Chapter 43

~Grace~

I had to do it. I had to! This could be my only real shot of being able to have children again!

I had already gone the medical route, and nothing more could be done there.

They healed my wound, but at the cost of losing my reproductive abilities. I had to take medication after medication to even have the slightest chance of conceiving.

And on top of that, I weakened Nola to the point that I wasn’t sure she’d ever come back. I might have ruined my wolf forever, driven by my desperation to have a baby.

After I had lost Nola, I had stopped taking the medication. I just had kind of… given up hope that I’d be able to conceive.

That maybe some things just couldn’t be fixed, and that was one of them.

But now, here is an opportunity staring me right in the face.

It seemed too good to be true… it probably was, but the idea of it actually working was far too tempting.

I would get my fertility back, but at what cost?

I turned toward Christopher, my face stern with serious urgency.

“What do you want from me?”

Christopher tilted his head, as if confused by what I was asking.

I continued. “You help me do this ritual, but what do you want in return? What do you want me to do for you?”

He shook his head, and flipped back to one of the first pages he had shown me.

“You saved my life. I am indebted to you,” it read.

I stared at it until my eyes hurt. Did he really mean it? This all seemed too convenient. But the look in his eyes… It seemed so sincere.

I took a deep breath, ignoring the burning feeling of a warning in my stomach.

This situation may be incredibly unusual, and I may not know enough of what was at play here, but…

I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.

“Okay,” I told Christopher, looking at him with determination. “Okay, I’ll do it. Help me perform the ritual.”

Christopher’s face broke out into a smile, and he nodded enthusiastically.

Setting the book on the ground, he reached into the opened wooden house and pulled out some large, powdery, white sticks that looked sort of like chalk and handed them to me. I took them, and my hands turned white from the powder.

He then pulled out some candles, and some scissors.

He reached out to my hair, and I quickly pulled away.

What was he doing?

Christopher looked at me with wide eyes, taken aback by my sudden move away.

“What are you trying to do?” I asked, holding my hair defensively.

He held the scissors out to my hair, and pointed at the book.

“You… need it for the ritual?”

He nodded.

I pressed my lips together. I really didn’t want my hair getting chopped off, I liked it long. And, I didn’t want an obvious piece cut off the end somewhere, it would ruin the rest of the hair.

“How much?”

He held his fingers about an inch apart.

I sighed, and reached into the back layers of my hair.

“Here,” I directed him, holding out a group of hairs I thought I could hide underneath the rest of my hair if it looked bad.

He nodded, and I heard the snip of the scissors, and he held the cut pieces of my hair in his hand.

He motioned for me to follow him, and he took me to a part of the forest where the plants thinned out, opening up into a large, dirt field surrounded by trees.

I looked back at the forest. I had never been this far out, I wasn’t even sure where I was anymore.

Christopher stopped, and he sat on the ground. He motioned for me to do the same, and I sat in front of him, cross-legged.

He set the tome out on the ground where he could read it, and he held his hand out to me. I handed him the chalk I had been holding, and he began to draw a circle around us with the chalk on the ground. He had to go over the dirt multiple times for it to really stick, but it worked surprisingly well,

He drew symbols, some of which I recognized from the tome’s open pages, around us as well. I watched him, curious, silent.

He seemed like he had done this before.

Everything about Chrisopher intrigued me. I knew little about him, and I couldn’t put a finger on how I felt about him. Was he friend or foe? Or neither?

After placing down the candles, he spent some time writing in his notebook. I stared at the ground as he wrote, and noticed that he put the cut piece of my hair on the ground between us. I also noticed some very pale hair next to it, too.

Was that his hair? Or maybe I was mistaking a plant on the ground here to be hair.

Finally, I heard the tearing of paper and Christopher handed me his writing. There was a long list of instructions that he wrote down for me, and I carefully read through them, performing each action as I read them.

“Pick up the candle to your right. Light it. Use it to light the other ones around you. Set it back in its place. Say this enchantment out loud.”

I did exactly as the instructions told me, ensuring I was being extra careful as not to mess things up.

The enchantment felt strange and foreign on my tongue, but I could feel power flowing through me as I read them. Something was definitely happening.

I finished the ritual by lighting the cut strands of hair on fire, and closing my eyes.

I felt so emotional. This was actually happening. It was working, I’d be able to have children!

I trembled, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek. God, I had wanted this for years and it was finally happening.

Christopher grabbed my hands, and I let him hold them, tightening my grip around his cold fingers.

I couldn’t believe everything had led up to this. Our chance meeting in the forest, my choice to help him, and in return, he gave me this.

It was what I wanted most in the world.

And now it was mine.

I opened my eyes, feeling the magic subside. It felt complete, whole, like the spell had been completed.

The first thing I saw was Chrisopher’s eyes staring right into mine. They were… enchanting. Alluring. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, it was like I was drawn to him.

He was a magnet and I was moving into him.

What was this feeling?

I tried to shake it off, but I couldn’t. I felt… connected to Christopher in some way. I couldn't resist him.

My eyes follow him as he stands up, and I feel uneasy. My connection with Chrisopher told me there was something dark and malicious within him.

I began to stand up, but I felt hands grab me from behind.

Frightened, I screamed to be let go, not able to see my attackers. I looked at Chrisopher, terrified and seeking help, but my heart dropped when I saw his face.

He only smiled.