by Lisa Ladew
Bruin pointed. “See that scar on the underside of his chin? When he grows in his hair the hair there comes in pure white.” He grinned proudly. “He fell out of a tree when we were seven, and I sewed him up while he was still unconscious.”
Conri rubbed his chin. “Yeah, with a sewing needle and Nan’s old thread.” But he grinned back, like the memory was a precious one to him.
Bruin then introduced Willow. “Conri, I would like you to meet my mate.”
Conri nodded and stuck out his hand. “Your girlfriend.”
Willow smiled and held out her own hand, while Bruin shook his head. “Not my girlfriend. My mate.”
Conri’s fingers met hers and their hands slid together, his rough and huge, the skin gliding across hers. Energetic sparks jumped from the seam where their hands joined, and Willow wondered inanely if she was the only one who could see them. Conri addressed his brother. “You’re not telling me that she’s a-”
He stopped speaking abruptly, his eyes going wide, his shoulders pulling backwards in a jerk, like his chest was on a string directly in the center and someone had yanked it.
Willow bore down, curling her fingers around his hand, before he could pull it away. Something was happening, and it was important that she be allowed to finish…
An indescribable feeling of completeness, of something clicking into place, coming into being, filled her. Conri snatched his hand away from her, and stared, eyes wide.
“Good to meet you,” she whispered, and he only nodded, his expression alarmed and unsure.
Bruin looked back and forth between them, eyes narrowed. Willow smiled sweetly at him. She didn’t know what had happened, but it would change everything forever.
Conri recovered enough to speak. “You’re well-liked by the wolves, brother. They’ve treated me exceptionally well.”
Bruin nodded. “They are nothing like we were told.” His expression darkened, as his eyes bored into his brother’s eyes, something meaningful passing between them. To Willow, it looked like an affirmation, a realization, something almost too big to comprehend in one pass.
From the other side of the room, Ella cried out and Remington called for Conri. “Conri, I will need you in ten. We’re going to have to start this.” He sounded terrified.
“What’s going on?” Mac said, his voice hard.
Conri addressed all of them. “Her twins are conjoined at the back. They’ve known for months, but only told everyone-” he waved his hand at the room. “Only told everyone a little over an hour ago. They didn’t want the shiften to worry. Remington has a team of human specialists in that room-” He nodded at the sterile room, “-ready to do surgery to separate them, but there’s three big problems.”
He stopped to take a breath. Rogue nodded, filling in. “Let me guess, one of them is that those babies might come out as puppies, and then what?”
Conri nodded. “Yeah. So far the ultrasound shows babies, so we are trying hard to get them out quickly.”
Mac looked around. “Why not bring a human into the room so they can’t shift?”
Conri nodded slowly, rubbing his left shoulder absently. “That was discussed, but there’s two reasons why we decided not to. They could shift while still inside-last minute, and we’re certain pups are able to shift while in the womb, regardless of whether a human is standing next to the mother or not. Plus, these aren’t wolven. These are the pups of a wolfen and a half-angel. Who knows if they are bound by the same biological rules we are.”
Willow held onto her belly, unable to contemplate being pregnant with a baby who could turn into a wild animal in your uterus. She stood on tiptoes, trying to see Ella beyond the people surrounding her bed, marveling at her sister’s strength. She realized something. “She’s got to have a c-section, doesn’t she? Because the babies are joined?”
Conri nodded. “Yeah, which leads us to problems two and three. Of course you must realize both of those babies might not survive. She insisted they wait to do the surgery until she went into labor naturally, to give the pups the best chance at being strong enough to survive the operation. But now she’s in labor and they can’t get her to go under. They can’t even dull her sensation to block the pain that’s going to come when they slice her belly open. Remington has tried three different medications, and at this point he’s worried about the pups. He’s given her too much. He’s scared he’s going to have to operate on her with no pain meds at all.” He glanced that way, at Trevor, who was at Ella’s head, holding her hand, smoothing back her hair, and glaring at Remington with a warning in his eyes. “I’d be scared, too. They’ve even talked about hypnosis.” He shuddered.
Willow grasped Bruin’s hand and pulled at his arm.
She could help.
Chapter 27
Bruin hovered as close as he could to Ella’s bedside without being in the way. Willow was right there with Ella, holding one of Ella’s hands in both of hers, her body set and tense, her concentration intense. Her eyes were closed, but all of her energy was pointed at Ella. Cerise was on the other side of the bed, holding on to Ella’s other hand and facing her in the exact same manner.
When Willow had explained what she believed she could do, and Bruin had told Trevor in ruhi, Trevor had cleared the bedside quickly and brought Willow over. Willow had explained to Ella what was going to happen, Ella had nodded and tried to smile between contractions. Willow had looked around at her sisters, all of whom were there except for Heather. She’d motioned for Cerise to come close and take Ella’s other hand, explaining to Trevor that Cerise had the energetic ability to be an external stopper for the conduit Willow was going to make in Ella’s body, keeping any of Willow’s energy from leaking away uselessly. Willow would be stripping Ella of the pain and emotion of the scalpel cuts to her being, and conducting it out through Willow’s body and away, leaving Ella pain and trauma-free, like hypnosis on steroids.
Most of the KSRT, including Wade, watched from various poses around the room, all of them nervous, but knowing they could do nothing.
Willow had gotten everyone situated exactly how she wanted them, then spent a few moments calm and focused on Ella, until Ella’s eyes had slipped closed, and she appeared to fall asleep.
“Doctor, it’s time,” Willow said.
Bruin watched nervously. When he’d asked Willow if she would feel Ella’s pain as it went through her, Willow had only said, “Let’s hope not.” Bruin had wanted to ask if Willow had ever done something like this before, but he could see the answer in Willow’s eyes already. Sure, but on a much smaller scale. Nothing like this.
Remington was operating behind a drape, but from where Bruin was standing, he could see behind it. The doctor’s masked face belied his tension, but his hands did not. They did not shake as he decisively lowered them to the circle in the surgical paper and cut into the flesh there.
Bruin held his breath. Ella’s eyes remained closed, her breathing deep and even. His eyes shot between the slice in her skin that welled blood, and her serene face. It was working.
But Willow. She was hunched and sweating, teeth gritted together. Even Cerise looked uncomfortable.
Remington moved skin and adipose out of the way, locating Ella’s uterus, and slicing into it just as cleanly.
Ella’s eyebrows creased. Willow grunted and moaned deep in her throat as she tried to keep the pain to herself. It wasn’t working!
Bruin went to her, enveloping her in his arms. “Give it to me,” he said. He would bear the pain for all of them. “Give me as much as you can. All of it. I can take it.” But Willow only whimpered, her back bowing, her muscles tensing to rocks. She couldn’t or wouldn’t give it to him. Desperation gripped him. He had to help her.
Something burned along his leg and he looked down. The pocket in Willow’s skirt glowed.
Bruin reached his hand in and retrieved what was there. The pendant. The bear’s perpetual snarl caught Bruin’s attention, telling him what he needed to know. Its eyes glowed and Br
uin swore they met his. He reached the pendant around Willow’s body and placed it directly over her heart, holding it steady as it drew the energy Willow was pulling from Ella directly through her skin, pooling it in the pendant, then shooting it through Bruin’s hand and into the room. It hit the ceiling and went through that, too, and Bruin could not see where it went after that.
Willow sagged against him and he held her up, whispering in her ear, “Keep it up, Ella needs you.”
Ella’s face had smoothed again, and Cerise actually sighed, her expression relaxing. Willow firmed herself, stroking Ella’s hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered to Bruin.
Bruin nodded, keeping her upright. What else were mates for? Nothing. This was it. He was her support when she needed it, her calm in the storm, her other half, her provider of anything and everything she needed.
Remington handed a bundle to Conri, who was gloved and masked beside him. Conri took the bundle directly to the warmer. That couldn’t be the babies, could it? They were so still, so purple.
Conri pushed the warmer into the sterile room, a cadre of medical professionals following him, as Remington closed Ella up.
“We did well,” Remington said. “They will be given the best chance.”
Bruin swallowed hard, his eyes flying to Trevor.
Trevor stared hard at the door his pups had disappeared through without a noise. Not even a cry.
Chapter 28
Willow jerked awake from her dream, frowning at the realism of it. It had been bad enough going through the experience of Ella and Trevor’s decision the first time. But now she was dreaming it. She would bet those two brand-new parents were dreaming it, too, if she thought either of them were sleeping.
She looked at her phone. Five in the afternoon. They’d arrived the night before at two in the morning, Ella had delivered at just before three, and they’d retreated to the waiting area, ending up sleeping in chairs, when first light had broken over the horizon. The storm had blown itself out.
One look around the room told her the surgery was still going on, over twelve hours later. No one had heard anything. Some of the males were sleeping in chairs themselves. Others sat in chairs and stared at nothing, none of them speaking. Mac and Rogue were propped against each other in a corner, and Bruin, her Bruin, was next to her in a chair, his shoulders upright enough that she guessed he was meditating rather than sleeping. The unknown male across from Willow, wearing a police officer uniform, had his eyes closed and his head down, but his lips were moving quickly, reciting something. Praying.
Willow didn’t need her power to sense the emotional undercurrent of the room. They were all terrified.
After Ella had been sewn up, Bruin had been able to step back, the energy softer and easier to remove. Willow had “woken” Ella up and the decision Ella had been forced to make haunted Willow again, playing through her mind.
Trevor exited the sterile room, his face grim, rubbing a hand over his features. He approached his mate and took her hand that Cerise handed over to him. “We have to decide.”
Willow made to pull back, but Ella grabbed her hand and squeezed. Willow stayed, realizing Ella would still need her.
“Tell me,” Ella breathed, worry, fear, anxiety, and flat emotional pain swirling through her. Willow combed the emotions out of her sister as best she could.
“The doctor says he thinks the male is the better choice. He’s a bit bigger, he’s got a slightly larger portion of nerves innervating his heart, his lungs are more developed.”
Ella squeezed Willow’s hand, hard, and Willow caught snips and snaps of memories and tragic emotions, most of them belonging to Ella’s mate, but routing through Ella, and now through Willow. Trevor had been a conjoined twin, and he’d had this exact surgery. The doctor had said only one of them could live. He’d been chosen to live, while his sister, Treena, had been chosen to die.
Willow gasped, realizing what decision Trevor and Ella were being called on to make.
Ella shook her head, her eyes clear, her expression calm, as a warm rush of something fell into her, routing through Willow. The fear and anxiety Willow had been drawing out of her stopped, and all Willow could feel from Ella was a resoluteness. A knowing that came from something bigger than all of them. “Tell the doctor to divide them equally. They both will live.”
Trevor shook his head. “Ella, the doctor said-”
Ella cut him off, but not in mean way. “Trevor, can you decide? I know your parents did, but I want you to look inside your heart, and tell me what it says. You’re out here asking me to make this decision because you can’t. I’m telling you that you don’t need to. I-.” She faltered here, and Willow felt her indecision, not over what she was saying, but why she was saying it. She didn’t know.
But Trevor had already stood tall. “I’ll tell them,” he said, and back into the room he had gone.
Willow had stayed with Ella for hours, but eventually her energy had flagged. Ella had seemed fine, just waiting, like all the rest of them, for news, and so Willow and Bruin had looked for a place to take a time out, as Dahlia and Cerise had moved in to take her spot.
Willow sighed and settled in to the back of the chair, getting as comfortable as possible, which wasn’t very comfortable, about to close her eyes again, when she heard a noise she couldn’t quite make out.
Bruin’s eyes flew open. “Is that a baby crying?”
Willow held her breath. Was it?
The sound grew louder, until Willow knew definitively, yes, it was a baby. She shot to her feet. “They did it-” Around her, most of the room did the same.
The sound of a second baby’s cry joined the first, overlapping it, harsher somehow, like it was more indignant.
“Oh my God,” Willow cried. She could feel the stark relief of Ella and Trevor, even from outside the room, and it was enough to knock her toward the ground. Bruin was there to catch her, to keep her on her feet.
They rushed to the room and opened the door, slipping inside as the others in the waiting room shuffled, wanting to do the same, but knowing they should not.
Two identical-looking human babies lay in warmers next to each other, faces fat and pink and pissed as they screamed. Both had tubes running from their bodies in way too many places, but both glowed red with health, chubby hands waving in the air.
Trevor was laid across his mate’s bed, his head on her chest as he sobbed. “You were right,” he said over and over. “Thank you,” he finally whispered as tears rolled down his cheeks. “Thank you for saving both young.”
Ella ran her fingers through her mate’s hair, whispering soothing things to him, but her eyes never left the two babies in the two warmers.
Wade pushed away from where he was standing, his face resolute. “I must announce the good news.” He laid a hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “Trevor, do your pups have names yet?”
Trevor grasped Wade’s hand and spoke into Ella’s chest, visibly pulling himself together. “The male pup is Track.” He pushed himself upright, wiping his face, squeezing Ella’s hand once, then walking to the babies. He placed his hands on the warmer holding one of the babies, who was wearing a pink infant cap. “And this,” he said, his voice strong, “this is Treena.”
Willow couldn’t see the thought-forms of anyone in the room through the tears in her eyes, but she could feel them. Relief. Triumph. A communal spirit of longing, fulfilled. A female wolfengel. A new species, upon which the hopes of humanity were hinged.
Wade strode to the door, ripped it open and held up his hands. “The pups live,” he shouted, “and they are strong. One male, one female, both born at the exact same time.”
The room beyond erupted in cheers and whistles as males slapped each other on the back and gave high fives. Lorna, Wade’s mate opened a window and stuck her head out. “They live, they both live, and they are strong!”
The cheer that rose from outside shook the small building.
History. Hope. For too long, the
two had not been entwined, but now they collided, and everyone felt it.
Chapter 29
Bruin stood next to his mate, leaning on the police truck he’d come in. The shiften were still celebrating in the parking lot, guzzling wine and beer and maybe the harder stuff, bringing gifts for the young, one by one, and placing them in the pile by the door that was already over Willow’s head. He, Willow, Mac, and Rogue had done a bit of celebrating themselves, but the darkness was falling again and Willow was overwhelmed, and Bruin was tired. The bone-deep tired of a job well done, but still enough to make him want to retire to his house with his mate.
Mac was there, he and Rogue sitting on the tailgate of the truck, their legs swinging.
Rogue spoke. “It feels different now.”
Willow nodded quickly. “It does to me, too, and I haven’t even been around for long. But something changed when those babies were born.”
Bruin didn’t say a word. He’d felt it, too, and now he was trying to figure out exactly what it meant. Just what was different?
He yawned and stretched. He would sleep on it. But as his next words came out of his mouth, he knew. “We’re going to head home. We need a guard…” He trailed off. Because they didn’t. He cocked his head. “Actually, I think we’re ok. Can’t you feel it?” Willow nodded then Rogue nodded too.
Mac was the only holdout. He swung his legs and stared out at the crowd. Finally he spoke. “The power? Is that what you mean?”
Bruin rubbed a hand down the side of his neck. His energy was positively humming, his tiredness gone. “The four of us,” he said simply.
Willow hugged her arms around herself. “But someone is missing.”
“Right.” Bruin looked around. “Maybe two someones.”
Bruin frowned. The moment was broken, but when they left, they left alone, only the four of them heading toward Bruin’s house.
