by Jade White
“Didn’t I, though,” Chastity replied. “You might want to find Boris. Tess’s water just broke.”
“We’ll be there soon,” Night said, and put his phone away, as he headed for the building where he would most likely find the doctor. Katie glared sullenly as she watched him go.
*
Boris and Night stepped into Tess and John’s little house on the outskirts of town and greeted the women warmly. Boris came straight to check the birthing woman, while Night stepped over to Chastity.
“Has anyone told the daddy-to-be about his wife’s condition?” he wanted to know.
“He’s working up in the trees today, and we couldn’t get Rick on the cell,” said Chastity with a disgusted shrug. “We really should put some sort of a line up there we can call directly, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I think you are right,” Night agreed. “For now, though, it would seem somebody must go up there and get him. I suppose since I’m not a doctor, it probably should be me.”
“Yes, please, Night,” Tess gasped. “I’d really like to have the baby with him here, but these contractions have been going on for over a day already. And they are getting closer together.”
“I’ll be back soon,” Night said with an encouraging nod. “Don’t start the show without us.”
“Funny,” Tess grumbled.
Night was out the door in the next instant and off to search for Tess’s husband, John. John had made Tess into a werewolf—a wolf-born—sometime before they’d been married, and the pair already had two children together. It was easy to imagine she’d want him there for her third.
Chastity came to sit next to her with a curious light in her eyes. “Does it hurt very much?” she wanted to know.
“Not much, but then again it helps to know that you should stay calm,” she replied. “It’s natural for a baby to want out once it’s time. They generally should be able to slide right out and then the two of you just take a long, replenishing nap and get on with life as usual.”
“I know it’s not that easy,” Chastity smirked. “Trying not to freak me out?”
“Trying not to freak myself out, either,” she grinned.
“Well then, let’s just try to not freak out together,” Chastity teased.
“Good idea,” Tess agreed.
John and Night returned not ten minutes later. John burst through the door well ahead of Night and rushed over to kiss Tess right on the belly, practically knocking over Chastity’s chair.
“Hey, is that how you treat the female Alpha?” Tess grumbled on her behalf.
“Oh no, he’s fine,” Chastity said. “I understand the motivation.”
“Just don’t do it again,” said Night sternly, from behind them. They all laughed at this.
“You two should have your lunch,” Tess said. “This little one won’t be out for at least another couple of hours, unless things suddenly speed up a bit.”
“They might, now that your water has broken,” Boris reminded her. “But I’m sure there’s still time for lunch either way, for those of us who are not beyond the ability to eat it.”
“As it happens, John and I happened upon some rabbits along the way and snagged a few,” Night said. “I’ve got them right here.”
“Oh, what a wonderful surprise!” said Chastity excitedly. “Let’s cut them open properly. I’d love to keep the furs to make a blanket for the baby begun on his or her birthday!”
“Good idea for sure!” Tess smiled from her vantage point on her bed. Then she had another contraction right afterward.
“Here, Chastity, you may have the honors,” said Night with a smile. “I’m sure you know where everything is to do the job.”
Chastity busied herself with her task while Boris gave Tess a more in-depth examination and declared that she was almost ready to push. “But don’t worry, Chastity, even the pushing can take time. You need not stop what you’re doing, as yet.”
“All right,” said Chastity uncertainly. She hadn’t realized yet just how long it took to get a baby out. “I just hope that stuff you have been giving me makes this part of things happen a bit sooner as well.”
“Don’t worry, Chastity, once your baby is out, you won’t even remember how long it took,” Boris reassured her.
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
“If this part has got you worried, Chastity, I fear that the next is going to make your nerves just that much worse,” Night told her. “The pushing portion has been known to seem like the worst of it to a woman who has not yet done it herself.”
“Tess has asked me to be here, and so I will be,” she insisted. “Now, who wants the first meat?”
“Perhaps Boris should eat first,” he answered. “He will be busy soon.”
“Makes sense,” Chastity agreed.
It was difficult for Chastity to eat her meal by the time she got to sit down. She was too interested in what was going on across the room. Tess had begun to push by now, and her face was contorted and purple with her efforts. However, eventually she managed to push her baby boy out into the world.
He wasn’t at all cute, covered in blood and gore as he was, and Chastity had mixed feelings about being the first person to bathe him, all things considered. Baby John was a bit squirmy, and he was screaming up at her like it was the end of the world. She could empathize with him, of course, since to him it must be. Here he’d been, warm and cozy in his little cocoon, and all the sudden he’d come out here. Poor little guy.
“It’ll be all right, John,” she told him warmly. “You’ll see.”
And then something happened that amazed her. The baby paused in his wailing and stared right at her as if he was quite surprised to have understood. Chastity’s eyes went wide, for she was equally surprised. Then she lifted the tiny child and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
“You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” she told him. “Come on, let’s go meet your Mama. She’s been waiting for you for quite some time now, hasn’t she?”
“Boris, could you get the kids back from Cookie?” asked Tess tiredly. “They’ll want to meet Little John as well.”
“I will, my dear, but don’t begin to think you’ll be doing much parenting of those two tonight,” he said sternly. “You’ll need to get your rest first.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” she replied. “John can do the honors, I’m going to sleep.”
Chastity chuckled. “Don’t worry about this one,” she said. “I’m not quite ready to give him up yet.”
The others looked over to see that she’d decided to diaper him and wrap him before she brought him for everyone to see. The baby smiled contentedly as he began to feed.
“Are they supposed to smile that soon?” Chastity asked.
“Not usually,” Boris replied. “But every child is different, after all.”
Chastity nodded at this, but still she wondered. Was it possible that Tess had been given some supplements as well? Or was Little John really just an exceptional baby?
CHAPTER 11
It was about five days since Little John had been born. He was already able to hold his head steadily. That should have been physically impossible. Chastity knew she needed to ask Boris what was going on. She just wanted to do it alone, but with so much going on as five new women arrived and needed orientation and a larger house to stay in until the female dorm could be completed.
Rick stepped up production of their dorm to meet that demand. Only another week went by before the women were able to ascend to the treetop and settle into the half-finished structure.
Once the women were out of the way and John’s first month birthday was celebrated, however, Chastity was finally able to pull Boris aside. They were having a moon-feast down in the current main hall, and she simply grabbed his arm and pulled him out the door.
“What is it, Chastity?” he asked. “Are you feeling unwell?”
“No,” she said slowly. “I’m fine, and so is baby. But—“
“But?”
“There’s something I must ask you, Boris,” she said softly. “Something that has me curious, I suppose. Since I’m sure your reasons would be sound.”
“You’re wondering about Little John?” he said astutely. “The answer is no. I did nothing to him, though I have recently asked John, senior, if I could, since the child appears rather receptive. His intelligence is his own, so we may as well enhance the body to match it, do you not agree? Where would be the point in creating a colony of super-wolves, if we ignore the half-breeds and made-wolves among us. After all, they are a part of this colony as well.”
“So you intend to enhance him, too?” Chastity clarified.
“What we are doing here is not meant to harm anyone,” Boris pointed out. “We’re all about improving the life of all werewolves, are we not? Including the shorter lives of the made wolves. And who knows, my research could even increase their life expectancy as well.”
“So what you’re saying is that much more is going on here even now, than we have been told?” Chastity clarified. “These genetic enhancements you’ve been playing at are not isolated just to me and Night? Boris, how many wolves have you and Julian altered? How many other experiments have you actually got going on?”
“You sound upset, Chastity,” he replied. “But truly, there’s no reason to be upset about this. We want to give our people a better world, our children, yes, but also those of us who have come before them, any human that joins our ranks. If we’re going to build a future, we must build a place for them all.”
“I am—overwhelmed,” she whispered as she sat down abruptly and leaned back against the wall of the building. “This is—I knew that eventually if my child was a success that more wolf-borns would be enhanced, but I had no idea we had already come so far. Does Night know about this?”
“No, I didn’t think it would be necessary to reveal these things right now, my dear,” he explained. “I wanted to be certain that what we were doing was going to make any difference first. Most of it is still just speculation, you understand. I have yet to hit upon ways to increase the time of any made wolf. Regrettably, Tess isn’t going to live more than another fifty years unless we can find a way to increase that number. She has expressed a willingness to let me try, and she and her baby have begun taking supplements since shortly after he was born. She and John did not wish to make this known, and so we must keep their secret, at least for now.”
“You don’t even intend to tell Night?” she wanted to know. “You expect me to begin to keep things from him? I don’t think I could do that.”
“There’s no need to keep it from him, of course,” Boris said. “There is nothing wrong with what we are trying to achieve. I just don’t want to get the hopes up of these made wolves, who do not believe they are meant to last. Indeed, there are some among them who would not benefit overmuch from the longevity I eventually hope to offer.”
“So you intend to pick and choose, then?” Chastity asked. “You intend to select only the strongest of them?”
“It would only make sense to do so with such limited resources, don’t you think?” he pointed out. “Not all of them have the intelligence to be productive members, do they? I do think it best not to let them know anything about it right now, at least not until we’ve managed to perfect the process. I’m sure you understand that.”
“Yes, it does make sense to me, from the perspective of materials,” she admitted. “But how do you intend to determine which of them deserve to live longer, and which of them do not?”
“Intelligence, physical traits, abilities, how well they get on with others, maybe even personal appearance,” he told her. “Whether anyone wishes to admit to it or not, all these things play a part in the value of a person. And obviously, if there’s a lack of cooperation or ability, whoever is lacking becomes less important than the others by default.”
“But if you’re altering them anyway, how do you know the bad traits would not improve?”
“It is entirely possible they could,” he agreed. “But if you only have enough to save ten and there are thirty to save, you have to choose or you lose them all, is that not so? And also, there’s always the possibility that the others could start being enhanced at a later time, once we’ve perfected the methods.”
Chastity sighed. “Night really needs to know about all of this, Boris. He may wish to have a hand in picking which of the men he’d like to begin with, don’t you think?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Boris agreed. “But I think we have lingered here too long already. The men may begin to wonder what we are discussing if we simply call Night outside to join us.”
“I will have him take me home,” she said. “Meet us there, and we can give this the careful thought it will require.”
“Very well,” he agreed.
Chastity stepped inside again. As she did so, Night spotted her and smiled. He stepped over and said, “There you are, my love. Some of the ladies in here were just asking when exactly we were planning on actually getting married. They’ve been following me around like dog’s gift to women or something.”
“Oh, ha ha,” Chastity grumbled. “That joke is so lame.”
“Yeah, but still, I really am in need of rescue, sweetheart,” he said. “Katie has turned up for dinner.”
“I swear I’m going to bite her big time one of these days,” she grumbled. “But that’s neither here nor there since I don’t think we’ll be staying long.”
“Really? How so?”
“Boris is waiting for us at our house,” she explained. “He has a few issues to discuss, and I felt they were of a nature that it would not be wise to discuss them here.”
“Very well, I wasn’t having fun in here, anyway,” said Night with a grimace. “By all means, lead the way.”
*
“So, what you’re saying is that based on how many ingredients you’re going to need to conduct a proper study of the enhancing drugs, you can only choose about eight to ten made wolves for this experiment?” Night clarified a little while later.
“Yes, that about covers it,” said Boris. “But I do agree with Chastity, we should discuss just exactly who is going to get supplemented. I mean, you know as well as I do, that not all made wolves are created equally.”
“Unfortunately, I’d have to agree,” said Night with a nod. “Well, I might have a good solution to this problem off the top of my head. Julian sent a total of ten women here, and seven of them have already chosen their mates. Let’s just test it out on them.”
“Yes, and supplement the women with the other stuff while you’re at it,” Chastity said. “That could kill two birds with one stone.”
“We need to tread carefully there as well, I’m afraid,” said Boris with a sigh. “Some of the ingredients I’ve been using are needed in both types. We’ve really got to find some way to replenish the supplies.”
“Can we grow them here?” Chastity asked. “We’ve been talking about putting up a hothouse, anyway. Can the ingredients you need grow in one here?”
“St. John’s Wort might,” he conceded. “Maybe even the belladonna. It’s really the camphora laurel I’m not sure of. If we try growing that, it could well take over the entire forest.”
“That’s a tree, right?” Night said. “We could harvest the wood.”
“No way,” Boris said. “This is a protected forest. I’m not going to muck the place up for everyone. We’ll just have to snag wild invasive growths out of North Carolina or Florida or something. Especially Florida, they really don’t want the stuff.”
“Okay, and those are the harder to get ingredients, right?” asked Chastity. “The rest of them you have no problem with?”
“We could always grow the mint and oranges to use for flavor,” he said. “I know you’ve favored your potion with a bit of each.”
“I thought you were trying to develop pills,” Night said with a furrowed brow.
“Or powder, depending on who
I’m trying to treat,” he pointed out. “The pills are better for the made wolves because it’s what they are more used to from when they were human. But wolf-borns tend to like drinks better, as well you know.”
“Okay, so we know who we’re giving it to, and we know what we need to have to get it ready for them,” Chastity said. “What about their babies? You’ve got what you need to enhance them?”
“Oh, that’s something I still need to give a lot of thought,” said Boris. “I’ll be trying out some things on Little John, and when your baby is born his or her supplements will be made of only the choicest ingredients. Hopefully, by next month I’ll already have the formula well in hand. It’s mostly just an even more potent version of the ones that we once fed Chastity when she was small.”
Chastity shook her head. “Are you sure this kid is coming out next month?” she asked. “It still seems so small.”
“This is the growth month, my dear,” Boris explained. “Toward the end of it, you’ll be wishing very much for the little one to come out.”
“I’m a bit nervous, truth be told,” she admitted.
Boris smirked. “I have a feeling that Night will like it when I tell you this. Your best way to prepare for birth is to get two things: plenty of rest, and plenty of sex. The sex prepares your body to get the baby out. The rest is because you’re going to need it. You won’t be getting very much of either one, once you have your bundle of joy to contend with.”
Night grinned at Chastity hopefully as he said, “So you’re saying we should throw you out of here and have at it? Now there’s an idea.”
“Night!” Chastity gasped as his hand snuck up around her waist.
“Yes, now there’s a good idea,” Boris agreed. “We needn’t beat the topic into the ground, and we’ve already determined a hothouse could do the trick. There’s little else to discuss that can’t wait. I’ll bid the two of you a good evening. Enjoy it while you can.”
“He didn’t mean to throw you out right this second, Boris,” Chastity chuckled. “I think he was teasing.”
“Possibly,” Night chuckled.
