The Midwife's Moon (5 page)

“Hello, Elizabeth.” Lisa smiled. “Your mate will be happy you’re here with him. You’ll be safe in my home,” she added when the woman’s eyes stayed open and afraid. “Did they explain to you what’s happening and who I am?”

“No. They told me Marty was in a predicament, and that I was needed. Marty was nearly incoherent in the two minute call I had with him.”

Lisa gave the guard a reproachful look. However, safety was their strong suit, not people’s emotions. Even the women guards were not always understanding or intuitive about what a wife might need to know. Lisa mentally sighed. At least Elizabeth was here now. “Come in, and sit on the sofa. I’d like to take a baseline on you, and see where we’re at.”

Lisa turned to the guard, saying, “We’ll be fine. I have good protections on the doors, and everyone’s busy preparing for a fight. I doubt we’ll be bothered.” She looked to see if Elizabeth had gone to sit on the couch as she’d asked before adding in a fierce whisper, “And next time, tell the poor woman her husband is fine!” and shut the door in the shocked guard’s face.

Lisa picked up the stethoscope and blood pressure cuff she kept on her buffet case. “Now, let’s see how you’re doing. Then you can join your husband in your room. We’ll do a full mock-up tomorrow—later today, if you’ll permit me. I’m a midwife.”

“You’re a midwife?” Elizabeth’s face held profound relief. “God, I’ve been so scared,” she said, talking fast and stumbling over words. “I haven’t seen a doctor yet. I’ve had to put my mom off every time she asks me about my doctor. She doesn’t know about me. I’ve been afraid of them doing blood work and finding out that I’m different, but I needed to care for the baby. I’m so lost. Will you really help us? You know my story? Our story?”

Lisa smiled at the young woman who was about her age. “Let me take your blood pressure, although it seems I may have inadvertently caused it to rise. Once we get a baseline, we can talk.”

Somehow Elizabeth managed to keep her tongue still, even though Lisa could practically feel the other woman bursting with wants and questions. She wrote down the blood pressure and took Elizabeth’s pulse. “You’re doing well on that end, anyway,” she reassured the expectant mother.

“Oh, thank you,” Elizabeth said with a smile of an angel. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

“I’m starting to get the idea,” Lisa said and grinned at the woman whose smile was infectious. “Why don’t you tell me about your pregnancy, your concerns, and anything you need to know to sleep well. I want you to rest after your long journey.”

“Oh. I guess my pregnancy has been normal for a werewolf. I mean, no weirdness or anything that I can tell.”

“Any concerns you wish to talk of now?”

“I...oh my gosh. I had so many questions, but now all I can think about is my relief at finding you.” She laughed. “You must think me a complete airhead. I’m not, you know. I’m an alpha female, although I’ve not challenged anyone. I’m trying to keep a low profile within Marty’s pack.” For the first time, Elizabeth’s expressive face closed up. Something was seriously wrong within the Seathe pack.

“I don’t blame you. There’s no reason to be fighting challenges when you are attempting to carry a young one within you. Now go rest with your husband. He’ll be happy to see you.”

“You are so kind to a stranger, a non-pack member. Thank you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m paying it forward. Once, someone was kind to me. I can do no less,” Lisa replied gently. “Now off you go.” The two of them would be the death of her yet. She wondered how lonely they had to be and how rough the Seathe pack must be from their effusive thanks.
Had no one offered to help?
Wolf cubs were cherished among the Wahpawhats, and she had assumed among weres everywhere.

She went back to her room to catch a little more sleep for herself before the next emergency arose.

***

A week later, Lance remained in shock. The Lupin pack had just been officially combined with the Wahpawhat pack for the first time in over a hundred years. He held little hope the Ulfric recognized him as the man who had brought the new werewolf to him long ago, but suddenly Lance became fixated with finding her.

Years of tamping down his wants and needs had taken their toll, but suddenly he was free to do as he wished. Until Roxy and Boris were caught, he still had to be careful. However, now he had pack mates to protect him instead of spy on him. He tried to wait and let things settle after the shocking announcement that Alex was his new Lupa and the even more impressive display of Alex’s fighting skills in wolf form.

After driving out to the Ulfric’s to ask him about that night, he stood outside Nolan’s front door, working up the courage to knock. It was not the Ulfric holding him back; it was the fear Nolan would not remember him or the woman he had brought to him. Or worse that Nolan would not tell him who or where she was.

He stood there, indecisive, his wants, his needs warring with years of forced submissiveness. After he’d decided to wait a few more days and started to turn away, Alex answered the door. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lance. Get in here,” she said grinning at him.

He’d always liked her. She’d grown up as a misfit, lighter skinned than the rest of them, and they thought until the recent incidents, unable to shift. Her mother’s healer status, then her own, had protected her from the rest of their ruthless pack.

“I’m here to see the Ulfric,” he said nervously to her.

“And here I thought you had come to say hi to your old pack mate,” she teased.

Lance blushed. She looked so much happier and stronger than she’d been under Roxy’s rule. He smiled and mumbled, “Hi.”

“Come in, Lance. His living area is upstairs,” she added.

He wanted to tell her he knew already, but she walked away too fast. His feet moved in slow motion as he followed her up the stairs. The last time he was there flashed in his mind against the current moment in a cacophony of images and sensations. Night to day, clothed to naked, stark flashes like in a waking vision, only this was the past instead of the future. Inside, his head started to spin as if someone were scrambling his brains to give him vertigo.

He grasped the polished, oak stair railing hard trying to shake off the weird visuals. The steps kept moving and rotating from color to black and white like his visions, but not. Then thumping started in his head as if something inside pounded to be let out. Forcefully, he worked to push past the strangeness and attempted to move forward. He didn’t make it. As he tried to take a step, he swayed and was unable to find purchase on the next one up. His grip on the rail loosened, and he started to fall forward, but Nolan caught him before he hit the ground.

“Come on, Lance. Last time I thought your excursion made you tipsy. Something’s up with my house, isn’t it?” Nolan asked as he helped Lance settle on the couch.

Lance leaned forward, his arms across his knees, his head on his arms. “I don’t know. It’s like I’m caught in a time loop of past and present.” Plus flashes of something else he couldn’t piece together. “I keep seeing the now and then overlapped. Something like I get with the visions, but not quite the same. I’m sorry,” he said. Why did he have to do such a lame job explaining to his new Ulfric? He glanced up in time to see Alex and Nolan exchange looks. “Alex, you’ve been my healer for a long time. I don’t remember anything like this. Did I ever tell you about these kinds of symptoms?”

“You mean dizziness, loss of balance, incoherence of time and space? Yes, a little bit, but as you said, you were able to place it with your visions of the future.”

Lance ducked his head as guilt swamped him when he remembered the future he’d seen for her in Roxy’s lodge. He still couldn’t be sure if he’d done the right thing in not warning her.

“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” Alex reassured him. “You did as needed to be done. Nolan and I had to live our parts the way we did, not alter them because of what might be. Do you understand?”

“I’m grateful for your kindness in the matter,” he said formally because he didn’t understand. He always thought the things he saw in the future were absolute, and nothing could be done to change them. It’s why he hadn’t warned them. He was afraid it would cause unnecessary fear, and Boris and Roxy would have picked up on it.

Alex, alluding to trying to alter the future like it was a normal thing, put ideas in his head. And the next time he had
that
recurring vision, he would try even harder to see the details. They were all so murky. Usually, they became clearer as they neared the time his vision and the future connected. Sometimes, they were hazy until the very moment in time happened that he’d seen. Other times, they were clear as crystal the instant he had them.

Roxy had never cared about how his gift worked and only cared about the ones which helped bring her more power. Maybe he would find someone to help him figure out how his prophecy-like dreams functioned . But first... “I have a favor to ask.”

Again, he caught a special look pass between them. He’d suspected Alex of having revelations like his because she always seemed to know things he hadn’t told her. It had been a chore to try not to think of her when he was around her. He did not know what would set off his own visions, much less anyone else’s, and figured he was safer not thinking about it at all. But seeing her now with the Ulfric, there seemed to be something beyond what he had originally thought, or maybe something completely different.

“What is it, Lance?” Nolan replied.

“The woman I brought here that night; who is she? Will you please tell me? I only saw her that once in the moonlight as a human. I would recognize her wolf form if I saw it, but...” He talked too fast, and his voice cracked on the end. Embarrassment flooded him as the two strongest in the pack witnessed his weakness.

“But you can’t exactly ask all the women in my pack to either let you get close and smell them, or change into wolf just because you asked it of them,” Nolan said, a suspicious tinge of laughter in his voice.

Lance had not put it into words to himself, but the Ulfric hit the nail right on the head. “Exactly!” he exploded with all his pent up frustration. “Do you remember who she was, or rather,
is
?”

“Of course I do. It’s not every day someone from the enemy pack brings me an
aswan
and leaves her in my care even though he would rather never leave her side,” Nolan said.

Alex gasped. “You brought someone to him for care? Why didn’t you bring her to me or my mother?”

“I couldn’t let Roxy or Boris learn of her. You know what they think of the
aswans.
While she was caught in a trap, both Boris and I found her. Boris, well, you know,” he directed at Alex.

“Yes, I do,” Alex replied quietly, a wealth of emotion in her voice. Something he understood too well.

“I talked him down, saying she was maimed and likely to die. He told me to dispose of the body after she died, but”—he paused and took a deep breath—”she’s my mate. I couldn’t leave her there to die.”

“I’m beginning to see you are much more of an alpha then our beloved pack leader gave you credit for,” she said with some derision for Roxy.

Lance knew she had as much reason as anyone did to hate Roxy. “It was safer.”

“Having just found my mate and the strength of the protective feelings it creates, I can’t imagine letting her go to strangers,” Nolan replied. “It takes greater strength than most men could hope to find in a lifetime.” He grabbed Alex’s hand. “Lance walked from deep on the restricted lands to my house, naked, and carrying a wolf.”

“I—” He flushed under the mutual respect. He’d done just that, but he didn’t remember telling the Ulfric exactly how far he had come. Close was relative on the vast reservation. Only part of the old Lupin territory, and even less of the neutral territory fell within the boundaries of the restricted lands, so how had he known?

Roxy was scary, but she’d been easy to hide his innermost self from. His gut told him this leader would not be so easy to keep secrets from and was extremely glad Nolan lacked Roxy’s narcissist cruelty.

“I couldn’t leave her to die,” he repeated.

“Of course not,” Alex said gently.

“Are you going to tell me who she is or not?” he asked crankily.

“I can’t without her permission,” Nolan said sadly. “I will let her know her rescuer has asked permission to meet her, and see if she’s ready. Maybe with Joseph’s capture, she’ll be able to move on.”

Anger throbbed through his pulsating veins, fueling his wolf. He felt the movement under his skin and willed it to stop. “So it was Joseph who abandoned her,” he stated.

All these months to think of his initial instinct as to the who. It remained the conclusion which had fit the facts best. Someone had made her a werewolf then abandoned her to her first full moon. She’d followed Joseph’s scent until hunger and fatigue overtook her. So he wasn’t surprised at the statement, but the surety of it brought his bloodlust soaring up through the forced submission. He knew it would take years to get over Roxy’s treatment of him as a submissive, but there was one subject he wouldn’t submit over—his mate’s protection.

“Lance!” Nolan said sharply. “Do not change. I’m not the danger. You need to immediately go into the hills and find your calm. You cannot go to her in this manner. Get your fury at those who put you in this situation under control before meeting her, or you’ll suffer—both of you. While you’re gone, I will attempt to contact her.”

Lance saw Alex start to say something, but silenced at a fierce look from Nolan. Slowly standing up and looking around to make sure the weird flashes were gone, he acknowledged the Ulfric’s command and left without speaking again.

Deliberately, he kept his mind blank as he drove out to Fort Simcoe and parked in the public lot. He grabbed his backpack and walked to one of the many trails leading away from the historical grounds. Once he knew no one watched him, he hid his pack in a crevice he’d found ages ago. He went deeper behind some trees to make sure there were no eyes on him before shifting.

Not many of his pack ran here, and he wanted the solace. As soon as it was safe to shift, he allowed all the pent up anger, rage, fear, and shame flow through him, and he became the wolf. The beast enveloped the anger and rage, kicked out the fear and shame, and pushed him to run.