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Chapter 16: The Arrangement

Kyle

I know the scowl I will find etched on her face before even looking at her. There is no reason to mince my words, or soften the blow of what is required from her.

She’s attractive enough, and my body is already aching for her in a way I find both confusing and different. I am not a virgin, but I know I have never found my body reacting to a woman the way mine is at the very proximity of this witch.

I can smell the subtle hint of wild lavender and strawberry marinating on her. It doesn’t help that merely by kissing her, it has stirred her to the point of arousal; I can smell her desire for me. This is making me want to just take her here and now in every way possible, but I have to control myself.

“Sorry, you want me to do what?” Thelma asks.

I hate repeating myself to anyone, but I admit, this is a rather serious proposal that probably sounds insane. It’s not just a question of lust and passionate sex, but rather one of life or death.

“I want you to have my child,” I repeat as I press a button to start up the engine of the car again.

We need to continue on our route to my place where I can be sure she is safe. I know Rhia put a protection and tracing spell around the car in case whatever attacked Thelma’s home returns, but I can’t take any chances not knowing what we are up against.

I grip the steering tightly and accelerate back onto the highway. The car’s sheer speed jerks the girl back into her seat and her hand graces my wrist, her fingers trying to grab onto something for support. She quickly pulls them away the moment she realizes it, but the redness in her face can’t hide her embarrassment.

“How?” Thelma inquires.

I know twenty-one is pretty young for a witch, but I would have thought they taught biology in human schools.

“What do you mean, how? Don’t you know how babies are made? Bird and bees?” I ask, not wanting to be too graphic.

I could tell her how people make love. How when a man is on edge the way I am, due to her closeness, they penetrate the welcoming mound of the female and….The very thought makes my manhood jump in anticipation. Damn this witch! Whatever it is about her is making me want to show her and not just tell her.

“I am twenty-one, of course. I know how babies are made. My question is, how do you propose I carry your child? How do you plan to put it inside me? Insemination? Bluetooth?”

I can’t help but chuckle. I wish things could be that simple. Just put my seed in a cup and have a doctor pour it inside her…that’s how insemination works, right?

“The very act of making the child is paramount to the process. It has to be done the traditional way,” I explain.

“So you want to marry me?”

This time I throw my head back and laugh. I look at Thelma for a split second before returning my sights to the road ahead. Just a quick glance is all I needed to catch the bewildered and hurt look on her face, a far cry from the shy redness from before.

“Listen, princess, I am not in the market for a wife. All I need is someone to carry my child. A surrogate,” I offer.

Through my peripheral vision, I can see Thelma shift uncomfortably in her seat.

“Couldn’t you get another person to be your surrogate? Maybe make a post in a Craigslist advert? What about your girlfriend…or wife? I am assuming that is why you aren’t in the market for a wife. You’re taken?”

Stepping on the accelerator, I feel the car obeying and speeding forward. The sooner we get home and I can be as far from this witch, the better. I need to think clearly and focus. The scent of her arousal still lingers in the car and my manly length is rising, eager to tangle with her most sensitive spots.

“I am not taken, I just don’t believe in commitment and all that lovey dovey nonsense. See, I could have gone online to find a surrogate or just picked a damsel from my pack to do that, but not just anyone can carry my seed. It has to be you. A powerful, pure-blooded witch. You are the chosen one, Thelma.”

“I am not sure if that is supposed to be a compliment or a mockery….Why can’t anyone else carry your child? Is it because the child will tear their mother from the inside out? Will it eat its way out? Will it have horns? Will the child be like that thing I saw back at my home?”

“Maybe worse, princess.” I can hear her respirate sharply and it’s clear she didn’t find my attempt at a joke funny.

I continue, “The child will be a hybrid, yes, but it will be as much of a human as you are. I am a hybrid. My mother was a vampire and my father a wolf. I was the evidence of their forbidden affair. A rare occurrence, but possible. My mother decided to hide me or else her family would have killed me as a baby. A lonely leviathan took me in. He raised me as his own, and before he returned to his own land, he transferred some of his power to me. He did this to make me stronger. Invincible so to speak. However, Leviathan powers inside a living and breathing being have their complications unless the genes are passed onto an offspring.”

There is silence for a few minutes. As I take the exit that leads to my pack’s territory, Thelma speaks. “Leviathan as in a fish? So, when you transform…do you ever turn into a fish? Or Aqua Man? Don’t say SpongeBob.”

Huh. She has a sense of humor.

“The Leviathan I am talking about is more of a demonic skinwalker. It can take on the form of a human being, but is not human by a far cry. When I shift, I am what you saw earlier. Sorry to burst your bubble, princess, but a sweet sponge isn’t what I turn into…I am much-much worse than that–some may even call me a demon–when I allow all sides of myself to come to the surface.”

Again, there is silence before she talks. I wonder what sarcastic comeback she has engineered.

“What do you mean worse? Do you really jail people’s souls in a dungeon?”

I smile. So she had heard the stories.

“Maybe I do, princess. But, if you give me a child, I am willing to let you keep your little soul. Listen, you aren’t coming with me so you can do research on my backstory; just give me a child and all will be well. Stay hidden from whatever it is that is hunting you and I will also make sure your family is protected.”

“Who is after me and my family? Why?”

She’s full of questions, I see. Will we reach twenty-one by the end of the car ride?

I sigh. “Hunters perhaps, but the magic I sensed at your home seems to be something else entirely. Hunters rarely use magic to kill, so I assume there is something far more sinister lurking. It seems your ‘transition’ attracted a lot of attention.”

“You don’t say,” she says and I catch her gawking at me.

Of course, I was also another guilty party, attracted to her since her transition.

“I know my reasons for seeking you aren’t noble by any means, but at least I’m not trying to kill you. I can’t say the same about whatever or whoever else is out there,” I explain.

“But why would anyone want to kill me?” Thelma asks desperately.

“Because you are a witch. Because you were born. Because you breathe. I don’t know. I have been hunted for years too, but no one dares come near me. I am the soul captor amongst other things, thus only a fool would dare try to attack me,” I boast.

“So, if I agree to your proposal, will we have sex?” she asks bluntly.

I blink. Damn it. I thought the only lessons she would need were those to hone her powers from Rhea, but it seems my Beta’s wife will have to throw in a biology lesson or two for our witch.

“Yes. We would have to have sex,” I answer, feeling like I am talking to a naive child.

“Just once?”

Oh, boy!

“No, Thelma. We would have to have sex daily until you get pregnant,” I clarify.

“Oh, okay. Then what happens after that? Do I keep the child?”

“No. You are just going to carry the child. After the child pops out of you, the deal is done. If the threat to you and your family is dealt with, you can go back home. The child stays with me. You are merely here to be a surrogate.”

A quick sideways glance reveals Thelma worrying her bottom lip. I hope she agrees to the deal or I will have to turn the car around and drop her back off at her home. Whatever or whoever attacked her will definitely return and she will be the one begging me for protection.

“I surely hope babies don’t pop out of women in the way you make it seem.”

“That’s the least of your worries….” I joke, but I know she doesn’t respond well to those.

Ignoring it, she continues, “So, you will keep my family and me safe as long as I sleep with you until I fall pregnant, with no love, or strings, attached. I will then give birth to a child…sorry, pop out a baby, that you will keep and raise on your own, or with whoever you deem fit, and I will return home as if nothing happened?”

Well. There isn’t any use in sugarcoating the proposal. I start mentally preparing to turn the car around.

“Yes, so to speak,” I say as I position my hands on the wheel to do a u-turn.

“I see.” She exhales slowly. “Fine. It’s a deal.”

Sexy witch says what?

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