Eternally Ivy

Chapter 5 - Answers

Ivy’s POV

“Would you stop bugging me to feed Vlad,” I growled, pacing the room the next morning while we waited for a portal to open.

Vlad and I had never fought before, but he was really starting to irate me, first with going behind my back and talking about me to Declan, and now he was trying to force-feed me blood before we left. I know he was just worried about me, I was too, but he needed to back the hell off.

“We are about to go to a place filled with hundreds of werewolves, my love. If you can honestly tell me you are not the tiniest bit hungry, then I will let it go, but there is a lot more temptation in a wolf pack than there is here, so I want to make sure.” He explained, holding out his wrist.

I rolled my eyes at him. I hated to admit it, but he was right. The dull hunger ache in my throat was back, and I couldn’t risk hurting anymore. I grabbed his wrist, bringing it to my mouth and biting down once my fangs extended. I drank until the thirst died down.

“Happy now?” I queried, a hint of sarcasm in my tone.

He cupped my cheek, leaning down to kiss my lips softly, “I am always happy with you, Ivy.”

Damn him and his romantic words. How could I stay mad at him when he was being all sweet?

Before I had the chance to tell him I was still mad at him, even if that feeling was fading, a blue vortex opened in our bedroom. If my heart were still beating, it would have been racing with anticipation. I hadn’t seen Emerson in two months since she married her mate Declan. Before this whole witches, wolves and vampire saga began, we were together nearly every day, I was starting to go through withdrawals, and video calls were not enough.

Vlad took my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze as we stepped into the portal together. I don’t think I would ever get used to using them to travel. They make my stomach lurch every time like I was on a rollercoaster but without the fun-ride factor. Before I could blink, we were launched from our bedroom to Declan’s office at the Lunar Eclipse pack, where my best friend and her mate were waiting for us with their witch friend Cassie.

Letting out a squeal of excitement, I ran into Emerson’s open arms, “Oh my god, how are you? You look amazing. How was your honeymoon? Tell me everything.”

“One question at a time, Ives.” She chuckled, returning my hug.

I knew Vlad was worried that I would lose control and feed on my friend, which he also knew would kill me to do, but when I hugged her and breathed in her scent, all I smelled was my friend. There was no blood lust there.

Emerson pulled away and studied my face and body, “I’m okay, Em. I think Vlad is overreacting a bit.”

“No, I’m not.” He argued gruffly from behind me.

Rolling my eyes at Emerson, I mouthed yes, he is, making her break out in a fit of giggles. “Come on, girl, let’s leave the boys to talk, and we can catch up. I have so many photos to show you. You have an appointment with the pack doctor in a couple of hours.”

I could see the hesitation on Vlad’s face when I turned around like he needed to be close to me in case I hulked out. “Vlad, please, trust me to say something if I’m not okay, plus Emerson has her witchy powers to subdue me if necessary, which I doubt it will be. You need to stop hovering, and besides, you can give Declan an update on your meetings yesterday, kill two birds with one stone.

Before he had a chance to argue, I linked arms with my friend and headed away from him for a little while. I hated it when we were apart, but I think a small amount of distance would do us good at the moment. Ten minutes later, we were down in one of the lounge rooms on the first floor of the packhouse with her laptop between us, scrolling through the photos. Her honeymoon looked amazing.

“I can not believe you got to go to Paris, you lucky bitch.” I exclaimed in awe as she showed me the photos of the view from the Eiffel Tour.

Emerson was an amazing artist, so when Declan surprised her with a trip to France for their honeymoon, she was thrilled. All of that art and culture just waiting to be seen. It was an artist’s paradise. I was a little jealous. My parents travelled all over the world, but I hadn’t even left the states. The closest I had gotten was moving to Alaska. I wanted to see what was outside of America’s borders and experience how others lived.

It was great to be able to chill with Emerson, like in the old days. It bought a little normalcy back to my life when I was starting to forget about what my life was like before the world of the supernatural was revealed to me. It made me feel somewhat human again.

But that all ended when the boys came down and told us it was time to head to the hospital. I couldn’t miss the looks we were getting from the other wolves in the pack as we made our way down there. A lot of them still remembered when Malik attached the pack to get hold of Emerson and tarnished us with the same brush. I couldn’t win. The vampires disliked me because Emerson killed their leader and the wolves disliked me for being a vampire. I wouldn’t let that affect me. I held my head hire and pretended that their stares didn’t bother me. You had to fake it until you made it, right?

When we finally made it to the hospital, Emerson waited outside with Declan while Vlad joined me in an exam room to wait for the doctor. When we first got here, the nurse had been by to draw some blood, but she had a hard time finding a needle strong enough to pierce my skin, so I resorted to slicing my wrist with a scalpel to fill the tube. I was used to the brief amount of pain I got before the wounds have healed now, so it wasn’t a big issue. I was amazed to see the kind of set-up they had managed in such a remote area. There were treatment rooms, three operating theatres and even a pathology lab. From what Em had told me, they had forty staff working here, a combination of both doctors and nurses. They still had to attend college to get their degrees, and then they came back to work for the pack. Werewolves were in their human state the majority of the time, so it made sense they learned at a human college. I actually think the doctors here get off easy with wolves. With their super healing, they never needed to come here unless the injuries were severe or they were having pups.

You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. I had never seen Vlad so tense before. Hopefully, the doctor will have some answers for us or else I would never get my partner back to his normal self. Before I could say anything to Vlad to calm down, the door opened and in strolled the doctor in her white lab coat.

“Hello, there you must be, Ivy and Vlad. My name is Dr Hayden Young but feel just to call me Hayden.” She advised, pulling up a chair and resting the iPad on her legs, “My alpha tells me you’ve been having some issues. Look, I’ll be honest, I’m not too familiar with vampire anatomy, but I will certainly try my best.”

The doctor listened patiently while Vlad went through his concerns and gave her a rundown on our species in general, and when he was done, she started looking at my blood test results.

Her brow creased as she read the screen, “You said the male of your species is the only one that can reproduce?”

Vlad nodded in agreement, “Yes, that is correct.”

“Ivy, I’m going get you to lie on the exam table and lift up your top. I just want to check something.” She explained.

I did as I was good and waited as she bought an ultrasound machine over to me, squirting some gel on my stomach and then pressing down on my belly with the device, her eyes studying the screen intensely.

“I don’t know how to say this or even how it's possible, but you are pregnant, Ivy.” She advised.

“No.” I retorted, my voice full of disbelief, turning my attention to Vlad, “I can’t be pregnant. Tell her Vlad, tell her this isn’t possible.”

Hayden turned the screen around, and there it was in black and white, a little jellybean shape right in front of my eyes. “There is your baby. It’s normal for a woman to get easily tired at the beginning and an increased appetite too.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen. This couldn’t be real. It had to be someone’s sick idea of a joke. I had resigned myself to the idea that I was never going to be a mother, that it wasn’t in the cards for me. I mean, I hadn’t planned on having kids until I was a lot older, but when you get something back that you lost, can you really be picky about it?