“El needs Shawn,” he said again when it appeared as though Shawn was shaking harder.
“Shawn!You need to fight,” Marcus yelled at him.
“Your mom needs you, too.We can’t have you shifting right now.We need to get your mom some help.”
“Shawn,” his mother called out as best she could.
Her crippled sounding voice finally doing the trick.Shawn looked down at her, and his panther slowly slipped away.Shawn sank back to the ground and bent down to kiss his mother’s forehead.
“We’re going to take you back to the Pride, mom.There’s a healer there that may be able to help.”
“El?”she asked.
“Gone.Willow and Persia—a human friend of El’s—took her three days ago,” Shawn explained.
“Not human,” his mother replied.
“You know Persia?”Trip asked.
“Mother,” she whispered.
“What?”Shawn asked.
“Persia.Mother,” she tried again.
“Persia is Willow’s mother?”
“El’s.”
“Holy shit.Come one, we need to get back to the Pride, now.I’m going to call El’s father on the road and have him meet us over there,” Trip said.
Shawn eased his arms under his mother’s frail body and lifted her.He carried her gently to the truck and slid into the back seat, never putting her down.
“We need to call Claudia and get her to the main house as well,” Marcus said as he hopped in the passenger seat.
“You call Claudia; I’m calling our father-in-law.”
Chapter 27
El
Three days had passed,and even though she didn’t want to eat or acknowledge that they were right about her being pregnant, El did what she needed for the baby.Anytime she demanded an ultrasound or a doctor, they refused, stating that Willow was doing all that needed to be done.One day El tried to refuse Willow to touch her, but Willow just simply bound her with magic and did it anyways.In typical Willow fashion, though she apologized the entire time.El wanted to believe they were sincere, but she just snarled and retreated to the tiny closet they had made her room once Willow had finished.
Leilani was a whole different nightmare that El was all together refusing to deal with.Leilani seemed fine with El’s dismissal and stuck to just talking to Willow and Persia, mostly when El wasn’t around.El had a thousand questions for all of them, but mostly Persia.
She claimed to be El’s mother, but nothing about that claim was substantiated with evidence.Nothing they were saying was.They just kept spouting off crap, and El was expected to believe it and go along with it.If it weren’t for Willow’s damn magic keeping her stuck there, she would have already run.
El tried not to think of her mates because thinking of them just made the separation more painful.She hoped they weren’t in much pain, and that they were close to finding her.El wished so desperately that she could discuss with Ryan about his mother’s involvement in the whole charade.
“Are you hungry, El?”Willow asked, pulling El from her thoughts
“No,” El responded.
“It’s good for the baby that you eat around five small healthy meals a day.I’d gladly fix you some fruit or a sandwich.”
“I’m fine.It’s hard to tell if there even is a baby,” El said snidely.
“I have no reason to lie to you.”
