The Midwife's Moon (4 page)

She touched herself and road Lucky fast and rough. If he were going to be allowed to live, he would’ve been sore in the morning. As it was, there was no reason to go easy on him. Better not to waste it. The redness in her mind seemed to spread to her body, anger and lust consuming her.

Roxy forgot about Lucky, rode him as she would anyone, but in her mind, she fucked Nolan and imagined cutting up Nolan with her short dagger. The pressure built inside her, and she played with herself more, but it was no use. There would have to be blood for her to come. She grabbed the knife she’d hidden under the fold of the blanket, never stopping her movements. Her undulating shook the bed.

Lucky, slack jawed, appeared ready to come. He pulsated in her, her cue he would soon release. A red haze consumed her, and she became mindless.

***

Justin stroked one last hard time as he watched Roxy get off the bed and spilled his seed over himself. She was hot and deadly. It had taken all his concentration to feed her anger and blood lust until she lost control sooner than she would have on her own and made her kill Lucky. He had sensed her excitement and want for blood and sex. He’d given both to her.

The cameras in all the rooms of the house fed into his computer in the office no one ever saw but him. He took a towel and cleaned himself before touching the computer console. He marked the scenes from the entrance of Lucky into the home until Roxy went into the shower and copied them into a special file.

He had enough on Boris if he needed the cops to get their hands on him quickly to get him out of the way, but that wasn’t why he kept the disk copies. He kept them for his own pleasure. His original intent of setting Roxy up to take the fall for the troubles he’d caused and
planned
to cause might have to be modified. She would make the perfect Lupa to his Ulfric. Together they could rule the whole of weres everywhere.

He was already experimenting on controlling other weres outside of wolves and had had some success with the werebears and werepanthers in the Cascades. A little more practice and he should be able to manipulate any were to feel the way he wanted them too.

Yes, sacrificing Lucky to Roxy had been a good choice. It gave him Roxy and got rid of one who’d started some dissension in the pack, revealing things Justin wanted left hidden. Surprising from someone so low in the pack hierarchy of strength. Was it because Lucky’s parents who had been powerful before their accident? Something he intended to look into later.

He would give Roxy a few hours to clean up and cool off from her killing ardor then he would
come home
and ask her for a welcome-home-coupling. It was sure to be wild and fierce. He would push her to make it so.

Chapter Four

Lisa prepared for guests because the Ulfric informed her she would be receiving them shortly. With the deaths of the pregnant weres, everyone’s nerves were like dry kindling after a drought—easily set on fire and hard to put out. Hers were no different.

Nolan promised her it would help bring Joseph to justice. Even though she had never told the Ulfric—or anyone—he had somehow figured out Joseph had caused her deep pain. Nolan had accepted her into the pack, and made her a member and it wasn’t until later that she’d found out Nolan had only been Ulfric for a very short time following his father’s retirement when he’d done so. She fluffed the pillows on the neatly made bed with one of her colorful, hand-quilted comforters and made sure there were fresh towels in the guest bathroom.

The pack paid her to keep a room ready, and she chose to make it beautiful. Most of her guests had been female. Her home was the one place she allowed herself the freedom to show her romantic side with lace coverings, floral arrangements, and a touch of the Victorian in her furnishings.

The doorbell rang. She went to get it with mechanical, almost robotic steps. The last few years had turned into a series of rote movements on her part. She had finished getting her midwife licensing so no one would know she had lost most of her passion for schooling the night she became a werewolf. The first time she helped bring a babe into the world, she’d been glad. Smiling down on the baby that brought her real joy had been easy despite being her first real smile in ages.

She opened the door to the Ulfric’s second, Kamiakin, who introduced her to Marty Finch. His demeanor spoke volumes of his status and shame. “Wait here,” she said to Kamiakin, then showed Marty to the room. Without much ado over Marty, she left him alone and went back for a short talk with Kamiakin.

“I thought you said there would be two?” she inquired.

“There will be. His wife is pregnant, and Nolan’s sent one of our trusted people to get her.” He looked at her intently for a moment.

“He said to tell you her family members are not were. She has no protection when her mate is not around. With the current killings and fearful climate, we offered them sanctuary.”

The Ulfric had offered them her home for more reasons than because she was a midwife and a guard. “I understand. I will help her as much as I can.”
With the spoken and unspoken requests. Wonder how much Kamiakin knows.

Shutting the door behind the pack’s second in command, she began to make plans for food and what she would need on hand for the expectant mother. She had started on her road to being a midwife because she wanted a more loving experience available to the families. One that didn’t kick out family or friends who wanted to share in the experience.

After becoming a werewolf, the need for someone like her had become even more evident to her. The were community disliked going to doctors and hospitals where they routinely drew blood. There were many people who’d had to
fix
blood results and the like for the protection of all weres out there, not just the wolves.

Even with her discovery of the Waverly Mansion and Dr. Thomas Waverly’s hospital for weres, she’d not given up on her belief that the weres needed a midwife. Dr. Waverly was a great doctor and could deliver a baby in a pinch. However, he was no midwife.

Lisa went into the kitchen to begin preparing a light snack. Marty looked as if he had been wrung through her grandmother’s old washer board and left on the ground, so she was not surprised to hear the shower going. She finished arranging the snack, including high carb potato chips, bacon dip, and some vegetables. Already, a menu healthy for him and an expectant werewolf mother began to formulate in her mind. She would offer him meat for breakfast. The weres needed a lot of red meat and plenty of iron-filled foods. The baby took so much out of the mother that too many times the mother fell ill or victim to anemia.

Marty came out of the bedroom area into her sitting room. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“It is my pleasure to help those in need,” she answered simply.

“My wife. What did he tell you about my wife?”

Lisa smiled. Whenever Nolan Littlebull was involved, there was never any question of whom the
he
might be. “The Ulfric said she was in need of assistance, and you heard Kamiakin’s message that her family were not weres.”

“And you’re okay with that?” he asked anxiously.

“My family aren’t weres either,” she answered honestly. “I have been adopted by the Wahpawhat pack, not born into it.”

“Oh,” Marty said. He sat on one of her large, overstuffed chairs and absently took a handful of chips. “You’re very kind to take us in like this. Especially with the, uh, you know.”

She smiled again. This poor submissive didn’t know what to do with the very alpha-like feelings protecting his mate brought out in him, and he wore his feelings on his sleeve. “With the killers out to get our pregnant moms you mean?” At his nod, she reassured him. “Believe me, whoever messed with Wahpawhat’s pregnant weres is going to wish they hadn’t. Our Ulfric will make sure of it.”

“I believe you,” he said fervently. “After what I saw tonight.” He gulped. “I’m fortunate your Alpha is a good man. Mine would have killed me, even if he had suspected I’d been drugged.”

There was way too much in the sentence for her to grasp the complete meaning of. She wasn’t sure where to start. “You speak as if you have experience with our Ulfric, but I haven’t heard of you,” she said carefully, deciding the best place to begin.

“Not before tonight, but it was enough. He can partial shift,” he said, his voice turning squeaky.

“Partial shift?” Lisa was in awe.
That’s news.

“He only shifted his arms when I attacked his lieutenant. Then he got angry.”

“You mean he wasn’t angry before?” she gently teased.

“Of course he was angry, but he controlled it. He said I’d been drugged. Then he and Kamiakin went off a little ways to talk and all of a sudden, I
had
to shift.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or not. Surely he was jesting? But the look on Marty’s face convinced her. The Ulfric had forced him to shift. A slow anger started to burn. The Ulfric had forced another? “He punished you by forcing you to shift? After they had you controlled?”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t like that.” Marty practically scrunched into her couch, trying to be abeyant in human form as he hastened to explain. “He didn’t mean to. They were talking about something I couldn’t hear when it happened. When he saw me, he came over and helped me. I swear I don’t know what angered him like that, but I’m very happy it wasn’t me.”

Lisa’s anger began slowly to abate. More relieved than she cared to think about, she began pacing. “Who’s your Alpha male?” she asked next.

“Justin Sundance,” he replied.

She’d heard of Justin. Suave with the ladies, ready smile, but women talk. Gentle with kissing, holding hands, played the romantic, but cruel in bed once he had you. There was more than one way to be malicious once you had someone. Still... “You mean he wouldn’t care to find out who had drugged one of his own?”

“Not one of my rank. I’m nobody. Males who aren’t alphas get very little privilege or respect from the other males.”

She hadn’t known how fortunate she was to find herself in the care of Wahpawhat pack when she was turned. Apparently Roxy hadn’t cornered the market on vindictive leaders. “I want to revisit something you said. You were forced to change? How is that different than a normal change, and how do you know it was the Ulfric?”

A lot of things were different for her since she wasn’t a natural born were. She had a harder time changing at will between lunar cycles, it hurt her more at any time, and she had to concentrate to turn back before the night was out. It had become easier as the years passed, but she still had a rough time, partly because she had never intended to be a lone wolf. She had intended to have someone at her side, loving her and teaching her. Part of her believed it to be the reason the change was still so painful for her.

“Normally, rage or anger can cause me to feel the bones move beneath my skin, but I have control. Same when changing. I think of it, what I want, and it just flows, you know?”

Not really, but she nodded for him to continue.

“When the Ulfric forced the change, it was like a thousand miniature explosions beneath my skin, and I’d lost control—very painful and fast. There was no in between time, no adjustment period. One second I was in human form, then
crack
, wolf.”

Fascinated despite herself, she wanted to know more. “How do you know it was the Ulfric’s doing and not the drugs?” Also another thing she needed to ask him. How much, who, and when. If he didn’t know, she needed to take it up with Nolan. If she dared after this tale.

“I don’t know how to describe it exactly. There was a sort of power about him. I guess you could call it an aura. I knew who had done it even before I heard him tell Kamiakin. Then he told me as well.”

“And the drugs? It’s nearly impossible to drug a were. Believe me, some of my birthing mothers have cursed the lack of pain killers quite eloquently,” she said sardonically. She would sort out the partial shift later. Her mind couldn’t wrap around it.

“I don’t know,” he responded earnestly. “I’ve been wracking my brain, but everything’s hazy. I just knew I had to get here, but I didn’t know where to go. So I went to this bar since it was the only thing I could find open, and it’s sort of a blur after that.”

“Sort of?”

“I had to have talked to someone. Someone who knew where to find Kamiakin and Nolan, right? My mind tells me that much, but every time I try to remember, my head starts pounding, and I want to throw up. I can’t think of who or when.”

“Marty, the when’s fairly obvious,” she said impatiently. “You were clear-headed when you reached the bar, then hazy. Someone slipped you a mickey.”
Was I ever this naïve?
Yes, she knew she had been, but she’d learned young. Sometimes, she felt decades older than her physical age.

“Of course. I’m sorry. I’m really not as stupid as I must be sounding. The idea of losing my wife and child has me half crazed already. Everything else is—”

“Like pouring gas on a fire. I get it. Go to sleep now. Your spouse will be here as soon as physically possible. You’re safe here,” she said and shooed him with her hands.

When she was sure he would stay in bed, she retired to her own room. Emotionally exhausted as well as physically, she went to her own. She had delivered a non-were baby early in the morning and hadn’t returned. Still, her mind kept her awake.

Hearing of a woman with no family to help her through the stages of being a shapeshifter had brought back too many painful memories to be able to rest. Lisa closed her eyes and did as she always had—she acknowledged the memory, the emotion, admitted it hurt her and shaped her life, then put it behind a door in her mind.

Although she had the outward appearances of normal, she knew she never would be. Having been a victim of her own innocence and a cheating man’s whim, she refused to let it force her into hiding. Instead, she wrapped her heart in thick insulation, keeping the ice shards intact, warding off all would-be lovers, and otherwise lived her life.

Eventually, she did drift off to a restless sleep but woke early to the arrival of her second guest. She donned a robe and went to let them in. A beautiful redhead stood at her door, about her own height. “This is Elizabeth Finch,” the Wahpawhat guard introduced.