46. Supernatural adjacent
Lucy
She beamed. “I was assigned. All the other doctors who straddle the line were too scared.”
She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, all their growling is more childish than anything to me. Their Dad too.”
I blinked. “T-Their Dad?”
She nodded. “I was assigned right before he was removed from leading the pack… The twins had to take over, or the pack was going to be split between the other two or… dissolved.”
I frowned. “How does that work?”
“Witches,” she grinned. “Really scared them straight. It’s pretty extreme to have to go that route, but the situation was dire, and it was the best thing at the time.”
I blinked. “Then… does that mean that they… can’t fire you?”
She beamed. “It means if they do, they’ll lose more than a doctor.”
I let out a breath and felt my shoulders relax. “T-Tony wouldn’t fire you.”
“Nope. Though I’m sure, he thinks about it often.” She laughed. “Tony has never liked me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t cower when he growls,” she said and looked up. “I call him on his shit. I had several demands that he didn’t want to give me, and I really don’t care about his position in the pack.”
“Are you… some other kind of supernatural?”
She hummed. “I suppose you could say that. Supernatural adjacent would be the easiest way to put it. I’m a doctor in the human world too. As far as the human world knows, I just practice privately.”
I frowned. “Supernatural adjacent…”
She nodded. “My mother was a witch. My father was a shifter.”
My jaw dropped open as she shrugged. “I am, for all intents and purposes, human.”
“And your sister?” I asked.
“The witchiest witch to ever witch,” she grinned proudly. “She finds it hilarious that I’m working here. Dad is glad that I’m not working somewhere else, and well… Mom has her own opinions.”
She shrugged. “Could be worse.”
“Could you… tell me about your family?”
She grinned and started talking about how she and her sister would help their mother brew potions. I sipped my tea, grateful to have something else to think about. The nausea was gone. My chest didn’t feel so tight.
I was starting to feel… almost okay, I think. Better than I had earlier.
Then, someone knocked on the door, and I went still. She stood and went to the door.
“Alpha Matt said he wants to have dinner with the luna.”
She hummed and turned back to me. “Do you want to have dinner with Matt?”
I shuddered at the thought, and I shook my head.
“Tell him she’s not interested, and if he gets really testy, tell him doctor’s orders.”
The woman’s face twisted into a sneer before she left. Yvonne closed the door.
“Are you hungry?” She asked. “You can eat dinner with me.”
I bit my lip. “Is this… really okay?”
She chuckled. “Yeah. It’s perfectly okay.”
“But won’t he be upset?”
“He can stand to not get his way.”
“But he’s… I mean… They b-bought me.”
She went still and turned very slowly to me. I braced for a look of disgust on her face.
“They… what?”
I swallowed. “T-They bought me from the auction… w-won’t they just send me back if I… If I don’t… do what they want?”
Yvonne smiled, but it felt cold. “I’d like to see them fucking try.”
I blinked at her as she nodded towards a hallway. “How about dinner?”
I couldn’t say exactly why the words brought me some comfort, but soon I was seated at Yvonne’s little dining table eating spaghetti, something else I’d never had. She let me help her make it, and I felt a little proud.
Yvonne refilled my water glass.
“Are you interested in going to school?” Yvonne asked. “Were you… in school before?”
I shook my head. “I just had a job.”
“Did you like it?”
I shook my head. “It was just… something to pay my part.”
She frowned, looking at me. “What do you mean by that, if you don’t mind saying?”
I let out a slow breath, letting my mind go back to before Matt and Tony bought me.
“I thought I was lucky for a little while,” I said. “When they shut the orphanage down, everyone else from the orphanage was kicked out of town.”
Yvonne frowned. “Have you seen any of them sense?”
“No one… except for David.”
Her eyes widened. “David… the leader of the Blood Moon Pack?”
I nodded. “After we got split up, things… got worse. I went to a school on the other side of town. The teachers didn’t care about me. I had no friends. When they said I had to get a job after I got out of eighth grade, I stopped thinking I was lucky. I… just wanted to leave.”
Her eyes softened. “You’ve lived a very hard life…”
My lips twitched. “I guess so….”
I looked into my bowl. “That all seems so long ago now.”
“Do you know who sold you to the auction?”
“The couple who adopted me,” I said, staring out the window as it grew dark outside. “Some part of me… know that they didn’t care about me. They told me so often. And… sometimes I think about the money they got for me… How much Matt and Tony paid for me…”
“In what way?”
“Would that advance would be enough to cover all the money they paid to feed and clothe me over the years? Would whatever was left after I was sold actually help them?”
“Did you care about them?”
My eyes burned. “I… don’t think so. I wanted to leave. As soon as I turned eighteen, I planned to leave and never come back.”
I laughed to myself. “This… wasn’t what I had imagined.”
I looked back at my mug. “I guess I should be grateful that I was worth… something to someone… That they… bought me instead so-someone else, but…”
The tears started sliding down my face. My throat felt tight.
“But I just…”
I didn’t have the words for it, so I just cried. My stomach started churning. And that terror from earlier just started to grow in me. I looked up at her. She watched me closely.
“I… don’t want children,” I sniffled and shuddered. “I’ve never wanted children. Ever.”
Yvonne nodded. “Is that why you were throwing up earlier?”
My jaw trembled. “I don’t know… I… Am I…?”
She tilted her head. “What do you want done if you are?”
I shuddered. “T-They’ll never… They just keep---”
“I’m not asking them. I’m asking you,” she said. “Whatever you decide is your choice.”
“They’ll just send me back to the auction.”
“No, they won’t.”
“But everything they’ve said…” I shuddered. “T-They just want me here to h-have their kids. Tha-That’s all the talk about. Wh-What good am I i-if I don’t?”
“Lucy,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
I lifted my gaze. My stomach turned, and my heart was full of terror.
“If you don’t want children, no one has the right to force you to have them,” Yvonne said. “Contrary to everything that werewolves like to pass between them, contrary to whatever they’ve learned and told you, you’re the only one who can make that decision.”
My jaw trembled as I met her gaze.
“And whatever you decide, won’t leave this room if you don’t want to.”
I sniffled. “Could you… Could you help me?”
“I’m a doctor. That’s my entire job.”
I sniffled. My stomach kept trembling. I felt nauseous, but I didn’t know what else to do but cry. She led me back into the other room and had me sit on the examination table. Then, she offered me a vial.
“Drink it. It will help you calm down.”
I drank it, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t hold myself up. I heard her moving around, but everything seemed to get farther away the more that I tried to focus on it. I felt her move my arm. There was a sharp prick, but it all felt so far away.
Then, everything went black as I went to sleep.
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