by Iris Sword
“I take it that uvo-laa-lauo-taq means good morning? Good morning, Siku. We need to talk.” Eddie sat up, rolling his shoulders and licking his lips. His curls were a mess, all slanted to the side from sleeping. Siku found his movements sexy, and wanted to talk less and have more sex. But Eddie sounded serious, even a little angry. It didn’t sit right with Siku or his cubs. He clutched his stomach as the twins shifted around, sharp pains building into a brutal crescendo.
Oh no, Siku thought, doubling over. Not now. It’s too soon!
His alpha rubbed his back, then picked up Siku’s face, cupping his cheeks before whispering, “We need to slow down. It’s my fault not yours. I was so angry about you leaving me, and then I was so determined to find you. I shouldn’t have let me instincts take over last night. We need to slow down and— Oh! What the fuck? Why did you bite me!?”
Edward yanked his hands away, nursing the fingers on his right hand inside his mouth. Siku drew blood. He didn’t mean to, but couldn’t stop himself.
“Will you join us up north, my pack and I?” Siku asked, his voice strained from the pain radiating throughout his body.
“Didn’t I just say we need to slow down? We need to take you to the A.S.A. for prenatal care, then we can talk about moving, okay? Fuck that hurts!” Edward said, sounding frustrated with the omega.
Siku sneered, shouting, “Liar! You’ll abandon me again after dropping me off, and allow your pack members who wear human skin to abuse me! You have a silver tongue but a coward's heart. Speak! Will you join us or not? I need your commitment, not your pretty words!”
“What’s gotten into you, Siku?! Abuse and abandon? What the hell are you talking about?” Edward tried to reach for Siku again, but the omega bit at him once more. Flustered, Edward ripped the sheets off the bed and jumped to his feet.
He circled around the bed and went to grab Siku before pausing mid-step, “Oh shit!”
A pool of amniotic fluid fanned out around Siku, and he was going into labor. He cried out, “Savaiññiq!”
Siku watched in despair as Edward ran out of the room. He dropped back on the bed, holding tight stomach, wondering how he fell for the same trick twice: fuck and flee. Before he could wallow in self-pity, Edward reappeared with a device plastered against his ear. He crawled across the bed and lifted his mate into his arms while shouting, “Get me Dr. Sedna!”
“Mother! I’m sick, alpha! I’m sick and I’m scared for the cub—UGH!” Siku whimpered as he leaned against his mate, finding strength in his scent and warmth.
“I’m here, I’m here, Siku. Oh God… I’m here… And I’m not going to leave you,” Siku closed his eyes, dazed from moonsickness, and passed out.
EDWARD
“Veronica? You're here! He’s downstairs!” Edward flung the front door open, somehow finding the time to put on a shirt and pants before Veronica arrived. He feared having sex might cause a premature birth, but not what Siku was experiencing. Not by a long shot. It was like Siku’s body was distorting, unable to figure out if it wanted to be wolf or human. Edward felt his pain like it was his own as Veronica and him emerged in his downsized medical wing in the basement of the large cabin. On top of a surgical table, Siku’s withered body shook and jerked, jagged teeth clattering. He looked like a hairy human sucked free of water, a shrunken shadow of what humans used to image a wolf shifter was—a werewolf ruled by the full moon.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Edward asked as he pulled out more sterile water for a c-section he wasn’t sure was happening. Siku couldn’t be transported in his current state. As much as he hated the term, he’d gone “feral” and would attack anyone that wasn’t Edward. He’d even tried to attack Edward a few times, overpowered by the alpha by biology alone.
“N-no, but thank God you sent in those blood samples.” Veronica started laughing as she pulled medicine and syringes out of her mobile workstation.
“What’s wrong?” Edward asked as he moved to the table and held Siku down. He didn’t want him to overpower Veronica, so he released his pheromones to calm his omega down as much as possible. It seemed to work, just barely, as he stopped twitching and resumed whimpering in pain.
“Of all times, you chose this one to call me Veronica and not Dr. Sedna, that’s why.” She shot him a lopsided smile, her dark hair now in a pixie cut, tan skin soaked with sweat, black eyes hoping up and down like she didn’t want them to settle on anything in the room. Veronica paced back and forth, filling a syringe with a cloudy white liquid, “Anyway, this is some crazy shit, excuse my French. I can’t be sure just yet, but I believe he’s experiencing what they’re calling moonsickness.”
“Moonsickness? Never heard of it,” Edward said, trying to reassure Siku as he rubbed the matted fur on the omega’s head.
“I hadn’t either. You know that moose shifter family that came in? Well, they said they knew a guy that new a bear that new a wolf that moonsickness is going around again. It’s concentrated in the north where the last wild wolf shifters are, Pack-B, the family you’re tracking. Well, from what I can gather, it’s a rare blood disorder caused by inbreeding over several generations. Pure-bloods, you know. It seems to have the reverse effect that interbreeding is having on other shifters. For half-bloods, they lose the ability to shift into a wolf overtime. Sometimes, full-bloods exhibit the same behaviors, only they think as humans but live as wolves until they become wolves completely. In both cases, the brain and body have a disconnect and the patient is driven to one extreme—wolf or human. In Siku’s case, he has what they’re calling moonsickness. I don’t know if it’s actually guided by the phases of the moon, but either way, it means he’s being driven in the middle. His body can’t handle a continuous transformation sequence, so it starts shutting down. Moonsick wolves either kill themselves or end up being killed for being ‘rabid.’” Veronica ended her rant by pulling out an elastic tourniquet.
Edward could do nothing but stare in disbelief at the flood of disturbing information. A sob choked him, and he covered his eyes. His life had been one terrifying roller coaster since he met Siky, but this was too much. He’d finally found his fated mate, his pregnant fated mate at that, and he was going to die because his ancestors had sex too close to the family tree way back when? It was nonsense, but it was true. Every symptom seemed to be pointing to the same conclusion.
“Is there…a cure? A treatment? Anything!? H-He’s carrying my cubs Veronica, somewhere underneath all that fur.” Her eyebrows lifted in concern at the news, her face a mask of surprise, “He can’t die! He can’t die like this Veronica!”
“Wait, your cubs? Cubs?! ...There is an unconventional and definitely not A.S.A. sanctioned option. This is a high dose of standard transformare suppressant. Mixed with the blood of an unrelated alpha, it’s supposed to reverse the effects temporarily. I was going to use this artificial replicant, but I guess… I guess we can use yours. We’d need to run clinical tests on all of Pack-B to find a cure, but this is all I got for now,” Veronica said wearily.
“If it can help, I’ll do it!” Edward rolled up his sleeve and offered up his arm without hesitation. Veronica hesitated, so he took the syringe and filled it with his blood after she looped the tourniquet around his upper arm. He handed it back to her gloved hand, and she breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Okay, let's hope this works.” Veronica injected the alpha’s blood into the vial of medicine. After filling a second syringe with the concoction, she moved towards Siku.
“First shot is to paralyze him and stop the sequence,” Veronica said as she searched for a vein and hit gold, injecting him, “Second shot should stabilize his condition. We’ll know if this works by nightfall.”
SIKU
The first thought that crossed Siku’s mind was that he missed his alpha and was afraid for their cubs. He couldn’t move, and his whole body ached like he had been in a fight. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t even pick up his eyelids. So he remained still, terrified by the fact he
wasn’t in control of his body. A familiar scent wafted past Siku’s nose, that of his alpha, his heart, the sire of his cubs. Siku groaned, slowly by surely gaining the ability to move. He opened his eyes, and two sets of eyes stared back at him. One set belonged to Eddie, a bright gold in color, and the other to an unknown human female, dark and terrified. Siku groaned, lifting his hands with some effort. He was pulled into Eddie’s chest, and relaxed into his alpha’s warm embrace. That was until he remembered what had happened that morning.
“The cubs—” He began, cut off by Eddie’s voice, mouth against his ear, beard brushing against his overly hot skin.
“Safe inside of you, babe. I thought I was going to lose you, but Dr. Sedna saved your. You’re sick, but I’m sure we can find a cure together.” Siku didn’t need to hear anything else; he trusted his alpha with their lives. The trio sat in silence afterward, trying to figure out their next steps. Siku watched as his alpha asked the female to stay the night. She tried to say no, but he pressed her, claiming it was too dark to drive on icy roads. Siku frowned at that, legs swinging over the metal table he was on, hand cupping his still round, small belly. The cubs were coming soon, just not at that moment. His water probably broke from the stress of the sickness. He should’ve been focused on his cubs, but instead, Siku was distracted. The newcomer smelled like a beta, which meant she had no scent at all. But, she was a human and Eddie a shifter. Siku knew it was old-fashioned thinking, but he was of the opinion that shifters and humans should stay far away from one another as much as possible. Besides, they seemed close, overly friendly, which made him a little jealous. Savaiññiq warned him that alphas could take as many mates as they wanted, as long as they treated their alpha female better than the rest. He thought it was bullshit. Why go through the trouble of being marked in the first place, an omega’s sexual desires none-exist outside of the alpha who marked them? His alpha was his just as Siku lived for him. There was no room for another. Maybe if they weren’t fated mates like Savaiññiq’s husband and her, things would be different.
The human female looked to Siku, eyes now warm, almost nurturing, “Hi Siku; I’m Dr. Veronica Sedna! I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Ed and I have known each other for a decade, so that’s why he called me to help you. We went to the same college and specialized in shifters like you. And, I guess, him too.”
“You’re making it sound like we’re ancient. We’re only pushing thirty not dead!” Edward laughed hard, the first time Siku ever heard him do so. It was rich, music to his weary ears. But it also pissed him off. Why did he laugh for the female and not him?
“We met during the last lunar orbit and had sex right away. Eddie is my fated mate and I’m bearing his cubs. Our bond runs deeper, human beta.” Siku lifted his chin in the air, refusing to shake her hand. He had to establish his dominance over her.
Eddie and the human female’s mouths flapped like land-locked fish. His alpha was the first to speak, nearly shouting, “Siku! She just saved your life!”
“Thank you. But I am the alpha female here, understand? You will be nothing more than a beta to him, while I can give him more cubs. I’m only nineteen orbits, which means we have many years left to produce. What about you? You look old.” Siku glared into her eyes. He wouldn’t attack her, not just because she saved him or the fact that he was pregnant. He knew she wasn’t a physical threat, just a potential emotional one. This was a fight between them, not his alpha.
“I…” The female’s brain seemed to shut off, eyes dim and confused.
“Nineteen? Like, years old? Oh fuck, does that make me a pervert, Veronica? Oh shit!” Eddie rubbed his temples, slumping against the wall. Siku scowled, not understanding what the problem was. Of course he would go for an older alpha if he could; they were more experienced if a bit less virle, and able to lead. It wasn’t unnatural at all. What was unnatural was shifters and humans mating. Siku went to speak but was stopped by a loud noise that came barreling down the stairs. Everyone turned towards the sound. It sounded like someone was pounding on the front door, and by the lack of any scent, Siku was all but certain it was another human beta.
“I’ll go,” Veronica said.
His alpha stood, “I’ll come with you. If that isn’t a cop, I don’t know who the hell would be pounding on my door so hard in the middle of the night. Siku, stay here.”
“No.” Siku got up. There was absolutely no way he was allowing them to go anywhere alone, especially if a predator was near. Not in the mood to fight, Eddie lead them upstairs. Siku almost tripped on the cloth they covered his feet in, pulling at the long white shirt he knew belonged to Eddie. Clothing made him itch almost as much as the beta’s presence made him tic. As they rounded the corner towards the living room, time itself roze. Eddie spun around, jaw dislocating and head transforming into a wolf before the female and him could speak.
“RUN!” A loud bang engulfed the room. Siku took Veronica with him to the ground, dragging her behind the kitchen counter blocking them from the living room.
“Pete? Are you fucking insane?! You’re violating sanctuary laws shooting a gun at an endangered subspecies!” Peeking around the corner as Veronica trembled in his arms, Siku watched as the human male called Pete leveled his gun at his fated’s head. Siku’s heart stopped cold, rage filling him with power. First a rival in love and then a poacher? He knew humans were nothing but trouble, but this sequence of events only confirmed Siku’s prejudice.
“Oh save me the fucking hysterics! You’re nothing but a dirty, rabid mutt playing human. That bitch and her cubs are coming with me whether you like it or not, Doc!” Pete said, finger on the trigger.
“Poacher!” Siku roared, tearing at his human clothing, hiding Eddie’s friend in the corner. Guns had claimed many of the Qiġñiq pack, young and old. And by the sound of the roaring metal carriers, and flashing lights shining outside through the cabin’s windows, more humans wielding guns were coming, soon. If they were going to die, Siku would die fighting alongside Eddie. He would never be captured or allow his cubs to be their slaves. His neck craned backward at an unnatural angle as he began to transform, but a horrendous pain stopped him. He fell to his knees, shielding his stomach, gasping for air, paralyzed as he had been during his last bount of moonsickness. All he could do was watch, unable to scream as a bullet pierced Eddie’s arm. He slashed the air with his oversized paw, and the human named Pete fell, screaming in agony. Siku watched as Eddie tore the rest of his clothing off, wrapping his arm to stop the bleeding. Now he knew why his scent was so powerful. Not only was he an alpha, Siku realized he was an upright shifter. He’d heard legends of their kind but had never seen one up close. The top of Eddie’s golden brown head touched the ceiling, arms hanging by his sides attached to large, clawed paws, legs bowed and tipped with even larger paws and claws.
More agile than a normal wolf shifter, Eddie ran to Siku and scooped him up, then Veronica. He dove for the basement as a hailstorm of bullets came flying their way. Eddie transformed back, but he was trapped mid-sequences, his furry ears on top is skull, face human but elongated in the shape of a wolf. The splatter of bullets stopped, most likely for the poachers to re-load. However, instead of starting back up again, it was replaced by the sound of screaming. Siku, Eddie, and Veronica huddled together on the stairs as the screaming died out.
“I’m going to check,” Eddie said, “Stay hidden Veronica, and watch him.”
No, Siku thought, fearing they’d kill him and make them watch. The human did as she was told, holding Siku’s thin body against her curves, though he was much taller than her. They waited for the end, but a gun barrel never greeted them again. After a few agonizing minutes, Eddie reappeared in his human form. Beside him, a stout heavy-set woman appeared as well. She had thick gray hair braided into a crown on top of her head. Her skin was so dark it appeared blue at first sight, her eyes equally dark yet warm. She lifted her classes back in place, and spat out what could only be human hair.
; “Hello sweethearts,” she said, “My husband said y’all might need some help. Isn’t it a shame these human poachers provoked us and we had to defend ourselves?”
Siku understood she was asking a leading question. He looked to Veronica and they both looked up at Eddie who smiled back.
“Yes,” they said in unison as the distance sound of sirens grew closer and closer still.
EPILOGUE:
EDWARD
One Year Later
“Qiġñiq. Negro. Black.” Edward beamed down at his one-year-old twin cubs, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt from the effort. Qiġñiq Savaiññiq sat across from them cross-legged, acting as their teacher. They cubs repeated the pack’s name in Iñupiaq, Spanish, and English, given tiny treats every time they pronounce it right. Savaiññiq seemed to enjoy teaching just as much as she enjoyed them. She acted as the bridge, helping them to fuse their cultures into something new, instead of merely blending their father’s distinct traditions. According to Savaiññiq, there was a language the Qiġñiq pack spoke only in their wolven forms lost to them now. Edward was determined to recover it, launching a series of studies with elders in the Alaskan shifter packs that dotted the vast territory through generous donations and grants. It took some maneuvering on his part, but he was able to transfer to Alaska permanently so he could stay with his family. Dr. Sedna was now the director of the A.S.A., which helped him make the case to the higher ups that more fieldworkers were needed seeing as she was stuck in an office most days. Rooted with his new pack in northwestern Alaska, and under the Iñupiaq’s leadership, only time would tell what would become of them. For now, Edward focused on the present, and how he was going to provide for his family.
It seemed like yesterday Siku was pregnant and giving birth. Shifters always progressed at an expedited rate compared to regular humans, Edward realized through his studies. Doubly so if both parents were fullbloods. With Siku being a pureblood, and Edward a fullblood, their twins were off to a rocket start. Experiencing it in real time was wonderful and altogether frightening. Edward resisted the urge to make his sons lab rats, but he also wanted to document their every movement as any first time parent would.
