The only protection from forced matings was through your family, Pack and Alpha. That is why females didn’t travel to other territories without escorts, and part of why there were so many vendettas and wars fought between Packs. I fingered the necklace I wore, with the Pack’s emblem and the letters “AP” for “Alpha Protected.” As part of my contract to come here, the necklace signified his vow to kill any man who tried or succeeded in force mating me. By killing him, I could be free again.
You never got over the rape, though. I had treated several women who this had happened to, they never looked at mates the same way. Experiencing the power of the bond to a man you hated, it changed them.
There were no human mates, our DNA was not compatible. You can’t turn a human, a bite would sentence the person to a painful death. You can’t father a child, or have his baby if one is human. There were some who fell in love, but they had to give up their wolves and live as humans, never to have children of their own, never to be part of a Pack again. It was a life few ever chose.
Conner was kneeling next to his dead mate, his children in his arms as they kissed her goodbye. When they were done, her parents came in. I stood my lonely vigil for two more hours as the rest of the Pack members, all one hundred and fifty-two of them, filed through to pay their respects.
When the last one, a Pack Elder, left she stopped by me. “We are preparing the funeral for moonrise.”
“That is fine, I need to perform an autopsy, but I will be done by noon,” I said. “I will call you when you can take the bodies.” She left, and I brought the deceased back into the operating theater. Our clinic wasn’t big enough for a morgue.
Jessica had finished cleaning up and had gone to help care for the children, so I locked up and went back into the room.
I checked the baby girl first. She was normal size and weight, nothing abnormal physically. She died quickly, her heart not receiving oxygen from the mother’s placenta. I took a blood sample, but I didn’t expect to find anything.
The mother had been healthy until now; it wasn’t her first pregnancy, and she’d never had complications before. The fever was a clue, I took a blood sample and extracted some urine from her bladder for culture.
It was in her uterus that the bleeding started, and that was the focus of my autopsy. The placenta didn’t look normal; it was the right size, but it smelled off. I cut off a few samples for examination. It was almost completely detached from the uterine wall, but it wasn’t the kind of detachment you would expect from a tear or impact. It looked like the placenta started to detach on its own, like it would after birth, but there was no birth to be had. The fever, the cramping, it all pointed to something going terribly wrong.
Two hours later, I had no answers and dozens of questions. I filled out the death certificates, cause of death was ‘placental detachment.’ I walked back upstairs to take a nap after the Elders took them away, my mind still spinning over what I had seen. Why would a healthy mother and baby see a change like this for no apparent reason?
I woke in time for dinner, still a little groggy from the changes in hours. I was used to operating on little sleep, your residency teaches you that with its 36-hour shifts. I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and sandals before heading out the door. I couldn’t cook worth a damn, so I always headed over to the Pack House for meals.
Tonight, it would be a somber dinner.
I walked in the door, my nose told me it was a full house before I even reached it. The dining room was large, with an elevated section at the front for leadership and rows of tables and chairs throughout. The kitchen was restaurant style and functioned that way. The full-time staff of six was augmented by the children between 14 and 21, who helped out several meals a week with serving, dishes and cleanup. You weren’t required to eat there, but the Pack covered the cost of meals this way. I only ate elsewhere when in other towns.
I was still a few minutes early and stopped to talk and hug a few people as I made my way to the front. I saw Jessica sitting with Connor’s children, their family close by. He looked lost and was barely functioning. It was expected, and he would either pull out of it in a few days or he wouldn’t. The Alpha had already assigned watchers for him, if he went feral, it would be their job to put him down. A werewolf who retreated into his beast, who rejected his humanity due to the pain of loss, was a dangerous beast; we couldn’t allow humans or Pack to be injured as a result of it. I got to the front of table, taking the step up and standing behind my seat. I was three people left of the Alpha and Luna’s chairs, next to Gamma Bill Caldwell and his mate Virginia. On the other side, Beta Charles Thorssen was standing next to his mate Denise. He motioned me towards him as we waited for the Alpha pair.
“I’m assigning Matt Miller as your bodyguard for the next few days,” he said quietly to me.
“Why?”
“Something like this, you don’t know how Connor’s mind could take it. If he places blame on you, he could lash out. I can’t take that chance, so he’s going to be by you.” I looked back, he was already standing by the last chair in the row.
I knew it would do no good to argue, and he was right. Widowers could be unpredictable, and I was a fixer, not a fighter. “Thank you.” He nodded as we saw the Alphas enter and the room go quiet, and I quickly returned to my seat.
Alpha Mitch walked to his seat, Luna Connie’s hand in his. They were a handsome couple, choice mates; she had been the daughter of the Duluth Pack Alphas. When neither had found their fated mate by age 25, they had taken each other to solidify the alliance between the Packs. They were deeply in love, and she was pregnant with their second child now. Their firstborn, Melinda, was three years old, and they were hoping their next was a male to inherit the Alpha position. At five weeks pregnant, it would be another five weeks before we could tell the sex of their child by smell or ultrasound.
The Pack was standing quietly as they turned to face them. “The Boundary Waters Pack has lost a beloved member today, along with a daughter. Laura and her daughter Nokomis, which is Ojibwe for ‘Daughter of the Moon’, died early this morning despite the best efforts of our Pack and Doctor. Tonight at the moon rise, we will send their spirits to Luna. May She bless this meal and bring comfort to us tonight.”
He sat, and there was a short time of noise as everyone followed. The staff started bringing out food in bowls and platters, it was served family style. Since it was summer, the meal included breaded fish, grilled garden vegetables and potato salad. The meal was quiet, there was little conversation verbally, and I left as soon as it was over. Matt was right behind me. “I’ll stay out of your way, but not out of your sight,” he said.
I didn’t know what they were saying about me on the Pack link, but I saw their looks and it was enough. Werewolves didn’t just die like this, and I was new and being paid a lot to be their Doctor. They expected me to save her, and I didn’t.
With more time, more help, more blood… I kept running it through my mind, but every time it came out the same. She lost too much blood, too fast, and I had no chance to save them. I would have to move on, but I vowed to find out why.
At sundown we started moving into the woods towards the Ceremonial Grounds. I stayed near the back with Matt, since I wasn’t Pack, as we entered the clearing where the pyre would be. Werewolf custom was to burn the bodies, ensuring no remains or DNA would be left that could identify our existence to humans. The pyre was built inside a ring of large stones, and the bodies were wrapped in white cloth and covered with wildflowers. I could see their baby was on her chest, her arms folded over her, as if they were sleeping.
Conner was standing with the Alphas, his children holding his hands, as the moon started to rise over the horizon on this clear July night. The Pack Elders led the ceremony, ending by handing Conner a torch, the Alphas each taking one while holding one of his children. Walking clockwise around the pyre, they ensured it was evenly lit before tossing the torches into the center. The dry wood caught quickly, and the heat pushed us away as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Clothes were pulled off and tossed in piles, as the Pack members shifted. I did the same, letting the change come over me so my wolf could pay her respects to the dead.
The moon was over the trees and shining onto the fire as Conner pointed his nose up and let loose an anguished howl of loss, his children joining him. The second time, the Alphas added their voices, and on the third howl the whole Pack joined in. I watched as they finished, Conner’s wolf was shaking. He bolted for the trees, leaping over the rows of wolves. I saw Beta Charles take off after him along with two other warriors.
He would either come back or lose himself to his grief. The Alphas took their children, they would make sure they were cared for until we knew.
I went back to the clinic, unable to sleep I busied myself with cleanup and restocking. I checked the cultures, there was no evidence of harmful bacteria yet, but it was still early. The tissue samples were more telling. The cross-sections of the placenta showed that the endometrial lining had prematurely thinned, something that shouldn’t happen until the ninth month. In addition, apoptosis of trophoblast cells and endometrial epithelial cells had occured, facilitating premature placental release.
In layman’s terms, her placenta detached as if she had already given birth, when the baby was still developing. The detachment caused massive bleeding and fetal distress.
I sat back in my lab chair, my head spinning. The process of placental release was a complicated chemical process, but once apoptosis (programmed cell death) began, it can’t be reversed. Whatever started this reaction killed her.
If we were human, I’d be consulting with the top specialists in the country right now. If it was caused by a bacteria or virus, we’d be calling Atlanta and getting the Center for Disease Control on the line. I’d have access to the top labs, to scanning electron microscopes, pathology experts, everything. Of course, I had NONE of that available to me because the LAST thing we could allow was for our DNA, our tissue samples, to get analyzed closely.