And Then There Were Four by Lilith Carrie

Chapter 87: Hunger Pains

Damian.

Falling asleep next to Ivy is one of the most incredible feelings I had ever been able to be a part of. I wasn't the greatest of men. In fact, I was the type of man that didn't even deserve a girl like Ivy. Thad messed up big time with her.

I had treated her wrong and deserved every bit of pun ishment that had come my way because of my actions. I never intended to hurt her the way I did.

In a sick way, I thought I was saving her.

But we all realized that was not the case in the end.

Soft movements within the bed stirred me awake and, fluttering my eyes open, I saw Ivy tossing and turning calm ly. Without warning, she suddenly sat upright. "Ivy, are you OK?" I asked sleepily as I watched her eyes cast towards me and realized the woman sitting before me was slightly different from before.

She said nothing as her celestial orbs stared at me. In stead, what she did was slide from the bed in her white nightgown and move toward the bedroom door.

"Ivy, where are you going?" I whispered loudly, but still, there was no response from her. Instead, she opened the door and moved through it, quickly heading down the hall way towards the stairs. Jumping from the bed, I moved towards the door in nothing but my boxers. "Ivy!"

Shouting down the hall after her, she continued what ever mission she was doing without even acknowledging the fact I was speaking to her. The old me would have been angry by the way she was acting, but given the circum stance of everything going on, I knew this was something else.

Popping his head out of his bedroom door, Talon stared at me with confusion. "Damien, what's going on?"

"I don't know. Ivy just jolted from bed, got out, and made her way down the hallway. I'll follow... something is

definitely up."

Moving quickly, I took the stairs two at a time until my feet hit the floor-Talon right behind me.

For a pregnant woman, she moved fast, and as we made our way through the house towards the open back door. I had to stop and search the grounds in the darkness to see where she went. After a moment, I spotted her by the treeline, and with haste, Talon and I ran across the grassy lawn towards where she was. As soon as I reached her, I grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks.

I wasn't sure what she was going to do, but with a quick reaction, she turned to me with those celestial orbs and growled. "Do not interfere."

Her words were a warning; with them, I looked to Talon with utter disbelief as my lips parted and my mouth dropped, trying to understand what had just happened.

"Did she just use her alpha tone on you?" Talon asked, causing me to grow/ at him in warning he should never bring this up again.

"Shut up. We need to follow her and see where she's going. If she's wandering around like this at night, we have to make sure that nobody is getting hurt."

Watching her, she drifted through the tree lines bare foot, walking as if searching for something. It was magical, in a way, watching her move as she was. It seemed as if she was drifting across the ground in her long nightgown until

she stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting to the left.

"Damien, she's hunting," Talon whispered and, sure enough, at his words. She took off into a sprint.

Moving through the trees faster than I had ever seen before. She darted in and out in woven patterns until com ing to an abrupt stop behind a tree. There, just beyond the tree about a hundred feet in front of her, was a massive stag.

Thad seen her act this way once before, but never with this much determination.

Like the violent, deadly predator she was, she stalked closely without the stag, even realizing that she was there. Until, of course, it was too late.

Jumping upon the animal, she ripped into its throat un til it lay unmoving. Her claws and teeth dug at its flesh as she gorged herself. There was something beautiful about what was happening. Perhaps that was just my biased opinion, though, since I was her mate.

With the elder coming, though, there was no way we could allow this behavior to happen. If it did, there was no telling what she would report back to the Council, and

there was no reassuring the fact Ivy would remain safe.

Inhaling deeply, she groaned with satisfaction as she ate. Her celestial eyes slowly slid towards us with a smile spread from ear to ear. "I'm sorry, guys. I was starving, and I had to fill the hunger..." Ivy wasn't like Talon and Hale. With them, there were two separate entities combined into one permanent thought. She was one celestial individual with the tendency to have a bipolar personality. Priscilla had assured me during the many visits I had had with her to talk in private, that eventually, Ivy would be able to control how she acted and, over time, could adapt to situations.

For now, though, we would simply have to deal with ev erything because while she was pregnant, she is a little more unpredictable.

She was a creature nobody had ever seen before, carry ing twins.

Hormones be damned and all that jazz.

"It's OK," I said as I stepped forward and brushed the hair from her face. "I'm not upset at you, Ivy."

"Damien's right," Talon said quickly as he stepped to my side. "You're pregnant, and you have urges, as any primal animal would, to hunt when you're hungry. However, we need to find a better solution to this." Frowning, she bit her bottom lip as she stood to her feet and nodded her head. She looked guilty for what she had done, and that was not the intention Talon and I had. We didn't want her to think her hunting was a problem be cause it wasn't.

It was in our nature to do so.

However, unlike her, the four of us went on monthly hunts with the rest of the pack, which was something that we still had not allowed her to do because her uniqueness was quite different from ours.

She didn't shift into a wolf like the rest of us. So for the pack members, it would come as a shock because they wouldn't be used to it. Not to mention we weren't sure if she wouldn't hurt one of them by accident. In Priscilla's words, Ivy was a gift from the Moon God dess herself, a reincarnation of a mother to walk the earth.

Even though I was pretty sure she was something else

entirely.

Taking her hand, we led her back up towards the house just in time to be greeted by James and Hale, who stood at the back door waiting.

"I take it we had an interesting night?" Hale replied with a smirk as James rolled his eyes, wrapping a blanket around Ivy's shoulders.

"Ignore them, sweetie. Let's go get you cleaned up," James said as he ushered her through the house towards the stairs.

Before Ivy, James was never this kind of man. It was like the day the matebond was complete, he became some thing else entirely. He was sensitive and caring towards her in a way that the rest of us never could be. Perhaps that was why the goddess gave her four mates.

Each of us held different aspects of emotions she would need.

When she was finally out of earshot, I turned to my brothers with a pondering expression, trying to find the best way to address this. There was a lot to consider, but protecting her was at the top of the list.

We couldn't let the council see her in this way. They

55 30%

would jump to conclusions for sure.

"We have to figure this out with her. The last thing I would want to happen is for somebody else to get hurt while she's hunting, or perhaps her going on a little spree that we can't seem to control, not saying that she would... but you never know what could happen."

"You're acting as if she is a monster," Talon sneered. "She is our mate and the Luna of this pack. Give her a little more credit."

"I'm not acting like anything, Talon," I growled at him. "I' m merely stating facts. We have to be careful."

With a drink in his hand, Hale sighed, running his other hand through his hair. "Let's stop arguing. She will hear us."

Taking a deep breath, I reined in my anger and took a moment to compose myself. "You're right. Now, what can we do to help her?"

"I wonder if the need isn't specifically the hunt. But it is the consumption driving her primal nature," Hale replied, looking between Talon and I.

Arching my brow, I considered what he was saying. "Like feed her the meat without her having to hunt."

"Essentially, yes. Just like animals in captivity, they are fed every day on a regular schedule and therefore, if put out into the wild, do not know how to hunt instinctively. If we considered that with her and kept her fed regularly, it may dim down the primal nature to hunt."

"You do realize that you literally just referred to our mate as a captive animal?" Talon snapped as he crossed his arms over his chest and huffed in displeasure.

"Shut the fuck up, man. That is not what I meant. I was simply using that as an analogy," Hale responded as Talon flipped him the middle finger.

At times, they could really be immature, and it drove me crazy with how they acted. Sometimes I wasn't sure if

they were capable of acting normal.

"Both of you knock it off. This isn't what we need right now," I said as I thought over what Hale had explained. It honestly would make a lot of sense if it worked.

"I'm just saying that if it does work, it could be an excel lent solution to this issue. If she does not need to hunt be cause the fresh meat is being supplied, then perhaps she will be a lot more containable."

I heard the soft patter of feet from the hallway, and as we all turned to look, we saw Ivy standing there freshly showered with a grim expression on her face.

"I'm willing to try it," she whispered as she acted as if nothing at all had happened. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Ivy, we're not trying to change. You were just-"

"Damian, stop. I get it, and you're right. There are situations where this kind of behavior will not be acceptable, like with the Council member coming. With how uncontrollable these situations happen, I don't want anybody to get hurt because I mistake them when I'm in that mode."

Spoken like a true Luna. I swelled with pride, but I felt incredibly guilty because she accepted us when she first found out. Yet, it felt like we weren't accepting what she

was.

"Okay. We will figure something else for you," I replied, watching her sip on the water that she pulled from the fridge. "Why don't you try to get some sleep? You need all the rest you can get."

Nodding her head, she cast her glance aside and smiled at the others before pushing past James and walk ing back upstairs. This was the type of treatment that pissed me off more than anything. She agreed and said it was okay, but she was more hurt than anything.

"She's upset with me, isn't she?" I said with a sigh.

"You think? She heard the entire conversation. She does have super hearing, after all, and she knew you were talking about her, so Hale, referring to her as a captive ani mal, definitely lost you some brownie points." James looked at each of us, shaking his head before a smile cracked across his face, and he turned, heading out of the room. He was right, though. We did mess up, and by the look on Hale's face; he was absolutely devastated that Ivy misconstrued what he was saying.

It meant that he would have to work extra hard to get back in her good graces.