Just a Wolf

Amelia

Dom must have already finished pulling the Dark Woods cars back to the garage. He is waiting for me at our table at the back of the cafeteria. It makes me smile a little - it’s been a couple of days since we ate at that table, because for the last two days while everyone was gone we’ve been busy doing other things. I get some food and join him quickly, and we both start to eat breakfast. It’s so gentlemanly of him to wait for me before he begins, and I smile again.

“How’d it go?” he asks.

“Good,” I say. “I think the leaders are willing to believe that the information Corinne gave us is accurate. They plan to compare the map we drew with what they find today in the cave, to see whether she is telling the truth.”

He nods, spears another sausage with his fork, and says, “I believe her. I know at least her description is accurate for the front part of the cave.”

He looks closer at my expression. “Are you worried about something else?”

“The leaders recognized the name of the rogue leader. Apparently they’ve heard of him before. He was the Alpha of his pack, and he got kicked out by them for being too brutal. I guess he’s well-known for causing trouble. So this is even more serious than we realized.”

“Huh. Packs can kick out their Alpha?”

“I’ve never heard of it before, but apparently this one did.” I stir my spoon around in my cereal. “Poor Corinne. No wonder she’s been so miserable. Xavier really is a beast.”

“What will happen with her?”

“Your Beta said that after they confirm today whether her information is accurate, they’ll ‘deal with her’. Dark Woods wouldn’t want to punish her for being a rogue, would they?”

“No idea. This is all new to me. But Nolan is a decent guy, I know your leaders are too. Hopefully they’ll go easy on her.”

Beta Malcolm interrupts our conversation, standing at the front of the room, and saying, “Welcome back everyone. I hope you had nice holidays. We’re going to be leaving in a few minutes to head east for the cave exploration. Anyone who wants to come should join me up here so we can get a head count.”

Dom crams the last few bites of breakfast in. His hearty appetite is one of the things that I find so adorable about him. He stands up, and I tell him, “Please be careful. Now that we know who the rogues’ leader is, this is more dangerous than we realized.”

He shrugs. “I’ll be with the pack, we’ll be fine.” He leans back down to whisper, “I’m looking forward to being with you again tonight,” in a throaty voice that triggers a throb of longing within me. As he walks over to Malcolm, I bring my fingers up to brush them against his spot on my throat. We’ve been together constantly for two days. This is going to be a test of how well we can do separated again. I hope these little not-marks, like he’s been calling them, are enough.

I follow along after the caving group to the front of the packhouse, where Dom has already gotten four cars parked and ready to go. The three that we packed up with the bags and gear last night, and an extra one probably in case more people want to go. I count sixteen people altogether, but we only have a dozen bags ready. Oh dear.

I’m about to go ask Theo if he thinks we should pack up some extra gear, when Luna Darlene comes over to me. She reaches her arm around me and gives me a little side hug. “Good morning, Amelia. I hope you had a nice Christmas?”

I smile at her. “Hi Darlene! Um, excuse me but I need to see if we should pack up some more gear before they go.”

“No need,” she says. “There are twelve people who will be going down into the cave, and I heard you have a dozen packs of supplies ready, so that will be fine.”

“What…?” I start to ask.

“The other four are going as guards to stand outside the entrance. From what I understand, some of those guys are way too big to fit inside anyway. Including Ross.”

Oh, right. Dom said that he barely squeezed through the entrance hole, and Alpha Ross is, like, twice as big around as him.

I nod. “I get it. I’m glad there’ll be guards. Safer that way.”

She looks at me with sympathy in her eyes. “They’ll be fine. We’ll talk in a bit, ok?”

She moves over to her mate, and Alpha Ross pulls her to his side with one arm while he is talking to Beta Malcolm. Everyone else is milling around, starting to get into the cars. Dom is already sitting behind the wheel of the Dark Woods SUV, and I see him looking over at me. I give him a little smile. The folks that stayed here over Christmas at least know we’re dating, but not most of these other people, and I don’t want to blow our secret now that we’re getting so close to the end.

Darlene stays with Ross until he gets into his car, giving her one last deep kiss even as he enters, one foot inside the vehicle and one foot still on the ground. Just a few more days until Dom can kiss me like that in front of everybody. I am so ready.

But there is so much to do first. I watch my mate pull his car away from the curb, and my eyes follow until it, and the three vehicles with it, turn the corner from the packhouse drive and are lost to view.

I sigh.

“Are you doing all right?” Darlene asks from beside me. I had almost forgotten she was here.

I spin and give her a smile. “Yes, I’m fine.” Her eyes drift down to my throat, where my fingers are touching, and I give a little laugh. “Really, we’re doing fine.”

“Come on up to my room,” she says, “we have a lot to talk about.”

No kidding.

I follow her up the stairs, thinking about her kiss as Ross was leaving. When we get into her room, before we start talking about the mating ceremony or the rogues, I ask her, “Did you want to go with them to the cave? You could have, you know, I can handle all of the preparations.”

She smiles and looks down. “I would have loved to go, but they are going to all be shifting to run out from the Alpha’s lodge to get to the cave, so I can’t.”

I look at her, confused.

She tilts her head. “Do you remember what I told you the other day? My little secret?”

Oh, right. “You don’t feel up to it since you’re pregnant?”

She quirks her mouth a little sideways. “Well, no, I’d be up to it, but I can’t shift.”

“What? Why?”

Her brow furrows. “Doesn’t River Moon teach, um, sex ed in high school?”

Oh good grief, this again. Who would have known that graduating early would leave me so ignorant about things. “Oh, they do, but I finished school early, and I’m starting to realize that I missed the last bit of the curriculum.”

“Ahhhhh!” she says, as though this explains so much. I’m embarrassingly ignorant for someone who is supposed to be so smart. “Okay, well,” she explains, “when a werewolf is pregnant, if they were to shift between forms, the fetus would almost certainly die. The anatomy between human and wolf is different enough that it would cause the embryo to detach from the uterine wall in an early pregnancy, or later on in the pregnancy the cord and placenta would be compromised.”

My mouth is hanging open. “Oh.” Had I ever heard about this? No, it must have been one of the things that I missed by leaving school early. I try to picture the mechanism here. “No, I didn’t know. But I don’t understand - how would that prevent you from shifting if you need to?”

“Oh, it isn’t physically impossible to shift. It’s up to your inner wolf to decide. The wolf will protect the baby and refuse to shift unless it is a dire emergency, and the only way to protect you. Cave exploration wouldn’t be considered a dire emergency,” she adds with a wry grin.

Huh. I can’t think of any response to this, my head trying to wrap itself around this idea. Darlene continues explaining. “Your wolf will set the priority. Your survival is obviously the top priority, but unless you are in jeopardy, usually the wolf form will refuse to emerge until after you have given birth.” She smiles, looking inward, and I wonder if she’s talking to her wolf. “It’s actually one of the few times that your inner wolf will make herself known, after you are mated.”

What? “Really?”

“Yes, the mating process is a way of bringing you together with your fated mated, and as part of that, you become even more melded to your wolf consciousness. As you grow closer to your mate, begin sharing emotions, and thoughts, it sometimes can seem almost as though you are becoming one person. Your wolves are part of the process, merging together with the greater whole. Mating not only brings two individuals together as one, it also reduces the schism between you and your wolves that exists from the time that they emerge.”

Woah. I think back to the day that I met Dominic on the winter solstice, on my birthday, and how my wolf was being her usual saucy self, like a separate person living inside my mind. Then when we found our mate, she was almost screaming with ecstasy, but since then she has become very quiet.

Darlene is watching me as I consider this. “Has this already started with you?” she asks, with a tone of curiosity and understanding. “I’ve never known of a couple to delay their mating the way you are, and I wonder how it affects the development of the bond.”

I smile and nod. “Yeah, I can tell it’s happening. I can feel him, sometimes, tell how he feels, and I’m sure he is doing the same with me. And I hadn’t realized why before, but my wolf has been very quiet.” I realize that it makes me sad. She’s been my friend, my companion for years. I ask, “Does this mean that I’m… losing her?”

She shakes her head. “Not exactly. It is more like you are becoming her, and she is becoming you. You have been two parts of a whole, and those parts will become more united. It is in parallel to what happens with the mate bond, as you and Dominic grow even closer.”

“So basically four will become one?”

She smiles. “That’s a good way to look at it.” Then she adds, “But to answer your original question, the part of me that is my wolf will not allow me to shift and explore the cave, so you and I can spend the whole day working on the ceremony.”

Suddenly something falls into place. Her wolf won’t let her shift, because she is pregnant. I start to see a little montage of memories, of Corinne shaking her head when I asked her if she would shift to stay warm at night, of different times when it seemed strange that she wouldn’t just shift. She could have done it to escape from Evan in the first place. Could it be…?

Darlene obviously sees my expression as I start to realize what is going on. “What is it?” she asks.

I put my hand to my mouth. “I think… I think that the rogue might be pregnant!”

Her eyes grow wide. “Amelia, tell me everything.”