Dominant Species Ch. 25-28

Lisa held baby Michelle while she introduced Silvia and Zach to the Pack members that were gathering for a midnight run in the back yard. She had silently warned everyone of the trauma and loss the human family had experienced on the road between Salmon and North Fork, and they could feel their fear and nervousness. The men stayed back, while the women and children gave lots of hugs. Zach fell in with the other kids his age, while Mary and Rachel stayed with Silvia and ran the introductions.

They were still cooking up lots of meat that was in freezers that had lost power. The buffet table was full of tasty dishes, and a guitar was being played among the sounds of the children playing. If it wasn't the middle of the night and for the various sized wolves running around, it would look like a typical neighborhood party. Lisa made sure the new family had plenty of food in front of them, then sat at the picnic table with them. Also at the table was another human with knowledge of who they were, as Abigail was helping her daughter Autumn eat. Autumn's broken left arm was still in the cast from earlier, and they were all watching for signs of infection from the wound- whether that was a normal infection or the change coming after the open wound was licked by her grandchildren. "Autumn, did you get enough to eat?" She was a little amused in asking, she had gone back for another large plate and increased appetite was a sign of a turn.

"Yes ma'am. The burgers are really good." She was on her third one, which her mother shook her head at as she couldn't eat three.

Lisa sent a knowing look to her daughter Rachel and daughter in law Mary. Rachel moved around to where she was sitting. "Autumn, I need to check your arm real quick, all right? I'm not going to hurt it, I just need to look at it and smell it." Abigail looked funny when she mentioned smell. "Werewolves have very sensitive noses, and the infection will smell different if it is a disease or the change coming." She lifted her arm onto the table and loosened the soft cast while Autumn continued to eat.

When the cast was out of the way, her mother was shocked at what they found. The arm looked like the injury was a week old, not a compound fracture from just six hours ago. The previously open wound had closed up and an angry pink line marked where the scar was forming. Rachel leaned close and sniffed; she could smell the wolf nature coming forward in her body.

Rachel sent to her Alpha and mate the confirmation that the change was underway. Marcus was supportive, promising to help her through it, while her father was pissed. He told her they would talk when he was home from the clinic, then he cut off the link.

Autumn nodded to her mother while she put the soft cast back on. Even for a werewolf, broken bones could take a few days to heal and return to full strength. "How does your arm feel, Autumn?"

"It tingles a lot, and sometimes I get pain from it but it is much better than before." She went back to eating as Rachel called her daughter Raven over and pulled her into her lap.

"Autumn, we have something to tell you. You know that your friends and I are werewolves, that we change between our human and wolf forms at will, right?"

"Sure, Miss Rachel, it's pretty cool."

"Well, one thing about werewolves is that we can turn a human like you into a werewolf by biting them. The saliva in our mouth contains what is needed to cause the change. When that happens, there are a number of changes the person feels until they become a werewolf too, about three days later."

Autumn looked at her funny. "But... I didn't get bit. Raven and Michael would never bite me, they are my friends."

Abigail hugged her gently. "That is true, baby, but when you broke your arm those two licked at the wound. They were trying to help you out, but they didn't know that licking the open wound was the same as biting. What you are feeling right now, and what is happening with your arm, is because the change has started. You're going to become like Raven." She started to cry, thinking of how this would change both of their lives.

Autumn looked at her arm, then looked at Raven. "Wait, I get to be like you? COOL! WE CAN RUN AROUND AND PLAY FIGHT! It's going to be so fun, we can all pile up together on my bed at night, and play fetch, and I'll be able to see at night just like you guys!"

The adults smiled, she was taking it well, better than her mother was. Rachel put her hand on her shoulder. "In a few days, you will be able to do that, but before then it won't be so fun." She explained what she could expect over the next three days; the fever, the flu-like symptoms, and the pain of the first shift. Autumn was scared of getting sick and her mom held her tight as they talked about that part. "Just know that we will be here to help you. Raven and Michael will stay with you the whole time, and even though it will hurt it will be worth it in the end."

"And I will help you as well, since I went through the same thing years ago." Mary gave her a quick hug. "I don't want to do it again, but I'm very happy now."

"But what about Mom?" Autumn looked up at her mother.

"That's her decision, Autumn. She will always be your mom, but I think she wants to make sure you get through this all right before she decides anything." Abigail nodded. "The good news is you guys get to stay with us for a while. It's really important we stay together to help you through."

"And to play!" She looked over at the other kids in the yard. "Can we talk later? Please?" Her mom nodded and they ran off. They watched Autumn and Zach playing with the other Pack children while they ate and talked. The humans seemed to fit in well, considering the world as they knew it had ended and people were dying all around them. It almost seemed normal in this backyard. Rachel was helping to clean up when she noticed that Silvia wasn't around. She found her scent and tracked her back into the house to the upstairs bathroom. The door was locked, and she could hear they crying inside. She knocked softly, then called out, "Silvia? Are you all right?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The smell of blood and amniotic fluid grew strong as Rachel sniffed at the door frame. "Silvia, I'm a nurse. Please... let me help."

"It's too late." She started to wail, the pain overwhelming. Rachel grabbed a paper clip off the bedside table and straightened it out, then poked the hole in the center of the door handle to pop the lock. When she opened the door, her heart sank.

The candle in the corner of the vanity cast enough light for her to see what was going on. Silvia was holding toilet paper to herself, but there wasn't enough. A severe cramp caused her to scream out in agony, and more blood gushed from her vagina onto the floor below. Rachel called over the bond for Mary and Lisa to come help. Pulling off her shirt, she put it under her as she picked her up in her arms. "I'm sorry, Silvia. I'm so sorry."

The cramp passed and Silvia started to sob onto her shoulder as she was carried downstairs to the treatment room. Her family arrived just before she did, getting the door open and the table ready. She laid her down on the bed and placed several towels under her. "Silvia, how long have you been cramping?"

"About ten minutes. The bleeding just started before you found me, though. It's my baby, isn't it? I'm losing my baby..." Her head fell back and Lisa moved up by her shoulders while Rachel and Mary went to work. The spontaneous abortion was too far along to be stopped, so they focused on saving the mother. The cramping continued through the stillborn birth of her son. Mary wrapped the tiny form in a towel as Rachel dealt with the placenta and the bleeding.

Silvia's bleeding slowed down once the miscarriage was over, but it didn't stop. "Silvia... I need to do a procedure on you to make sure everything is out and stop the bleeding. It's going to be uncomfortable, but it has to be done. All right?" She nodded, not really caring any more. Rachel pulled out the stirrups from under the examining table and moved her legs into them. She retrieved the instruments needed from a cabinet, and using the light of the LED headlamp she inserted the speculum. The procedure only took about ten minutes, and when she was done the bleeding had slowed. She gave her an injection to assist with clotting, then cleaned things up.

Mary helped wash the blood off her hips and legs, then they put her in a gown and Mary carried her to the entrance to the safe room. "Can you climb down the ladder, or do I need to lower you down?" Silvia stood gingerly, then followed Rachel down the ladder. When she was down, Rachel helped her to her bed and tucked her in. "You'll need to rest for a day or so, you lost a lot of blood so we will be making sure you get plenty of food and fluids. Are you ready for you children to see you? It's almost the end of the night anyway."

"Do they know what happened?"

"Yes, Tom told them you had some complications and were getting help. The other parents and children have been distracting them, but Zach is worried." She paused. "We didn't tell them what it was, or that you had lost your baby. It wasn't our place."

Silvia started to cry again. "Was it... was he..."

"Yes, it was your son. He was stillborn, but tomorrow night we can bury him if that is your wish."

"No... I want to see him. I want to say goodbye, let the children see and say goodbye. I don't believe in hiding things from them."

Rachel nodded. "I'll bring him down, then bring your children. Were you going to give him a name?"

Silvia sniffed, then nodded. "We had some ideas, but we thought we had... that Roger and I had time..." Rachel sent out the mental call, and a few moments later Mary was coming down the ladder with a small bundle in her hand. She brought it over as Rachel helped pile pillows so she was sitting up in bed. She handed her the soft towel, and they were all crying as the tiny blue boy was revealed. "He's so perfect." She touched his face and lifted his tiny fingers. The three hugged for a few minutes, then they heard people at the entrance.

"MOM! MOM! Are you all right?" Zach raced down the ladder and crawled into bed with her while Mary was being handed baby Michelle in a car seat. Silvia hugged him tight as Michelle was tucked in on her other side. Mary stayed nearby while Rachel returned up to the treatment room to give them some privacy.

She was closing up the supply cabinet when a searing pain in her head brought her to her knees. Letting out a pained howl, she fell on her stomach as she felt a link being ripped from her mind. "MARCUS!!!" She screamed over the link, but got nothing. She could hear the pained howls of the Pack as she started to lose consciousness.

---

Reggie was just about home. His wolf was thrilled and content- his mate was riding on his back, she bore his mark and his scent, and she had accepted him and his wolf as her own. No matter what else happened in this crazy week, it would be the best one of his life.

He felt Josi snuggle in to the fur on his neck. She was trying to see the path, but with the moon low in the sky only wolf vision was enough. She felt him tense, then he wiped out. She was tossed from his back and rolled several times until stopping painfully with her shoulders against a tree. Reggie let out a pained howl, and she could hear answering howls just ahead. He shifted back to his skin, panting and grimacing in pain.

"What happened, Reggie?"

"It's Marcus. His pack link... it's gone. I can't feel him anymore." He looked around. "Hop back on. He was up at the clinic, we can be there in a few minutes." He shifted and she jumped back on, and they took off for the city at top speed.

---

"Many of you know that I was injured in Iraq. I wouldn't be here with you now, except I received a number of blood transfusions, and a bite on my shoulder. That bite was from a werewolf."

Marcus waited until the reaction died down; the thirty or so people in the reception area of the clinic were wide-eyed.

"Bullshit." Marvin Thorne yelled out. "There's no such thing as werewolves."

Marcus looked at him as he pulled off his shirt and shucked his shorts off. He was standing behind the reception desk so as not to shock the assembled townspeople who were here with the radiation sickness; the ones who had lost their sight were asking for updates from those who could still see. He knew the shift would change his leg and let the prosthetic go, so he focused on his fur form and quickly transformed in front of them.

There was a shocked gasp and then the real reactions started. Some didn't do anything but stare, some were frightened, some fascinated. He watched them as he moved out from behind the desk on three legs. As he moved around the room, he looked each person in the eyes so they could, if they could see, see the intelligence behind his remaining eye. Some shrank back, some had the courage to reach out and touch his fur. He made a circuit of the room then went behind the desk again and shifted into his skin form. "Do you believe now," he asked as he pulled his shorts on in the chair, "or do I need to do it again."

"Well suck me dry and call me Dusty," Marvin said. "It's true."

Marcus smiled as he pulled on his shirt and put his leg back in his artificial limb. "Yes, it is. I've been a werewolf for over a decade now. You all know me, I've been in this town and I've seen many of you in the clinic. You know what kind of man I am. That didn't change when I was bitten and I became what I am now. It just gave me a few extra things. The reason I am telling you this now is because of the radiation sickness and blindness that you all have. I can't cure it with the resources we have here. The people in the rooms behind you? Every one of them is going to die. Most of you have already received a lethal dose of radiation, and it is going to kill you- slowly and painfully. The lucky ones go into a coma and don't feel the pain. Hundreds are dying every day." He looked out at them, they were shocked and angry at what was happening to them.

"There is one thing that can help that I can do for you, but it is permanent. When the werewolf bite is given, your body changes and regenerates. This allows the damaged organs to repair themselves, giving you a chance to survive. Even blindness can be helped, as when the changes to the eye occur to give wolf night vision, it can restore partial sight. I've seen it happen, I was up north and a young woman was bitten after being in a coma with a severe case of radiation poisoning and severe burns to her skin. Her heart even stopped at one point, but she recovered after the bite and woke up again."

"So why are we even talking about this? Bite me now." Louise looked up to him; her limbs were swollen and she was coughing up blood. "I don't care what it takes, it has to be better that what is ahead of me now."

"So, as a werewolf you gain strength, sight, a better immune system and faster recovery time from injuries. We also age slower and live longer. That's the good part. On the bad side, the change isn't pleasant. It takes about three days to finish, and you will get a high fever and the first time you shift to wolf form will be quite painful, but after that it is painless. You will also gain a wolf, a new part of you in your mind that will be your constant companion. That wolf needs a leader, a Pack to relate to; it's how they are meant to be. A lone wolf will go crazy, and may attack people. That is where the horror stories come from. There are thousands of werewolves in this country, they have always been a part of it."

"So there are more than just you?" Marvin looked at him intently, you could see he was trying to figure out who else was like that.

"Yes, and if you choose the change- and I will not bite you without your consent if you are capable of giving it- you would join me or another leader in a Pack, and we would help you adapt into your new life. Packs have a leader, we call him the Alpha, and just like a wild pack each of you will submit to his leadership and support the group. It's like a big family, really."

Meanwhile, Josi was struggling to hold on as Reggie was moving at top speed through the outskirts of Salmon. "I wish I could talk to you, I need to know what is going on," she thought.

She felt a push in the back of her mind; closing her eyes, she focused on the sensation. Finding the source in her mind, she tried to grab it mentally when it began talking to her. "You can talk to me, love. Now that we are mated, we have a mental bond."

She smacked his chest. "You could have told me," she said out loud. "We could have talked all the way here," she thought.

"It takes a while to get started, my mate. I was going to explain it tonight, but you figured it out. That push you felt was me asking to speak mentally. If you want to talk to me, you think of sending to me."

"What if I don't WANT to talk to you because you're being mean to me or something?"

"Think of it as a connection point, if you don't want it you disconnect, like putting up a wall. Once you are accepted into the Pack, you'll be able to speak with the Alphas or other Pack members the same way. It's the best way to communicate in wolf form, but we use it in all forms."

She snuggled back in to the soft fur on his neck. "So, what does it mean that Marcus' pack bond broke?"

He made a hard right on the road before he answered. "Worst case it could mean he was dead, but I linked with Rachel and she can still feel the mate bond with him, so that wasn't it. He won't talk to her, though, he has his walls up to everyone including his family. So that means he chose to leave us, to leave the Pack, and no longer have Richard as his Alpha."

"Why the hell would he do that? He loves your Pack, he was so proud of it when he was telling me about it!"

"That's what we are about to find out." He ran across the lawn to the back door of the clinic, where at the loading dock the tractor and trailer were waiting for the next load of victims to be burned. Josi hopped off and ran inside, finding a rack of clean scrubs she tossed a pair to Reggie as he walked in behind her. She watched him change, he was not bashful about nudity and she was fascinated by the strength and form of her new mate. She let out a disappointed sigh when he pulled the scrub bottoms up and tied them. "Later, baby. Let's find Marcus, Rachel is pestering me almost constantly as he still won't open up the bond to her." They opened the door to the back hallway of the clinic, and what they saw floored them. "Holy shit."

Josi looked around, there were people spread on every horizontal surface. People with severe burns, swelling, bleeding... all comatose. And all with fresh bite marks on their shoulders. "He bit them..."

Reggie moved through the rooms, his anger building as he went. Changing just one person was punishable by death under their laws, but changing dozens upon dozens, none of which were awake to consent to this? Madness. "Dad is going to blow a gasket. No wonder Marcus broke the bond, there is no way our Alpha would ever allow this."

"It's not so bad, is it?" Josi followed him towards the front. "They were going to die anyway, now they have a chance, just like my friends Britney and Bethany got."

Reggie stopped and turned to her, putting his arms on his shoulders he looked into her eyes. "It's one thing to turn a mate, that's natural law and the Council will understand. They have their mate to help them through the change, and keep them from the madness. This?" He waved his hand around. "What happens in a few days when they wake up? No mate, no alpha... if even ONE of them goes crazy, it could take out the rest of the town. Not to mention the threat of a rogue to us, our families and our Pack. I've seen it before, Josi. That's why they make the rules."