Chapter 208

Helens POV

Reuniting with everyone at my house passed like a whirlwind. We had to trade hugs and stories of what we had all accomplished.

At first, I had worried that maybe my friends wouldn’t consider my contributions to be anything. I felt like they had all done so much more than me. Randy and Justin led the warriors and got rid of all of the Huntsman’s henchmen. Lisa and Russo had done the rite, which had burned the beast back to hell.

And then there was Julianne and me. We had just been captives.

But somehow, Justin and Randy, and Russo and Lisa all considered rescuing the Huntsman’s other captives to be just as important as anything that they had done. For the tiny part of me that wanted to argue against them, I shut it up.

Any recognition was better than having them blame me for not being helpful or, worse, for jeopardizing our plan by getting caught in the first place. I wouldn’t have been able to take it if they all hated me.

Justin and I had taken a nap when we got home since we had both been up for the full night before and then gone about socializing with our friends and companions after. I tried to pretend that I had slept well, but the reality was I kept having nightmares.

Even after his death, it seemed like the Huntsman was going to torment me in my dreams. But unlike before, I wasn’t having a real conversation with him. Whatever he’d been doing in my dreams had to have been either a skill that he possessed as a demon or something that he had gotten Martin to do for him.

Now it was just my own imagination torturing me. Over and over, my declarations of undying love for the Huntsman echoed through my brain, and I would wake up after the dreams with my body tingling, yearning for him. It sickened me, and there was no way that I could share this with Justin.

I’m sure it was just a residual effect of having my memory messed with because my heart certainly didn’t feel that way at all. But whatever spell Martin had used on me had been extremely potent because I distinctly remembered not having any doubts at all about the Huntsman while I was under the spell. While the magic worked on me, I fully believed that he was my soulmate, that he was a being above all others.

The result was that when we joined the others later in the day, not only was I not rested, but my gut churned unpleasantly.

‘So what do we do next?” Randy asked Justin.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re still the lycan king even though we’ve been focused on other things besides ruling. And now we don’t have to bother with the Huntsman and Martin. So what do you plan to do next as king?”

“My father spent his time on petty squabbles, and I don’t want to be anything like him. I think we’re going to spend the rest of the winter planning for some activities for spring, which will benefit the entire joint pack.”

“Like what?” Lisa asked, looking rather impatient.

“I thought I could ask all of you guys for input, too. But I was thinking things like possibly making a new park with a playground for kids to play.”

“Is someone of a family state of mind?” Russo demanded, looking between Justin and me.

I saw my own blush mirrored on Justin’s face.

“What?” Randy shrieked. “When is this going to happen?”

“It already did,” I murmured, staring at the table, somehow very embarrassed by all of this discussion.

Randy scowled at us. “You did what on your own? I thought you needed a chaperone in case your lycan went crazy and tried to hurt Helen.”

Justin tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch where he was sitting. “That used to be true, but I’ve spent so much time over the last few months focusing on getting Beowulf under control and adjusting my feelings for Helen according to truth and not gut reactions that I knew I’d be able to handle it. She and I kind of took care of things last night.”

“You did?” Lisa gushed, grabbing at my hands. “Does that mean that you’re going to have a baby soon?”

“Well, not anytime soon,” I said. “We just mated last night. But the deed is done, so there’s a high chance that it won’t be too long before we know for sure.”

Randy still hadn’t lost his scowl. “How many times do you think you’re going to risk this?” he demanded. “I saw how you were before. It wasn’t safe for Helen. You were so worried that if you did anything with her in your lycan form that, you might actually kill her.”

Justin blushed bright red. “I think I found the solution for that,” he said.

But Randy wasn’t going to let it go. He didn’t seem to care about our discomfort. “As your beta, I am going to insist that you tell me what this stupid plan you concocted was. I need to hear it for myself, so I know what sort of dumbass things I need to save you to from again.”

This time it was Justin who scowled at Randy. “We’re not being stupid. I have enough control over Beowulf now that we can get all the way until the very end. It’s not like we actually have to have sex while I’m in that form. I just have to impregnate her in that form. As long as I’m a lycan at the very end of our sexual encounter, then it ought to work out.”

Randy rubbed at his chin thoughtfully, shifting in his spot on the couch. “You know, that might actually work. I wouldn’t have thought about that before. But if you have enough control to shift there and back in the short time you would need to complete the act and control Beowulf just long enough for him to ejaculate, then, I guess—”

I covered my ears. “Can we not talk about this like that? It just sounds so weird and uncomfortable.”

Russo and Randy both visibly rolled their eyes and sighed.

I took my hands off my ears. “I know. I know. We both made you watch lots of things that you probably didn’t want to see. Most of that was because neither one of us understood exactly what was going on with our bodies.”

“Justin wasn’t in control of Beowulf,” I continued, “and I had no idea why I was constantly craving sex. And between the two of us being out of control of those, for lack of better words, urges, except they were more instinct an urge. Anyway, with both of us out of control, we did all sorts of things that I’m horribly embarrassed to say that we did or even think back on.”

“We’re going to try very hard going forward not to subject anyone else to watching us or even subjecting ourselves to such embarrassment. It might have looked like we were enjoying ourselves, but honestly, it was terrifying and exhausting. And I never want to be like that with Justin again. We can still have plenty of sex and not go back to that.”

“That reminds me,” said Lisa. “I’ve been wondering about this since the first video came in from the Huntsman.”

I gripped the edges of my chair, deeply uncomfortable and not sure I wanted to know why she was going to pry into my time with the Huntsman. That wasn’t something I wanted to relive for anyone, especially not in front of Justin.

He was doing so well and forgiving me. I didn’t want to drive a wedge into that freshly healed wound. Well, not healed, rather scabbed over. It was as if we picked at what was covering the bloody mess underneath it would all rip open again, and then we’d both be miserable.

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

She wrinkled her nose in thought and then burst out a question that I had never even considered—one which made my heart and stomach sink and vomit hit the back of my throat.

“You supposedly gain strength from mating with various partners as part of the multicolor-coated pack, right?”

“Yes.”

I knew where this was going, and I didn’t want to go there. Around the table, everyone else stared at me in horror. They all knew the same thing I thought.

I’d slept with a demon or a half-demon. He had clearly come inside me. All of that essence, I’d absorbed it over and over again for five whole days. What was I now?

I obtained the attributes and strength from male werewolves and lycans, and I had gotten so much stronger simply mating with Justin. Now that I’d added half-demon to that mix, would I be some sort of beast myself?