Louise and Richard

CHAPTER 2 - Jobs blurred into each other, I swear I hadn’t slept a night in three weeks but that was ok as I had the money! Two grand should cover me for what I needed, well I was hoping so anyway. It would have been a small bit more but I had to buy new clothes and food. I had some spare to get a drink or two before I had to meet up with my contact about a passport and driving licence. But as was my luck I was late because the shelter I wanted to grab a shower at and changed wasn’t open. Again I found another and washed up and shaved, I just made it to the hotel on time. Running a hand over  my now smooth chin looking around, the hotel was more upmarket than I would have thought would be used for illicit business. But there in the back was my guy.

                                                                             Pulling out a chair and easing myself into it, looking at the guy across the table. “Can I help you?” Nodding once. “Yes I believe you can, I was told you were the man to ask about newspapers.” “That I might be, but who would have told you that.” Leaning forward onto the table, hands spread wide. “See Mad Brady told me you wouldn’t mind helping out, he also took some pics of me so you would know me.” Tapping my fingers on the table just wanting this over with, it had been a long while since I had cleaned up and went out to a decent bar. “Lucky I like Mad Brady, so you got something for me?” Pulling the envelope with the money from my back pocket and sliding it across the table. Looking around and no one was paying any attention. Maybe this was a good place for dirty dealings. “Now you got anything for me?” Taking the bigger envelope from the table, rolling it up and pushing it into my back pocket standing. “So that is us done then?” Looking at the guy, watching him nod me away, my envelope gone in the blink of an eye.

                                                                                                                               Turning away and going to the bar, getting a whiskey straight up and downing it in one. Getting another but sipping this one, the burn from the first heating me up in a pleasant way. Letting my eyes get lost in the optics behind the bar, reading the labels on the bottles without really taking it in. The bulge of the envelope burning at me, I wanted to see them, just didn’t want to take them out here. Draining the last of the whiskey pushing away from the bar leaving a tip. Turning and almost walking straight into a blonde with a rack almost a foot out from her chest. “Sorry wasn’t paying attention miss.” Nodding my head along smiling, watching as she placed her hand on my arm. “No worries darlin. How about you buy me a drink?”

                                                                                                                               Laughing, freeing my arm, looking past the blonde to the man behind her. His scent was heavy on her, so much so that I would bet they had just screwed like rabbits. “I think you better ask your friend behind you, I have to be going but you have a nice night.” Walking backwards till I was out of her reach, turning away a skip in my step. Tomorrow I will open a bank account, the next day world domination! Promising myself the next time I step inside this hotel I wouldn’t be buying a false licence and passport. I would stay there or have a nice meal, the cold air hitting me with fresh scents of the night. Taking one step but stopping at the hand on my shoulder, turning to see the blonde again. “Hey don’t run off yet, I bet we could show you a good time. This is our last night here, we...we…” A question on face as I looked past her to the man following us out onto the street. “We want to hook up!” Watching her turn to look at the man then back at me, her arousal playing across my tongue. Looking at the man. “This for real?” Watching as he steps up beside the blonde, a hand around her waist, his own scent of interest also hitting me. “Yes, we can pay!”

CHAPTER 1 - Folding the few piss poor bills and shoving them into my back pocket, stalking away from the fish market the grey light of dawn shifting to a weak wintery yellow day. Pulling the sides of my thread thin denim jacket closed, the buttons long gone. I wasn’t that cold but humans would stare at me if I walked around in only a tee-shirt. That being said I wasn’t as warm as I should be after four hours of hard labour unloading the fishing trawlers, but then I hadn’t had a hot meal in days. Hot meal, shower, change of clothes. All things most take for granted, but for me these days were luxuries I wanted and wish for each night when I curled up with the rest of the homeless and tried to stay warm and safe as night fell. But I still didn’t have it as bad as most, I could always shift and hunt down a meal. But that would also mean leaving the city, not that I didn’t want that as well but where could I go? Life was so much harder right now. I had no identity. I didn’t have a birth cert, driver's licence, social security number. Which meant I couldn’t have a bank account or rent a place or get a tax paying job. Thirty years ago I had gone with my pack and hidden away, but then, I left and couldn't go back. But to live out here in this age. My alpha had warned me, told me I would regret leaving. Told me I wouldn’t be welcomed back. I had laughed at him and went. Thirty years and I wouldn’t go back, but how much longer could I live like this. 

                                                                                                        It wasn’t even as if my alpha had been cruel, it was more me wanting to be in charge. I wanted to lead not follow. My parents had begged me to stay, hell Sal had begged me to stay. And alpha’s aren’t meant to beg. But he did, stating that I didn’t fully understand how hard it was to go it alone. To have no one to fall back on, to help and just be there to talk to. But I was young, twenty years old and I thought I knew it all. Thought I could be an alpha, thought the rest of my friends would follow. But then they didn’t and I was too proud to back down. Sal had understood even if he didn’t like it, he gave me ten thousand which I thought would last me a lifetime. It might have if I had invested it, or just been sensible. But no, thirty years ago it was a lot but I was young and spent it all. In a matter of five years I was lost in the world and broke, and as the years went by I fell further behind it. I stayed young looking but that didn’t always help me. And jobs that came easy got scarce as time went by, now as I don’t have a bank account or address I can’t get most. And what I can get I have to fight for and each day it is first come first serve. 

Louise tripped yet again her body running on empty, the baby girl tied to her chest with scarfs she had stolen from a shop. The wee babe was keening as she was hungry, Louse wasn’t able to feed her as her body needed everything to keep it going. Her plan right now was to get back to her father and then eat rest and feed the baby. Picking herself up out of the mud and pushing herself onwards, she was now on pack land and could pick up the scents of them. Her only real worry now was that the baby in her arms was human. But she would never let them know her own baby was now well hidden in the human world as she herself didn’t even know the woman whose baby she took and replaced with hers. 

      She wouldn’t worry or look for her own daughter till she had too or she could guarantee her safety. At last the little village her pack called home came into view, Louise nearly dropped down where she was and cried. Pushing herself on not meeting anyone’s eyes, she felt them, oh did she feel them. Rose Louise’s mother came running out of her home, wrapping her arms around her daughter tears in her eyes. “Lord Louise I didn’t think I would ever see you again. How are you? How did you get away from the Outcasts?” Louise let her body lean into her mother still holding back her tears, her father had taught her well. Never show weakness in front of others, as the daughter of the Alpha she was never to show weakness. “Mum I’m fine I just need to sit.” Shifting her hold on the baby tied to her front, She locked eyes with her mother. “I need to eat so I can feed my baby.” 

                                                                                                                 Rose closed her eyes and berated in deep, her slumped shoulders the only outward change as she helped her daughter into their home. Getting them settled at the kitchen table a sandwich and a glass of milk for her daughter. “Will I hold the baby while you eat?” Louise smiled untying the baby girl and handing her to her mother. “She has missed about two feeds but I am sure now I am home and can rest and eat my milk will come back in.” 

                                                                                      “You think you will be staying here with that bastard outcast child!” Louise turned to see her father standing in the doorway. John Graham Alpha and her father, a man she had always looked up to. A man that right now was looking at her with so much anger and hate that she felt sick. “Father I…”

                                                                                                                    “Enough!” John stamped in and over to his wife who was still holding the baby, taking the baby and holding it tight so he could sniff it. Shaking his head pushing the now crying baby back into his daughters outstretched arms. “Get out and never come back. You and this HUMAN child are nothing to us. Nothing!” Louise gripping the baby close her tears flowing down her cheeks, keeping her eyes down her voice a whisper. “Why?”

                                                                                  John laughed, not a nice happy full belly laugh, no a hard short laugh. A laugh filled with hate. “Why. I’ll tell you why. You ran away, ran to be with that outcast. What was it your note said?” John looked to Rose, a tear falling down her own cheek. Placing a hand on her shoulder he turned his back on his daughter. “You said you were in love with Thomas and in your eyes he wasn’t an Outcast. So here you are, back with what I take is his offspring. His human offspring. Louise they are Outcasts for a reason, not always having pure breed babies. Just like the one in your arms, so as you can see that baby is an Outcast as are you.”

                                                               “John no, please.” Rose covered her face with her hands crying into them. “Rose, it is out of my hands, the pack won’t let me back down just because it is my daughter. Hell they will demand I am harder on her. And you know what that will mean.” Rose cried harder into her hands, John just squeezed her shoulder as he looked at the wall. “Louise you need to go and go now, if not I will be forced to take away your wolf as I would do to anyone who disrespects the pack. You didn’t just leave us, you left to be with the outcasts. Now go.” 

                                           Louise breathed in hard as she looked at her father’s back, at last her choices sinking in. What did she really think would happen when she left, she knew she wouldn’t be allowed back. Yet she thought she was in love, she was in love. But Thomas wasn’t with her, never wanted her, just what she could give him. A pure breed Outcast or as near to pure breed as the baby would be. Looking to her father’s back holding the baby girl tight to her chest. “I’m going but now this. Thomas and his father planned this. They kept going on about some prophecy, they wanted to kill my baby as she is human and try again. As I am or was your daughter they thought my child, a child from Thomas and myself, would fulfil the prophecy.”

                             John growled as he spun, two steps and he was leaning over Louise. “You know nothing of the prophecy for a reason. The Outcasts were thrown out for a reason. And I will not explain myself to you.” John placed his hand on Louise’s forehead pushing is Wolf into her mind, his wolf grabbed hold of her wolf and shut it down. Louise gasped as she slid off the chair to the floor, her hands almost dropping the baby. “What have you done! WHAT!!” Her father crouched down his voice low. “Get out and never come back. You and that baby are never to step foot and pack land.”

                                                           John stormed out the sound of Rose’s sobs and Louise’s deep breaths the only sound. Even the baby was quiet. Rose went to a drawer then back to her daughter, pushing a card into her hands. “Take this it is mine, it is the money I earn from working at the hospital library. John wasn’t happy about it as I was working with humans so I told him it was voluntary work only. I’m not sure how much is there but it has been ten years so it should be enough to help you get started, and I will add to it as long as I can.” Rose hugged her daughter crying for the faith she now would face. “I will always be your mother, but I can’t go against your father or the pack. There is more going on here than you know. But I will tell you this. You are now human so you won’t have your wolf to help you. You need to stay away from vampires. If you thought what Thomas put you through was hard what a vampire would do with your daughter would be worse. I can’t tell you about the prophecy but I can tell you to stay away from vampires and remember, you will now age as a human.”

             Louise looked back once at her mother from inside the taxi she had called, it was a pack member, someone she grew up with. Yet he wouldn’t even look her in the eye, he dropped her at the train station in the town and left. Louise was covered in mud and knew she needed to get away. Thomas would be looking for her, her father and HIS pack wouldn’t be able to help. The loss of her wolf was hitting her hard, everything around her felt duller somehow. But right now she needed to move, walking away from the train station Louise wasn’t going to make it easy on anyone following her. She was going to get herself sorted and not let anything happen to the baby girl in her arms.

                                                                                         A few streets later and Louise booked into a B and B, a bag of new clothes for herself and baby. Some toiletries which were sorely needed, nappies! A bag of junk food which she was half way through and thank the gods her body was now relaxed enough to feed her daughter. Because the two of them were now in it together. After feeding her daughter and washing and changing her, tucking her into the middle of the bed as she showered and cleaned herself up. Ok baby I need to name you, Louise packed up all of her new belongings into a rucksack, smiling down at the sleeping baby in the middle of the bed. Now dressed in a pink baby grow and with a nappy on smelling of baby powder, Louise knew she couldn’t stay in the B and B in case anyone saw her checking in. But now that she was clean and had eaten she felt much better, was she missing her wolf, yes. But she needed to keep moving as Hope needed her to make her safe. Louise blinked looking down again at the baby. “Hope, yes I think you are a hope my little one. So hope you shall be called.” 

Louise awoke to the sound of the baby crying, the baby girl's weak cry coming from outside the room she was in. Grunting as she shook her groggy head Louise let the memories of the car ride flood back into her brain. The feeling of being trapped, the pain as the baby girl was removed from her arms once getting back to the compound. The pain of Thomas’s fist as he hit her over and over, his anger at her running away only matched by his anger of her having given birth to a daughter. 

                                                                       Louise bit her fist to keep from crying out loud as the words of the healer ring in her ears, the witch who looked out for the outcast had taken the baby out of her arms and tested her. The baby girl's cries were squeals of pain, but the witch’s words were a death sentence to the baby. “This baby is human Thomas, she has no magic or wolf.” That was when Thomas decided to kill her with his fists, if it hadn’t been for his father Paul pulling him off her. “Belinda how could my son and John Graham’s daughter not conceive a wolf. Thomas can shift. I have seen Louise shift hell. I think she is an Omega. Thomas and the rest of our Outcasts were calmer with her here.” 

                                                                                                      Belinda still holding the crying baby laughed, placing the baby down hard into a crib. “Paul if you don’t tell your son to stop beating on Louise we can’t make this right.” The witch walked over to her work space and started pulling down books till she found what she was looking for. “See the prophecy states we need a male, so we keep breeding her till we get what we need.” Thomas grunted as he was pulled away from Louise by his father. Turning his back away from the beaten wolf and focusing on the healer. “Look Belinda I knocked up the bitch already, the baby isn’t even worth anything to us. Hell it is completely human. You told us so yourself. Why would I go there again. Maybe we need to seduce a better she-wolf.” 

                                                                                               Paul slapped his son across the back of the head. *Shut it you fool, you won’t find a better breeding wolf then John Graham’s daughter. He is the alpha, not just any alpha, but the alpha that cast us out. Think of it, we break his daughter using her to sire your son. Your son who will fulfil the prophecy.” Thomas looked down at the baby girl in the crib rubbing the back of his head. “Belinda what do you think we should do with this child? Kill her? Feed her to the wolves?” Belinda shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t care what you do but if you want the wolf to go back into heat and soon don’t leave the baby with her.” 

              Louise pulled herself back into the here and now, the weak cries of the baby girl getting softer. She knew it was now or never. Paul had taken Thomas off somewhere to do who knows what. They had left her beaten and broken, only a locked door between her and the baby she knew was in trouble in the other room. She wasn’t sure where the healer Belinda was or if she was outside, but she needed to try and help the baby girl. She needed to let her father know what the Outcasts were trying to do. She wasn’t sure what this prophecy was all about that they all seemed so upset about. But her father needed to know, but first she needed to save the baby girl. 

                                                                 Louise crawled to the door and pushed with all her strength, letting her wolf help her. The sound of the wooden door cracking seemed so loud to her yet no one came running, seeing that as, as good a sign as any Louise stood and went to the baby girl. Picking her up and cradling her to her chest. “Hush baby girl I am getting you out of here, but I need you to work with me.” Louise kissed the red haired baby as she pushed some of her own power into her, Paul had been right. She was an Omega, not even her father knew it. How could he when she had hid it from everyone, Omega’s were rear and when they were born their life was forfeit to the pack and the Alpha’s wishes. 

                                                                                                                         Not that her father was an evil man, but he would have seen her as a way to better the pack. Most Alpha’s mate an Omega if they can, her father had fallen for her mother Rose and that was that. Their pack didn’t have an Omega and they managed, why would she give up her life to calm everyone. Balance everyone. Also she wanted to find love and live. “Well baby girl look how great that went. Should have listened to my father when he told me all Outcasts were no good.” Louise tucked the baby into her blood soaked shirt as best she could, cracking her neck from side to side eying up the window. She had one chance to do this and speed was going to be key. 

Louise cried as softly as she could stripping her baby girl down to her nappy, each movement as gentle as could be. Washing her to remove all of Louise’s own scent then wrapping her baby girl backup in the blanket of the other little baby laying on the floor beside her baby. The baby’s mother was still sleeping in the hospital bed in the private room across the hall from where Louise was now. Placing her baby in the basket of the human women and wheeling it across the hall and back beside the bed. Louse didn’t know who the woman was, only that she was taking that woman’s baby and swapping it out with her little girl. Knowing that she didn’t have much time before Thomas and his father found her. Holding the human baby close to her chest and looking back only once letting a single tear fall. Louise ran, ran as far away as she could get from the hospital. Ran like her life depended on it, which it did, not that her life mattered any more. Only that of her daughters. A daughter she would never see again. A daughter she hoped could forgive her. A daughter that would live! 

       The baby in Louise’s arms cried as she stumbled up against a wall nearly two hours after running from Thomas. Slumping down in the shadows Louise fed the baby from her own breast, looking down at her crying seeing the red hair so unlike her own daughter’s black. “Hush little one I am going to love you and care for you. You will want for nothing. I’m your mother and I will make the world for you.” 

                                                                 “Well, well, well. You didn’t get very far did you little wolf!” Thomas knelt down facing Louise and his child. Pulling the baby away from her breast and opening the blanket his mother had made for his unborn child. Not caring that the baby was crying, keeping his eyes locked on the woman in front of him. “So tell me Louise, how is my son? Ten fingers and toes?” Thomas’s smile is pure evil sending shivers down Louise’s back, her shaking only making Thomas feel better, stronger. Here he was an outcast, yet this full blooded werewolf had just given him a son. What would her father say now? Would he be happy? Would the Alpha be able to forgive his only daughter for sleeping with an outcast? Thomas looked down at the crying baby in his arms, the tiny baby turning blue now that he had pulled the blanket away. Looking at the red hair, tiny fists, pulling the nappy back Thomas cursed long and hard. Shoving the baby back at the wolf his eyes filled with hate. “You bitch! That isn’t a son. Now you running makes sense. At first I thought you might have overheard me talking to my father.” Louise pulled the baby back and latched her on, wrapping the blanket tight around her tiny frame. “What, you thought I would be upset with hearing how you never loved me and only wanted to get me pregnant. You only wanted a son. Why would I ever be upset with finding out I was a fool. A fool to ever love you!” Thomas’s laugh was short and loud, spittle flying in the face of Louise. 

                                                                                                               “You are nothing but the fallen daughter of the great Alpha John Graham. The wolf that cast us out. Made us outcasts. I can shift into a wolf, why am I not good enough? My sister can use magic, why is she not good enough? Our father is a werewolf, why was he judged and marked with his shame. Why was it shameful to love a human? WHY!” Thomas stood, spitting down on Louise and the baby girl in her arms. Turning his back to face his father hanging his head. “Father I am sorry, it is a girl. Not the son we hoped for.”

                                                                                        Paul Byrne, the leader of what they now call the Outcasts, smiled at his son. Placing a hand on his son’s shoulder while looking down at the mother of his granddaughter. “We keep trying till we get the boy we need, then and only then will we let John Graham know what befell his only daughter. Then and only then will we bring this so-called prophecy to an end. Paul kneeled down laying a hand on the fearful wolf. “Louise, do you even know what the prophecy says? Do you even know why your father kicked us out?” Cocking his head to the side and looking at the small baby in Louise’s arms. “I know we need a son and I know you will most likely hate us by the time that happens. But I will love my granddaughter, she is an Outcast just like her father, grandfather  and mother. With our and your blood running through her veins she will be a great asset to us.”