Page 48 of Her Reborn Mate
This time, however, my mother came out of the house, wearing her apron, smiling at me, and holding a pie in her hand.
“Wilhelm, my darling boy. Oh, how you have grown,” she said, smiling at me, placing her hand on my cheek and squeezing me. “Not a day goes by that I do not miss you. Me and your papa. We look over you from above, know this. Even though we are not with you, we are always in your heart, my son.”
I spoke as my normal self, “Mother, I have missed your voice.”
“And I have missed your presence around me, my child. Your laughter, your innocence, and your brightness. You were the best thing that happened to us, even in that time of war and despair. You helped us see the light. And now, I will help you too. Understand that there is someone in your midst who seeks to harm you, someone whom you think is close to you. When you moved from Germany, some of the pack members were against you moving. That ill will is still harbored against you in the hearts of those who live on. Some of them mean to harm you, my son. Some of them have already harmed you,” she said.
“Maurice, you mean? I killed him,” I said. “He tried to end my life with Wolf’s Bane, but I…”
“Shh, my son. We have little time. One day, you and I will sit side by side in these plains with nothing but time on our side when you will have lived your life. Here, we will talk and reflect on our lives and continue living our afterlives. But right now, I have to warn you about staying cautious. You aren’t out of the woods yet,” she said, then kissed me on the forehead. “My darling boy. I love you.”
“Mama!” I yelled in despair as she disappeared, taking the cottage, the countryside, the apron, and the pie with her, leaving me in the darkness once more.
“What do you want from me?!” I yelled in the darkness.
A giant wolf came into view, its spectral eyes red, its mouth big enough to swallow the sun. I knew then that I was not staring at some ordinary wolf but the god-child Fenrir himself, the spawn of Loki.
Immediately, I bent my knee and bowed in reverence to the god of the werewolves, and my head stooped low in awe.
Fenrir touched the tip of my head with the tip of his nose and nudged me. I looked up and saw that he was pointing at the light at the end of the tunnel.
“Now is not my time, Fenrir,” I said. “Please send me back.”
The wolf shook his head and pointed again.
“Please, Lord. There is much that I have to do. I do not want to die in vain. When my time comes, I want to die in an honorable way so that I can join my ancestors in the great halls. Let me live so I can serve a greater purpose.”
Fenrir snorted through his nose, then pushed me. I fell back and kept falling and screaming.
***
Until I stopped falling and came out on the other side, alive, awake, drenched in sweat, my body burning.
“Will?” It was Alexis calling out my name, holding me in her lap.
“Am I dead?” I asked, breathing heavily.
“No, my love. You’re okay. You’re going to be all right,” she said.
My mouth felt bitter and hot. The taste of some effervescent liquid still lingered on my lips and tongue. I tried to swallow it, but the bitterness was too much.
“What happened?” I asked, staring around. In one corner of the room, Dr. Morris stood looking completely stunned. Alexis sat beside me in bed, holding an empty vial. She looked exhausted, with dark rings under her eyes and lines all over her otherwise smooth face.
“I just cannot believe it,” Dr. Morris said. “I refuse to accept this. Not until I’ve done a few tests of my own, at least.”
“Test all you want, Dr. Morris. I wanted you to witness the power of belief, and tonight you saw it with your own eyes,” Alexis said.
“Will you tell me what’s happening?” I asked Alexis, sitting up in bed. Surprisingly, moving did not hurt me any longer. I could feel my old strength returning to me gradually.
“You told me before passing out that I should seek the wisdom of the books you’d brought with you. I did exactly that. For the first time in my life, I made a potion. A potion to save your life,” she said, smiling at me, waving the empty vial in front of me.
“Which one did you make?” I asked.
“The Full Moon,” she said, catching me by surprise. I had never expected her to devise such a concoction, at least not all by herself.
“How…how did you manage to make it?” I asked in disbelief, my mouth hanging open.
And then, I was told a tale that I had just as hard a time believing as Dr. Morris, who kept shaking his head while Alexis recounted how she hiked up the mountain to get the ingredients, then spent the entire night making the potion relentlessly, and then finally administered it to me.