Stolen Birthright Ch. 10-12

She tore into the lead wolf with a furious growl, ripping his shoulder apart. Two wolves moved to flank her while she fought, and I started firing. The wolves were fast, but not a thousand feet per second fast. I put three rounds into the one on the right before he dropped, then shifted aim to the black wolf on the left. I got off one shot when I saw a blur out of the corner of my eye; the next thing I knew, a brown wolf had my forearm in his grip and my gun was scattering away on the road.

I screamed in pain as his teeth ripped into my arm. Instead of trying to pull away, I leaned down and bit him across his nose and jaw. He whined in pain, but didn't let go so I used the good fingers on my left hand and poked his left eye hard. That did the trick, he let go and I pulled the knife free from the sling and sliced his throat.

There was a growl from behind me and I turned to see another wolf launching himself towards me, jaws open for my neck. I dropped to the ground, raising my knife into his soft belly as he flew over me. He howled in agony as his momentum split his guts open, spraying blood on me. He landed hard and didn't get up.

I looked over to where Remi was holding her ground in the uphill ditch against two wolves. Running forward, I distracted one long enough for her to get his throat and rip it out. She was bleeding from multiple places and her right front leg was hanging funny.

The second wolf turned towards me and charged. I braced myself, silver knife brandished, when he suddenly stopped and looked at me. He was a huge black wolf, in his prime, with a white tip on his tail and a white streak down the center of his chest. His eyes were a bright green, and he blinked a few times as he tilted his head to the side and sniffed deeply. He started to circle me, sniffing the air while I tried to move between him and Remi. He wasn't growling at me, he was whining.

I heard the diesel engine fire up as my truck accelerated forward. Sparing a glance at the road, I could see Renee in the driver's side, she was standing on the gas pedal and holding tight to the steering wheel. The truck roared past as I kept my eyes on the threat in front of me. Remi whined behind me and struggled to her feet just as there was a loud crunch. The black wolf stilled, then turned around and ran back into the forest.

I heard the truck squeal to a halt and looked back that way. Darryl lay still on the roadway, surrounded by four dead wolves. I looked back at Remi, she had shifted to her human form and was cradling her broken arm. "Go," she said. I slid the first aid kit to her as I ran forward to my Beta.

I kept my knife out as I reached them, but I didn't need it. One had its throat ripped out and the others were all dead, I could see head injuries and bones sticking out. I knelt next to Darryl, my hand moving his wolf's head aside to see his neck ripped open. He was bleeding out rapidly; his eyes opened and locked on mine, then he gave one long breath and he was gone. "NOOOO!" I grabbed his chest and cried into his fur.

"Is he..." Renee had walked up behind me and put her hand on my back.

"Help your Mom," I said. She ran back to her while I sat there petting his chest. The fire in my arm stopped my mourning, I was still bleeding and I needed to do something about it. I stood up walked back to them. Looking Remi over, her wounds weren't that bad but her arm needed to be splinted. "Renee, go back to the truck and grab the ice scraper." She ran off as I dug through the first aid kit. I found a battle dressing and tore the mylar bag open. It was about four by six inches and had a strip at each corner you used to tie it off. It was also coated with Quickclot, which would help with the bleeding.

Renee came back, and I got her to tear off my sleeve and tie the dressing tight.

Once I was taken care of, I took the snow brush and scraper off, leaving the handle. I placed this along Remi's forearm, then had Renee hold her still while I wrapped it and her arm with an Ace bandage. Finally, we put her arm in a sling before starting to clean and bandage the other bites and cuts she had.

We helped her back to the truck and into the seat just as a group of Johnson Pack wolves burst onto the scene. The lead wolf shifted, and Doug raced forward to embrace his daughter and check on his mate. I dug through Darryl's bag and found a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and handed them to him.

"Doc's coming in the medical van, he'll be here in ten. Are you all right?" He was busy checking her for injuries.

"I'll be fine," she said. "Renee, are you all right?"

"Yes, Mom." She kind of looked at her like she was being overly protective. "I did fine, I got three of them."

"WHAT?" Doug looked at her.

"Well, Mom was hurt, Ella was fighting one, and Darryl was being torn apart by three. I put the truck in gear and ran them over." She looked rather pleased with herself. "I think I killed the most of them."

"Nope, we tied," I said. "I got one with the Glock and two with the knife. My last one turned tail and ran off. Your Mom got two, Darryl one." She high fived me as I hugged her to my side. "You didn't hurt my truck, did you?"

"I doubt it, that brushguard on front took the impact." She gave her Dad a hug as he looked down at her with pride.

"Ten on four, you did well. The trackers are already following the one who left," Doug said. "Where did your security go?"

Remi tried to link them, but they didn't answer. "Send some people after them, something is wrong. The whole thing was a setup, there's no way these wolves ambush us here without that guy being a part of it."

The van arrived, and the three of them plus Doug were loaded in for the short drive back to the Pack hospital. "My truck?"

"One of the men will drive it back." Doug looked out the window. "Darryl has been wrapped and placed inside, we'll have his ceremony tonight. What do you want to do with the others?"

I thought about it, they were Pack wolves, not rogues. This was no random attack, this was probably the North Shore pack. "Skin 'em and burn 'em. I'm making a blanket." We drove off, my mind going back to the mysterious green-eyed wolf as the pain medication started to take effect.

Ch 12

To say Doug was upset about the attack was the understatement of the year.

He was furious.

The whole pack went on lockdown, as the wolf who ran off had not been caught yet. A patrol went after the two guards who had taken the motorcyclist to the hospital. They hadn't responded because they had been drugged and tied up, their vehicle found on a logging road about ten miles from where the attack took place. As I was being patched up in the Pack clinic, they were brought in and checked. Doc said they would sleep it off and be fine.

Remi was worse off than me, she had just left with Doug. Her arm had started to heal wrong, and it had to be broken and reset. I thought Doug was going to lose it, it took his boys David, Nathan and Derek to hold him back while Renee held her other hand. The sound of the break was sickening, as well as the grinding of bone, and she screamed in pain despite the drugs she had been given. I was glad when it was over and he was placing it in a cast. She would have to wear it for a week, werewolves healed much faster than humans after all. Her other wounds had been cleaned and superglued together on the way back to the clinic.

Finally, Doc called me into the room and I sat on the examining table. He put my injured arm on a rolling table and carefully removed the battle dressing. It was ugly; my forearm had deep bites on two sides, just below the elbow. There was lots of dried blood and scabbing. He gave me a local anesthetic and let it take effect before starting, because as he said, "this was going to hurt like a bitch when I go in there."

Let's just say the shot wasn't 100% effective. He used cotton balls soaked in alcohol to remove the dried blood, then he softened the scabs with a wet bandage before ripping it off. "FUCK! That hurt!"

"I know, but one bad thing about clotting agents, they trap any germs in there. I have to get in there and clean them out good." He had pulled over a lighted magnifying glass on a long arm so he could see better. "I can see some fibers in there from your shirt, those have to come out too." He spend the next fifteen minutes digging around in the holes and pulling stuff out, before cleaning them with hydrogen peroxide. The smaller wounds he left alone, but some had to be stitched up. Finally, he was done and he wrapped it in gauze and tape. "Keep it dry, come back in two days and I'll change the dressing and check for infection. The stitches have to be in for two weeks. The painkillers you already have for your thumb should be fine for this too."

"Thanks Doc. I guess the bite didn't give me my wolf back, huh?"

"Like I said, it can't. If you were a normal human, the way you got bit in an attack, you'd have changed already."

I got up to my feet and he walked me to the door; Renee was waiting in the chairs outside. "What are you here for, cousin?"

"Dad asked me to bring you to him when you were done." She looked towards the house then back. "He's had a little time to calm down, Mom told him off. He wanted to punish our guards, and she had to remind him that SHE told them to leave and SHE didn't want them to come back with a human. She also may have said something about how he needs to pull his head out of his ass and focus on the attackers and not his own people."

"Language, Renee. You're too young to say stuff like that."

"Really? Like my virgin ears have never heard anything like that at school, on TV or on the internet." She huffed and walked me to the door. "I'm tired of being treated like a little kid, I'm big enough to fight. I think I proved that today."

"Yeah, you did good, but it's not like I'm going to let you drive my truck again for at least three more years." I rubbed the top of her head as we exited the building and started to walk back to the Pack house. "Any idea what he wants to talk about?"

"I know we didn't catch that one that ran from you. The trackers followed the scent, it disappeared at a trailhead parking area. Guy is long gone by now." We climbed up the front stairs to the Pack house. "He's trying to figure out how this happened." She left me at his office door and ran off.

I knocked at the door and entered when he called to me. "You wanted to see me, Uncle Doug?"

"Yes, I have a few questions after talking to Remi and Renee." He sat me down next to him on the couch across from his desk. "First off, I need anything you can tell me about the one who got away."

I closed my eyes for a moment and pictured him. "Young, under 25 I think. Good sized, bigger than most, probably Alpha or Beta bloodlines. I didn't see any scars or identifying marks other than the white coloration on his black fur." I grabbed a pencil and notebook from the phone on the table next to my side, and quickly sketched where the white patches were. "Bright green eyes were the most striking feature, they were like jewels, almost. He behaved weird, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he and another wolf were both attacking Remi. She was hurt already, he left her and charged me, just to put on the brakes and stand there staring at me. He was getting my scent. Remi took out the other wolf, and he just looked back and then took off running."

Doug shook his head. "Why would he stop like that in the middle of a fight?"

"I've been thinking that he smelled I was human. There's still rules against that."

Doug leaned back and pinched his nose with his fingers. "Maybe. What did you think about the ambush?"

"It was well planned. The motorcyclist, since he drugged our guys, had to have been in on it. He was human, or Remi would have said something. They had wolves on both sides of the road, spread out so they could surround us but far enough away Darryl didn't get his scent. They also staged the accident." I sat back a little. "Shit, they knew we were coming, it's the only answer."

"How? You guys left twenty minutes after you came in here. Remi and Renee weren't even going, unless..."

"They weren't the targets." I turned a little towards him. "They were after me."

"How?"

"Let's look at what they know about me. They know I might be here because we're related and I'm not at home, but they won't come on your land because that would start a war. They know the truck I drive, and they know about my surgery. They could have been watching the entrance to your land, waiting for me to leave."

"That doesn't give them time to get out in front of you and set up an ambush like that, unless they know where you're going."

"But how did they..." Fuck. They were waiting for me to call! "The appointment. There are only a handful, pardon the pun, of specialists out there who can do followup on something like this. They must have found out from the scheduling office at the hospital, I used my real name for the appointment." I reached out with my good hand and set it on his knee. "I'm so sorry, I endangered both their lives."

He put his hand on mine and squeezed it. "You had no way of knowing." He mind linked some people, and soon his Beta and top leadership was entering. "We've determined that the attack on our Luna was actually meant for Alpha Ella, here. The main suspects are the Minnesota packs."

"Well, that's good then," Beta Mike said. "The group that was killed was probably all they sent."

"Yeah, it's a different situation than a border pack going after her," replied the Lead Tracker, Julian.

"Take the Pack off lockdown," the Alpha said. "Keep the trackers out trying to find the missing wolf, at least for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I've got a phone call to make." The men left, and I sat back, figuring this would be interesting. He went back to his desk and opened his planner, locating the number he wanted. I wished I still had my wolf hearing so I could hear both sides; he saw my face and put it on speakerphone as it dialed.

"This is Tanner." I cringed when I heard his voice.

"Alpha, this is Alpha Doug Johnson. Care to explain?"

"Explain what, Doug?"

He laughed. "Cut the bullshit, Scott. Some of your men attacked a truck today. That truck had my mate and my daughter in it, and I'm in no mood for denials since my mate was hurt."

There was a pause on the line. "That wasn't me, Doug."

"So none of the nine dead wolves are yours, huh? Must be just rogues or something." He was about to strangle him through the phone.

"Nope, no idea."

"All right, well I'll tell you what is happening then. We will be skinning the fur off them within the hour, then we're going to burn them with our garbage. If anyone has the balls to own up to sending them, they can call me and make alternative arrangements before they become a wall hanging in my pack house." He cut the phone off and sighed as he leaned back in his chair. "You're not to go anywhere off our land, Ella. It's too dangerous, and Remi will have my balls if anything happens to you."

"I understand, Alpha." Grounded. "Anything else?"

"No, get some rest. We'll talk again tomorrow after we've had a chance to think."

I went to the kitchen and got some food, then took a pain pill and napped most of the afternoon. By the next morning, I was completely miserable- both my arm and my thumb were throbbing in pain. I got up and made my way to the bathroom, flinging the door open as the nausea hit. I barely made the toilet before I was throwing up.

The same thing happened the following morning, so when I was getting my dressing changed I asked Doc about it. He wrote down some notes and checked my temperature, it was normal. "How long ago was your last period, Ella?"

I thought about it. "Around the beginning of October, I don't really keep track of it." He got up and grabbed something out of a drawer as the realization hit me like the Ice Bucket Challenge. I looked down at the small package he handed me, and he pointed to the small bathroom across the hall.

Sitting on the toilet, I opened up the test kit and nervously read the directions. One line negative, two lines pregnant. I carefully peed on it and set it on the sink, then watched the clock as it counted down the time. I looked down.

Two lines.

Holy fuck. It couldn't be.

I opened up the door, holding the test in my bad hand. The look on my face told Doc everything, and he pulled me back in and set me down on the exam table again. "How? How is this possible, I didn't go through heat?"

He put his hand on my shoulder, trying to comfort me. "I had a hunch, so I checked your medical records again. That man, he penetrated you vaginally, correct?"

"Yes, but I killed him before he could, um, complete it. He couldn't have gotten me pregnant, right?"

Doc shook his head. "I'm afraid that is not the case. I don't know how heat would happen without your wolf, and human cycles are different. Seminal fluid, like what is called pre-cum, contains some number of sperm. It isn't as much as in ejaculation, but it only takes one to do the job. Plus, sperm can survive for days before impregnating the egg." I was starting to cry. "And I double checked, they were so focused on fixing your thumb they didn't give you the morning after pill; it would have interfered with the surgery." "So David could be the father."

"I'm afraid that is the case, Ella. I'm sorry."

"Doc, he's not the only one I've been sexually active with. On the way here I spent a night with a human friend, we had sex several times that night. I wasn't thinking, we didn't use protection. Can you tell who the father is?"

"I don't know, but as long as you are here let's check you out." He left to get an ultrasound machine while I changed into a gown and removed my panties. He brought it in and connected a uterine probe, then he pulled out the stirrups on the exam table and put my legs up. It felt weird as the lubricated probe went in, but I was too busy watching the screen. He moved it around a little until there was a small black spot on the screen with a white bean inside. "There's your baby," he said. He punched a button and printed out a picture, handing it to me as I cried. He took some measurements and gave me the estimate of the fetal age. "I'm sorry, Ella, but these measurements aren't completely accurate for date of conception. I can't tell you which man is the father."

"When will you be able to tell?"

"When the fetus in in the third trimester, we can do an amniocentesis and extract DNA for testing. You would have to have DNA from at least one male to determine which is the father."

My jaw fell. "So I won't know if this is the rapist's wolf baby or the human's normal baby for months."

He nodded. "I'm sorry, Ella. Whatever you decide, I will make sure you get the help you need."

I closed my eyes. 'Whatever I decide.' Right. I put my hand over my belly as he cleaned the lube off and put my gown back down. For the second time this year, my life was turned upside down.

"Doc, you can't say anything about this."

"I won't say anything unless the Alpha orders me. Even I can't resist an Alpha command." He helped me to my feet. "I know they love you, Ella. Don't go through this alone."

"Thanks, Doc." I changed then walked out of the office and went back to my room to pack.

It was time to leave.