted out loud while closing the windows carefully.
“Alpha,” Jack growled low in his chest, his head hanging low, “what about my bitch? He’s out there, alone, and I must protect him.”
“Is there something particularly ominous about this weather?” Eli asked. He felt it in his bones, but he couldn’t explain it.
Rhett nodded slowly. “It will wash away the memories of those involved. Not ours. We’re mated.”
“Wash away?” Eli echoed his mate’s words. “What does it mean, exactly?”
Rhett’s nostrils flared as if he could feel something. “We must stay indoors until it goes away.”
“But we don’t have to worry about our memories, right?”
Rhett lifted his head. “This is the vampire’s last wicked gift. If any of us is caught outside in this storm… every drop will feel like acid on our flesh. We’ll get wounds that will never go away.”
“Are you kidding me? Good thing I closed the windows, then,” Eli said. “Micah is fine, Jack. He won’t get out in this weather, and he’s with Noel. After the storm is gone, we can go together after him.”
Jack whined like a wounded animal. “I need him.”
“Rhett, is it as hard on you as it is on him when I’m not around?”
Rhett nodded. “I will go after him,” he promised. “I am your alpha and I told you I would help. I will bring Micah here, where he is safe.”
“Is that really necessary?” Eli insisted. “Come on. Micah might be a bit impulsive – at least that’s what I think because I don’t know him well – but he knows he needs to stay put in this weather. He’ll be fine.”
Rhett got up without a word.
“Rhett?” Eli asked and followed his mate as he went out the door. “Come on, Jack can wait for a little longer. He might whine so much only for show.”
“I don’t do that.” Jack’s voice, coming from behind, startled him. “I will go after my bitch, alpha. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself.”
“Why are you two like this? Why do you have to put yourselves in danger while Micah is most likely dozing off in a comfortable bed, without knowing that two morons are risking wounds for life or worse to get to him?” He stopped abruptly, forcing Jack to halt, as well. “You guys know something you’re not telling me. I don’t have your nose, so I can’t tell. So spill already.”
“Micah’s on the move. He’s getting out of the building he was in right now,” Rhett explained.
“What? Is he a moron, too? He didn’t strike me as the type,” Eli said, unnerved by this piece of news. “Wait, do you guys come with a built-in GPS or something?”
“No,” Rhett said, “but we can establish the distance between us and our target.”
“Useful when hunting, I guess,” Eli said. “Hey, guys, wait for me,” he added, as Jack brushed past him, following Rhett, who was already at the foot of the stairs and at the front entrance door.
“You stay here,” Rhett said, turning abruptly. He caught Eli’s arms and pulled him into a hug. “Jack and I are lycans. We can stand the pain, but you are human.”
“I am your pack, too, right?” Eli said. “And let’s not just rush in there like idiots. I’m sure there are things here we can use.”
***
Rhett and Jack had whined all throughout the three minutes Eli needed to find some weatherproof jackets and umbrellas. The lycans insisted that the magical rain or whatever was that would pour down their heads would go through those like through butter, but Eli was of the opinion that the lightest protection counted nonetheless.
He had put on a long raincoat and covered his head with a thick hood, so he felt pretty protected. “Let’s go,” he said, determined to show that he, too, was part of this pack. He had bundled more clothes and stuffed them in a shoulder bag so he could cover Micah as soon as they found him.
The rain wasn’t yet there when they stepped outside. But the wind was terrible, and Eli had to grab Rhett’s arm hard to make sure he didn’t end up dragged away. Veyr’s wicked gift, indeed. According to Noel, everyone was sound asleep and they wouldn’t know about this storm. But maybe that would explain the damages that had occurred during the whole thing. In a way, that was clever, but Eli still hated that damn vampire.
“Climb on my back, Eli. We’ll be faster.”
“Don’t shift into your wolves,” Eli warned. “You can’t wear a raincoat when you’re in your fur only.”
“A lycan’s skin is thick,” Rhett said.
Eli was starting to reconsider his decision to force these guys into weatherproof clothes. At least Logan’s and Veyr’s sizes fit Jack and Rhett, but he had to roll up his pant legs and his sleeves.
“But you weren’t wrong to make us wear these,” Rhett said as if he could understand his mate’s distress. “As far as I can tell, the acid rain will be particularly bad on lycans in their beast form. This might just save us a lot of pain.”
“I really hope you’re not just saying it so I don’t feel bad,” Eli murmured.
They were running across the field now, but the wind forced them to lower their pace. Eli stared in vain to see if he could catch a glimpse of Micah. The wind was so bad that it hurt his face, and he had to close his eyes.
***
It was stupid, if he thought about it, to try to get to the guys when the wind was blowing this hard, but Micah couldn’t endure another moment away from his lycan. Jack was maybe a dumbass, but he was his dumbass. And even he, Micah, had to be one, getting out in this kind of weather.
Well, they were a pair of dumbasses, but they were bound to be happy dumbasses, because they’d start a family. Micah wasn’t one hundred percent sure that he was pregnant, but he only needed those couple of lines from the book on bond-breaking, and he felt certain enough.
“Poor Jack,” he said to himself, knowing very well that he was giving his lycan mate a lot, but a lot of leeway for being the way he was. Eh, they’d have time to smooth out the crinkles. Now, he just needed to get to him.
“Micah, come back,” Noel shouted from his window.
“Get inside,” Micah waved at him. “I’ll be fine!”
Noel hesitated but then shut the window. Good, he didn’t need to suffer because other people were such morons to not realize that they were getting pregnant. Not that Micah knew much about that. He’d find out, eventually.
A short moment of hesitation stopped him from taking another step further. What if he got a cold or worse, pneumonia or some other thing if he ran through the rain like this? Were pregnant lycan mate more fragile or stronger once they got pregnant? It was hard to tell; actually, Micah had no idea.
But the need to be with Jack was too much. Shouting to give himself courage, he shot across the field as if chased by wolves. So funny. He was running towards a wolf, not the other way around.
The wind prevented him from continuing his victory lap. A gust of it stopped his breath, forcing him to turn away from it and advance at an angle. As long as he got to the other side without getting wet, it would be all cool.
A shout reached him, coming from somewhere ahead. Micah couldn’t keep his eyes open because dust and leaves blew everywhere, caught in the whirlwind. But he wasn’t imagining things; someone was calling for him.
He continued to run in that direction. It was weird, but he could feel Jack close. There had to be something about his smell, and it wasn’t the smell of chips the lycan liked to devour like the lovable idiot that he was.
The storm gathered above his head, electric and menacing. Micah tried to rush, but it looked like his body weighed nothing compared to the blowing wind.
He was making progress, albeit negligible. “Jack,” he shouted, the word stolen from his mouth by the gale.
Yep, that was his Jack. Micah could only guess his silhouette through the debris flying through the air. And there were others with him.
He put one foot in front of the other. The damn wind – if only it stopped for a moment. “Jack, hurry!”
A drop of rain fell on his hand. Micah stared at it and then let out a shriek.
***
“Jack!” Rhett and Eli both tried to stop the lycan, but their shouts fell on deaf ears. At Micah’s horrified shout, Jack transformed into his wolf shape in a heartbeat. The rain was pelting his back now, and Eli covered his mouth to stop himself from screaming.
Every raindrop made splashes on the lycan’s back, turning crimson. But Jack continued to run, while Rhett pulled Eli back.
“We must help them!” Eli shouted.
“Yes, but if we get hurt, how will we do that?”
Rhett was wise to say that. Eli accepted to withdraw back under the awning of the building they had just left. He felt a stinging pain on his right hand and pulled the glove off. A hole had burned through it.
“Come on, Jack!” Rhett shouted encouragements.
Through the heavy rain, Jack was running towards them now, with Micah under one arm. He had been forced to change back into his human form to carry his mate.
Eli felt his heart growing small. Micah looked unresponsive. Rhett fretted by his side, and once the distance diminished to what could be counted as relatively safe, he shot from Eli’s side to help the members of his pack.
He did it just in time, too. Jack had collapsed on one knee, still holding Micah. Rhett grabbed both of them and stuffed them under his arms. Even if burdened like that, he rushed back, running faster than any human could.
Eli welcomed them and pushed the door open.
They were back to safety again. Fuck that vampire.
***
Micah woke up with a jolt. His body was covered in cold sweat, and fear made him moan helplessly before he could manage to open his eyes. It hurt everywhere.
“Micah, are you awake?”
He knew Eli’s voice in an instant. “What--”
His voice was raspy and unrecognizable.
“That damned vampire,” Eli said bitterly. “The rain got you and Jack good. Or bad, I should say. Rhett is searching for a solution to help you two heal faster.”
Micah accepted Eli’s help to get to a sitting position. Especially his back hurt, and he realized quickly that he was naked. “The rain?” he asked.
“Yeah. Bad for us, it seems.”
Micah noticed Eli’s hand. It had a burn on the back, but Eli didn’t seem bothered by it. He moved quickly, but he was gentle as he turned Micah and treated the sore spots on his back with something soothing.
“Why--” It was so hard to speak.
“Jack felt that you were on the move. Since neither of us has his phone anymore, we couldn’t contact you to tell you to stay put. We had to come to you.”
“How is Jack?” Micah sighed as Eli continued to apply the medicine on his back. With the pain receding, he could talk a little more.
“Rhett is taking care of him. We’re doing the best we can. But this rain is… magical or whatever,” Eli said quickly.
Micah stared through the window at the grey world outside. “That’s fucked up.” He gasped as his pain seemed to be returning. “Please, Eli, more of that stuff,” he begged.
“Of course. But now that you’re awake, let’s have you swallow some painkillers.”
“Eli,” Micah whispered, watching Eli moving around and bringing him a glass of water and pills that were supposed to take his pain away, “I’m a moron, right?”
“You couldn’t know. Rhett didn’t know, either, until the storm started. He has knowledge of a long dark history--”
“I’m sure he’s doing his best,” Micah said. “Why does it hurt so much?”
Eli gave him a look filled with pity. “Because the rain burned through your skin. But we’ll patch you up,” he said cheerfully, although Micah knew it sounded forced.
“Am I going to hurt forever like this?”
Eli shook his head and looked down. “I don’t know. Rhett is--”
Micah lay down on one side. He was so tired now. “I know,” he said, his eyes closing from exhaustion. “He is doing his best. And I’m pregnant, Eli, you know? I’m going to have puppies or something crazy like that.”
***
Eli waited to see if Micah woke up again because of the pain, but it looked like he was getting a little reprieve from the pills. He hurried back to Rhett and Jack. The two lycans huddled together and Rhett was licking Jack’s wounds. Eli no longer found it strange that there were two enormous wolves lying on the floor.
“How is he?” Jack asked in his deep, lycan voice.
“We will need more than a little patching up,” Eli said. “Rhett, dig deep in what you know about this curse. There’s gotta to be something we can do. If there are books we need to read, just tell me. I’ll wrap myself in seven layers of waterproof clothes and rush to the library.”
“No,” Jack growled. “You stay here and care for Micah. I’ll go.”
“We can’t go,” Eli said dejectedly. “Neither of us.”
“I am the least affected,” Rhett said. “I will go.”
The sudden knock on the door downstairs shut them up.
“Who could be?” Eli asked out loud, although he didn’t think the others could tell him.
Jack’s nostrils twitched. “It’s Noel.”
Eli’s face fell. He hurried down. He’d have to take care of another patient. Did they really even have enough painkillers here? Professor Hayes had some medicine but not a lot. Not for what they needed, at least.
He pulled the door open. Noel looked surprised. “You guys okay? I heard your screams and shouts--”
Rain was dripping from Noel’s raincoat, but otherwise, he looked fine. Eli pulled him inside. “Are you hurt everywhere?”
“No, why would I be? What the hell happened?”
“Acid rain, vampire curse… Wait, is it because… Professor Hayes… let you go?”
Noel still didn’t understand. Eli took his arm.
“Noel, you have to help us, okay?”
Noel nodded. “Yeah, sure. Name it.”
tbc
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