“Not when I’ve got him riding bitch on another man’s bike,” he laughed. “It’s going to be a while, I want to leave the Jeep far from here after we grab your ride.” They closed the door behind them. I pulled the covers over her, settling in by her side. I held her hand as I fell asleep.
I woke up when Vivian started to move, she was crying softly from the pain. I looked at my watch, it was three in the morning. “I need to give her more morphine,” Doc said. He gave her the injection and she settled down. “My turn to sleep,” he said. “Can you watch over her for a few hours?”
“Sure, just let me get some stuff off my bike first.” I went out and got my latest read, Vince Flynn’s Transfer of Power. Turning on the light on my side of the bed, I sat up and started to read while Doc crashed on the couch. At five, I woke Viper; being an old guy, he was going to be up soon anyway. I caught a few more hours of sleep before Vivian woke up. “How are you feeling,” I said as I stared into her eyes.
“Better,” she said. “Bathroom.” I went around to her, helping her sit up and put her feet on the floor. “Do you want me to carry you?”
“I’ll make it,” she said. I helped her to her feet and stood by her side as she shuffled to the bathroom. I set her on the toilet. “I’ll call you when I’m done,” she said.
I stepped out, closing the door. I heard the toilet flush, and expected to hear her call me back in, or at least hear water running, but I didn’t. All I heard was… her crying. I knocked gently. “Vivian?”
“Leave me alone,” she said, her sobs getting louder.
“Let me help,” I begged. “I can’t bear hearing you like this.”
“Well, EXCUSE ME for being raped and almost killed in front of you! I’m RUINED now, nothing will EVER be the same, and now I’ve killed you guys too!” She started to sob even louder. I couldn’t take it anymore, I went in and knelt in front of her, taking her head and placing it on my shoulder. “I told you, it doesn’t change how I feel about you, in fact, I love you even more because you showed me how strong you really are.” She nodded into my shoulder, a minute later she stood up with my help and washed up.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m here for you, Vivian. Now we should get out of here, Doc is going to want to use this bathroom, and you don’t want to be in here after that happens.”
We went back out to the room, and I sat her down. Viper had been out already, there was a McDonald’s bag and some bottles of juice on the table by the window. I heated up a breakfast sandwich for her and grabbed her an orange juice before I got my own. We ate in silence.
Finally, Viper broke the silence. “Vivian, you said something in there about endangering us. I think it’s time we talked about what’s going on, since it will affect the club.”
She finished chewing her bite of food, then nodded. “It’s going to take a little time to explain,” she said.
“We have another hour before we have to get out of this room,” he said. “I don’t need everything now, just the highlights. We’ll have to have Church when we get back home and we can talk about it in more detail. For now, I need to know what you are, why those men were after you and why we are in danger.”
She took a drink, I moved my hand over, holding hers. “I guess I should start with me. As you saw, I’m a werewolf; I can change from human to wolf form at will. In my mind, I have a second personality, if you will, that of my wolf; we share this body. Our DNA is different than yours, that’s why I couldn’t go to the hospital. One blood test would show the difference. I’m a doctor, but I work on werewolves for my Pack and humans for the money,” she said.
“Your Pack?” I thought I knew the answer.
“Gone. All dead or missing.”
“They were in Zumbrota, right? All those dead dogs, they were your family.” God, what that must have been like for her.
“Yes. To protect our secrets, we normally burn the bodies. I piled them all in one of the houses and set it alight, then burned the other houses. However, I was working at a Pack up by the Boundary Waters. I have four years left on a contract to serve their Pack and surrounding Packs. They are the ones I was running from when I came to you.”
Viper started to laugh. “So, the cult we thought you were in is really a pack of werewolves?”
“Yes, it was easier to explain that way. Something started happening this summer, something terrible. I don’t know if it is a curse, an epidemic or biological warfare, but it attacks women in the middle of their pregnancy. It causes the placenta to detach, but worse, the mother’s arteries don’t close. I couldn’t stop them both from dying, every woman this year who was pregnant didn’t make it past 24 weeks.” She paused, tears running down her face. “The Alpha, he’s the leader of the Pack, his wife was one of the pregnant women. She died, he blamed me. I barely got out of there alive.”
“These three guys, they are after you for him? Shit, we’ll just kill him,” Viper said.
“That’s not all. It’s happening everywhere, I know of dozens of Pack doctors who have been killed or just disappeared. Not a single pregnant Werewolf female has survived this year. Packs are starting to attack each other, taking the women for their own, killing the men so they can mate us instead. That’s what happened to my Pack. Werewolf women of childbearing age have become the most sought-after thing in our world.”
I squeezed her hand. “Can’t they just turn humans like in all those stories?”
“No, our DNA isn’t compatible. You have to be born from werewolves to have werewolves. As the number of women drops, Packs become more desperate. No women, no future, and our wolves are driven to mate and have children.”
“That’s the real reason you said you can’t get pregnant from me,” I said.
She nodded. “Those men were what we call rogues, werewolves who don’t belong to a Pack. They smelled me, they knew just what I was, and they took me.” She leaned into my shoulder for comfort. “Just me being me is enough to place you in danger, they will do anything to get me. And, if they find out you know what I am, they’ll kill you for it.”
“I can’t take you anywhere,” I teased.