Chapter 67: Cold

Amelia

Corinne and I wait in the living room, while Darlene and the pack doctor are in one of the back bedrooms. The doctor brought all the equipment she thought she might need for a prenatal examination, carrying it into the room to set up before Darlene joined her.

I’m trying to go over my lists for tomorrow, but I’m not having much luck concentrating. I feel uneasy, unsettled, and strangely cold. We keep the heat up to a comfortable level in the packhouse, there’s no reason for me to feel cold, but I keep having the sense of being chilly. I put down my pen and rub my hands together.

I look over at Corinne, and see that she has her hands together as well, twisting them as I have noticed her doing when she is nervous. “Are you cold?” I ask her.

She has been gazing out the window, at the rain pouring down in sheets outside. She looks over at me and shakes her head. “Not really,” she says, but then she tucks her fingers back into the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

Hm. I’ll have to check the thermostat when I get downstairs, make sure nothing is malfunctioning.

Darlene comes out of the bedroom with a smile, and comes to sit down on the couch next to me. “Everything’s fine,” she says. Then she looks over to Corinne. “The doctor is just cleaning up, she’ll be ready for you in a couple of minutes.”

Corinne nods, looking so anxious. Darlene tilts her head, as though thinking of something, and asks, “When was the last time you saw a doctor, Corinne?”

“Um, never,” she says.

“You never saw a doctor?”

“Not that I remember.”

Darlene looks over at me, then back to Corinne. “You mean, since you left your pack?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not at the pack either. I was an orphan, nobody ever took me to a doctor.”

Darlene looks appalled, but she controls her voice. “Well, Dr. Hughes is wonderful. She is very smart, and very gentle, and she will be able to answer any questions you might have. About anything.”

When Corinne bites her lip, Darlene adds, “And you should understand that doctors are obligated to keep everything about their patients completely confidential. You can be completely open with her, Dr. Hughes would never reveal your private business to anybody.”

Corinne looks dubious, and I think that she suspects that we are having her examined by a doctor because we want to know the details, to have it confirmed that she is pregnant, who knows for what other diabolical purpose. I’m afraid that even after all these days together, Corinne can’t trust us. I am not sure she has the ability to trust, after all the betrayals she has suffered.

Darlene says, clearly thinking along the same lines as me, “You can trust the doctor. If you have anything that you would like to discuss or understand, the doctor will help you and will never tell anybody else what you talked about.”

Dr. Hughes comes out of the bedroom, rubbing sanitizer on her hands. “I’m ready for you, Corinne,” she smiles. She is a middle-aged lady who has been the River Moon pack doctor for at least twenty years. I used to go to her for my checkups when I was a kid.

Corinne quietly stands and goes with her into the back room. I can see how tense she is.

I am too, but I don’t think it’s just in sympathy for Corinne. I’m worried that all of this unease that I’m feeling is coming through the mate bond with Dom. I ask Darlene quietly, “Have you heard from Alpha Ross?”

She looks at me with sympathy. “Only a little. But I feel it too, Amelia. They are struggling. It’s very cold where they are, and the roads are difficult, and they are just trying to get to the final cave so that they can start heading home. They’re all right, though, I would know if there was really something wrong.”

I actually shiver a little, and say, “It’s making me cold, just thinking about it.”

She shakes her head. “It’s probably more than just thinking about it. I believe that your bond has already grown strong enough that you are feeling more and more from your mate. Just as dreams can be tangible with fully mated pairs, sometimes other sensations can come across as well, not just emotions.” She leans over and pats my hand. “It’s hard to believe that you haven’t finalized your mating yet. You are already so far along in the process. I believe that when you complete it, you will share an incredibly strong bond.”

I hope so. I feel bonded to Dom already, and it brings me so much comfort. I hate to think of him being so cold that it’s making me shiver all the way down here. I wish I could comfort him. I rub my hands together, imagining that I’m rubbing him, wishing that he could feel me warming him.

Corinne

Yes, I’m pregnant, the doctor confirms. Dr. Hughes is actually really nice. The first thing she tells me is what Luna Darlene had been saying, about keeping secrets. She says that she is required to keep everything completely confidential, and that she would quit her job and resign from the pack before she would violate that trust.

Wow.

She checks everything, using assorted tools, and tells me that the baby’s heartbeat is strong, and everything seems okay.

“Told you so,” my wolf says. Yeah, but it’s nice to have a doctor check.

“You know that you won’t be able to shift as long as you’re pregnant,” she advises me, “unless it is an emergency.”

I nod.

“You might find that your scent is somewhat altered with the pregnancy, especially as it gets further along.”

My scent might change? I ask her, “Um, would other wolves be able to smell that?”

“Possibly, especially if they are very familiar with you.”

I’ll have to think about this. If it isn’t until later in the pregnancy, I don’t think it would change my plans.

“Make sure to get plenty of rest, and eat as healthily as you can,” the doctor goes on. “You have about a month left of the first trimester, and this is the most important phase for the baby’s development.”

“Okay,” I lie. I know that I won’t be getting enough rest or food after I get back to the rogues. But hopefully that won’t last too long, and me and the other women will be able to escape soon.

“Do you have any questions?” the doctor offers.

“Um,” I hesitate. I do have a question, but I don’t know how to phrase it. “Do you know when I….”

“When you will give birth? I would estimate in the middle of July.”

Oh. “Uh, thanks, but I mean…”

“Oh, you’d like an estimate of the date of conception? It would have been at the end of October or beginning of November.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

So yes, it could have been on my birthday. It could have been Seth.

I have a lot to think about.

It makes me shiver, just a little.

Dominic

It was harder to get to the final cave than we expected. We had to hike a couple of miles away from the cars, which were parked at the base of a steep cliff. It was too steep to climb, and we thought going around would be fairly easy, but between the swirling snow, the piled drifts, and the coming of sundown, it was difficult even in our wolf forms.

I’m sure glad this is the last cave. Honestly, I hardly see any point in slogging ourselves out through all this snow in the mountains to mark a cave that I’m pretty sure the rogues would never consider using until spring, but it’s not my decision. Alpha Ross just wants to be thorough, I suppose.

So we drag ourselves up this hill, trying to find the cave entrance in the dim light through the snow, and have to backtrack several times when it is clear we must have gone too far. I almost hope we don’t find it - it’s gonna be dangerous to shift into our human forms in this cold, if the entrance is too small to fit our wolves.

Finally, long after it has gotten dark, and we’ve been sniffing around looking for any sign of the rogues’ scents in the snow, Theo finds the entrance. He howls to alert us, and we all gather together from where we had been spread out, searching.

We brush snow aside with our paws to reach stone and tree trunks to mark, then approach the entrance. It is a cleft in the rock, a crack in the granite hillside, and thank god it appears large enough to allow us to squeeze past in our wolf forms.

So we are spared having to shift and be standing here in our naked furless human bodies during what is basically a blizzard. It’s pitch black inside the cave once we get in there, and the disadvantage of remaining wolves means we can’t access the headlamps packed away in the bags we have on our backs. But we are able to sniff the lingering scent of rogues, and mark over it.

We’re all too exhausted and cold to even feel excited at having accomplished our task. We just want to go home.

It’s faster returning to the cars, but very late by the time we get back. The howling wind has blown drifts of snow up against the cars, over the tires. I wouldn’t normally recommend trying to drive in these conditions, but we have to get out of this area.

I mean, we’re wolves, we could just stay here if we had to, as long as we didn’t shift human, but nobody wants that. It’s worth the risk to go. To do it, though, we have to shift again, in the snow, and it’s a miracle that none of us have frostbite by the time we get dressed and back into the vehicles.

Another very slow procession, a painstaking and frustrating drive out of the forest, through the blinding snow, creeping along the hidden roads, hoping that we don’t crash. It’s actually pretty dangerous, but Ross is willing to risk it.

I wonder if part of the reason is that he is as eager to return to his mate as I am to mine. I know that I’m feeling Amelia. All day, every time I think that I would rather just freeze to death and get this over with, I get the sense that she is holding my hand, providing me a little bit of warmth, just enough to keep me going.

Finally, finally, coming up on midnight, I see that the snow is starting to turn to rain. We’ve gotten low enough in elevation that we’ve left the snowline.

Phew.

It’s pouring, but rain is so welcome. Wipers on, still going slow, but at least snow isn’t hiding the road any more. We wind around on more dark back roads, still pretty far away from any main highways.

“I think we can make it to Willow Creek,” Ross tells me. “There are a couple of motels there, we can get a few hours of sleep then get back to River Moon in the morning.”

“All right,” I say. If it was me, I’d rather just keep driving, right through the night if needed. I’m exhausted, and crawling into bed sounds very tempting, but the pull to be with my mate is so strong. However, I’m not in charge. It’s not my call.

I think about Amelia, and keep driving through the rainy night.