Chasing Charlie

Demi God?

A variety of blood tests had been ordered but everything had come back looking absolutely normal.

Charlie was in her bed with an IV in her arm pumping fluids into her body that would hopefully mitigate how horrible she would feel in the morning, while Liam sat by her side looking more worried than Dr. Norris had ever seen him look in all her life. Meanwhile Dr. Norris had returned to her office and was scanning the enormous bookshelf that had once belonged to her father. It had all of her books in it, but she knew that it had some of his and even some that had belonged to her mother.

When she was small, after school she would come and sit in his office while he worked and she would color and read and she had had a shelf of books. Because he was nostalgic he had never replaced them and because he had left them she had decided to leave them be as well.

Nicole couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the book, and could only vaguely remember a leather cover with green jewels encrusted across the front. Histories of the Highland, Lowlands, Lochs, and Isles. She wasn't quite certain the memory was even real, but now she got down on her knees, tying her long dark hair back in a bun, and searched the bottom shelf, which thankfully the house keeping crew dusted since no one else had touched the books that were down that low in years.

The moment she saw it she wondered how she ever could have forgotten it. It was a large, thick book, and it made a crackling sound in her hands when she opened it. Going back to her desk she laid the book open in front of her and saw it had fallen open to the exact story she was looking for. A chill crawled up her spine.

Glancing up at the ceiling she gave a nervous laugh. "Not going to let me ignore this, eh?"

A part of her wanted to close the book and go check on her patient and pretend like the pieces weren't falling into place in her mind. Her father would be there soon since she'd asked him to come in and he still had admitting privileges at the hospital. He was mostly retired, but he kept what he needed current in case they needed an extra set of hands or in case she needed a day off.

"There is a legend among the Fae Folk that every thirty three years, or one lunar cycle, the Moon Goddess, descends during the Yule celebration when the night is at its longest. She stays for ten days with the Fae man of her choice, and when she leaves she is always with child. In nine months she returns and leaves the child back on earth, usually on the doorstep of a convent or orphanage to make its own way in the world, come what may."

"She does not intervene in its life, for the child will already have many advantages once it reaches adulthood, advantages that humans and even wolves and Fae around it will never know. For he or she will be half Fae, but the child will also be a demi-God. Their powers are bound until either their twenty-fifth birthday or until they find a mate and are marked, for all of these children of the Moon are blessed with a mate created by the Moon Goddess herself."

"All of these Moon Children, as they have been called throughout time by those who know about them, are extremely attractive to wolves, even those who are not their mates. They usually have either red or platinum blonde hair. And they all bear the same birthmark, which is a small shining silver mark of the constellation of the pleiades on their back, where their neck meets their shoulder."

"These Moon Children are capable of great good and great evil, for their power burdens them with a great responsibility as all power of such magnitude does."

Dr. Norris closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She knew that Alpha Liam had been struggling over his feelings for some human girl. He'd been trying to hide it but she was observant and she knew him better than most in the pack, other than his Beta and a few of his top warriors. Besides that, her father and his father were best friends. She suspected that whatever was blocking Charlie from receiving her powers was also partially blocking the bond between them.

"That seems like a flaw in the system." She shook her head, tucking the book under her arm as she headed back to Charlie's room. She wanted to show Alpha Liam what she had found before Charlie woke up. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it really was just a fairy tale. But the strange nagging feeling that she just couldn't shake told her that it was something more and that she at least needed to give her Alpha a heads up about what he might be dealing with.

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Liam read the words, his eyebrows knitted together, before closing the book and handing it back to her.

"You believe in what that says?" Apart from when he had looked away from his sleeping mate to read what she had handed to him, his eyes had remained fixed on Charlie, and even as he'd closed the book they had returned to the slight figure in the bed.

"I don't know. But that story was the thing that I just couldn't stop trying to remember when I first saw her in your office. And for some reason I just felt like I needed to tell you about it. Maybe it's nothing. But something inside of me was pushing me to tell you. Who knows, maybe we'll laugh about it in a few years because it will seem so outlandish."

Liam nodded, but he didn't smile.

"Do you know if she has that mark on her back?"

He shook his head. "I don't know yet."

"Well as soon as she wakes up have them page me. All her blood work looks perfect. I'm not too worried about the bruises since she was up and walking all around with Luke for half the day, but I would like to have a closer look at her when she wakes up, and we'll decide then if she needs any x-rays. For now her vitals look perfect."

"Thanks for everything Doctor." He said the words but didn't look up as she slipped back out of the room, clutching the book to her chest.

Turning his gaze back towards Charlie, he frowned.

All that stuff in the book couldn't really be true, could it? Fae? The Moon Goddess coming down to Earth? Those things were just legends, weren't they? He felt his wolf nudge at him from within his chest and tensed, knowing what his wolf was trying to convey. To most of the world they were just legends too. And there was just something about the little redhead laying in the bed in front of him that was mystifying and intoxicating. Was it just that she was his mate, made for him by the Goddess herself?

Or was there something else? The book had said that these special Moon Children were attractive to all wolves. Both he and his wolf bristled at the thought. No one would touch his mate.

He scooted his chair closer and reached out to touch her hand before resting his head on his own arm. He would just let his eyes rest for a moment. It had, after all, been an extremely long day.

A/N- I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you did I'd love it if you'd comment and click that little star button to vote for it.

This is Chapter Eight, but don't worry the entire story will be posted here in the next few weeks. This entire story is already up on Patreon for anyone who can't wait that long, along with many others under "The Alpha and The Red Head." And for those of you who want more stories, long and short, right this second and who want to read Patreon exclusive short stories, you may also want to check out the link below:

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