But the truth would have to be told to the Region. Soon. But only after Sarah recovered enough to be a living and thriving example that humans did not dissect a Were in one of their hospitals. He didn’t want to head back inside the building, the scents of fear and sickness and death were drudging up the memory of the young female and overlaying it with a bloodied Sarah.
Solomon had been amusing himself by watching the goings on inside a human hospital. So many sights and new scents were keeping his son occupied and in his innocence, he had no painful gut tearing memories to associate the scents with, while Jethro’d had to walk outside to keep himself together.
Sarah was in surgery. He knew what they were doing, understood what he’d agreed to and signed his name. There was no going back. She’d lost so much blood from the hemorrhaging, the doctors had worried about her crashing—dying—on the operating table, so Jethro had also had to approve the use of blood transfers.
He didn’t know what made Weres different from humans, hell, no one seemed to know exactly why they were two distinct species, but in his regular pleadings to God over the past few hours, he included one about human blood not interfering with Sarah’s Were blood or damaging her internal organs.
He scrubbed his hands down his face, angrily wiping the emerging tears from his eyes. He needed to be strong. This was going to cause a fight. A big one.
And could even spark a new set of Trials if enough of the District Councilors thought he’d gone too far.
He snorted. Just what I need to do at 60; beat down my brothers, cousins, and maybe a nephew or two.
Again.
He took a deep breath and sighed, looking around at the humans walking into and out of the ER. At least 60 is still young for a Were. I’d be pummeled into the ground if I had to do this as a 60 year old human. He shuddered at the thought. A 60 year old human was roughly equal to an 80 year old Were, whereas a 60 year old Were was closer to a 40 year old human.
Suddenly somewhat happier about his age and physical abilities, he stepped back into the ER’s waiting room and looked around, trying not to take too deep a breath. Death, blood and sickness were rife and his wolf wasn’t any more comfortable with it than he was. On a good day a human ER would make any Were antsy, but after the week he’d had, Jethro was shocked his wolf hadn’t yet taken over and run amok through the streets of New York.
He saw sick and injured humans, waiting for someone to look after them, not unlike the waiting room in his Healer’s offices, but the biggest difference was that if any of these humans were as injured as Sarah had been, they all would have the opportunity to live. No matter how sick or injured, all these humans would have the chance to get better.
Had this miscarriage happened anywhere in Were territory, even at the House, Sarah would have died. He wasn’t sure if he could convince every Councilor to approve letting young Weres train with humans to become doctors, but if nothing else, this episode should at least convince them something was needed.
Maybe offer Healers the option to train?
Jethro walked up the stairs to the waiting room for surgical floor and found Solomon curled up asleep across four armless chairs. He smiled tenderly at his sleeping son. Too many scents for his young mind to figure out. Poor kid has had a rough week, too. Tapping him on the shoulder, he sat where Solomon’s head had been and then pushed on his shoulder to have him put his head in his lap. Solomon was quiet for a long time, apparently content to let Jethro run his hand over his head. He didn’t sense anger or fear in his son. Maybe he isn’t as upset about us being in a human hospital as I thought he’d be.
“Is mom going to die? Are the humans going to kill her?”
Or not.
He decided to take his time to answer his son so it didn’t sound like he was simply lecturing against the accepted beliefs of the Weres about human medicine. He wanted Solomon on his side of this argument, but he also wanted his son to make his own decisions, and come to his own answers, not just be led by his father’s beliefs. Solomon needed to know how to learn things for himself and come to his own conclusions, regardless of whether or not his parents agreed with him.
He answered Solomon’s first question. “Solomon, your mom is not going to die. The doctors told me she’s really sick…she’s no longer sick enough to die. But son, she almost died in the bathroom. If you hadn’t called the paramedics…if she hadn’t gotten to the ER when she did, she would have died,” he paused, letting that sink into his young mind. “They are not going to kill her. Human medicine and their doctors are going to save her.”
Solomon looked directly in his eyes. “Is there a but?”
Jethro took a deep breath. “Yes son, there’s a but. You know that we love you very much, but we have always wanted to have more pups.”
“I know, dad. Mom’s talked about it a couple times,” Solomon said seriously.
“That’s what happened, Solomon. Your mother was pregnant, but like last time, her body wasn’t able to keep the pup,” he paused, “but something else went very wrong this time. She shouldn’t have bled that much. A blood vessel inside her burst.”
“Can the humans make it better?” Solomon asked.
“No son, they can’t fix it,” he answered.
“Then why are we here? Why are you letting the humans touch her,” Solomon yelled, jumping to his feet.
Jethro grabbed his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “Solomon, without the humans, she would have bled to death. She can’t be fixed, not the way you’re thinking. No one could have fixed her. We can’t shift to heal ourselves if there is too much damage, Solomon you know this, and your mother was too damaged to heal herself. If we’d been at home, she would have died from blood loss and we would be burying your mother instead of waiting for her to come out of surgery.
“What the humans are doing is taking her…female part out. It’s called a uterus and it’s what was broken. It was bleeding and wasn’t going to stop by itself.”
“So without it…” Solomon began, understanding trying to wiggle its way across his face.
“Without it she can’t get pregnant again,” Jethro answered, his voice cracking.
Solomon sat down and leaned against him, so Jethro wrapped his arms around his son and hauled him onto his lap. “I know you think you’re too old for this, but I need to hold you for a few minutes, OK?” The boy nodded and snuggled into his arms. “God’s always in charge, Solomon, remember that and trust in it. Your mother does. I think we need to learn from this experience, not just as a family, but as Weres too. Do you understand?”
Solomon was quiet before whispering his answer.
“I think we need doctors, dad. Mom’s alive only because we were here in New York for your meeting. Maybe others all over the Region would still be alive if we had our own doctors, and not just Healers. I mean, Healers are good and all, and from what I’ve seen here while waiting for mom, humans are more fragile than we are, but,” he paused, still thinking, “but there’s a lot of things that the human doctors do here that none of our Healers would have a clue how to do.”
He looked up into Jethro’s eyes. “Are we really that different from them?”
Jethro shook his head, and pulled Solomon back into his arms. “No, son, there’s no difference that we’ve been able to find.”
He watched as Solomon’s eyebrows met over a deep frown. “Well, there has to be something different, dad, or everyone could shift and we wouldn’t have to hide.”
Jethro chuckled and ran his hand over Solomon’s head. “I didn’t mean that there are no differences at all, just that there aren’t any that we can figure out. Our insides and pieces and parts are the same as human’s, we’ve known this for hundreds of years. But by comparing the records of autopsies done by humans on us, and on their own kind, that we confiscated from the Nazis just as World War Two was ending, our Healers confirmed that knowledge.
“And you also know when we die, we stay in whichever form we were in. From our own Heale
rs’ autopsies, we know that when we’re in our wolf form, our innards and pieces and parts are exactly like a normal wolf’s.”
He shrugged. “I know there’s a reason for why we shift and humans can’t, a real reason based in science and not mythology, but right now I don’t know that any one has found the answer.”
Solomon nodded as if it made sense. “That’s why I’m going to send Fitz to medical school.”
Jethro lifted an eyebrow at his son. He’d been thinking the same thing, but other than encouraging Fitz’s already heavy academic studies a bit, he’d not said anything to anyone. “Oh, you are, are you? And what does Fitz say to this idea of yours.”
“He likes the idea. He thinks it’d be great living in a big human city for a while,” Solomon said excitedly. “He was really mad that you wouldn’t let him come with me to New York. He’s jealous that I’m so close to museums, libraries and universities, even though I think they’re really boring, I mean, who wants to look at dried paint for hours and hours, or look at more books?
“But Fitz is really smart and loves taking all the hard classes on, so he really likes the idea that he’d be around all that human scientific knowledge and no one would stop him from learning it, and there wouldn’t be any Weres around telling him it’s dangerous thinking.”
“Son, dangerous thinking is what got us in this mess to begin with,” Jethro said under his breath. He pulled Solomon back against him and sighed. He’d never been patient, and having to wait while Sarah was in the hands of strangers was slowly killing him.
So many centuries of being Hunted, almost to extinction a handful of times and in several areas of the world, made all Were species across the globe incredibly distrustful of anything related to human science and human medicine. For centuries, humans had done grisly experiments on animals, and their own citizens or prisoners, all in the name of learning, and many times Weres had been caught in the middle.
The problem was that the world was shrinking and it was becoming difficult to stay completely hidden and isolated. The most successful packs had begun to somewhat integrate into the human communities near them, each relying on the other for certain things, but still living separately. Jethro was in the middle of trying to figure out how to get all the packs in the Region to follow that model without having to force the issue.
He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. With all the other changes he was trying to force on the Region, bringing up the inherent shortcomings of the Healers was not going to go over well. But he had bigger problems, ones that had brought him here to New York in the first place.
Young females, ones who’d had their first heat cycles, but were unmated, were being kidnapped from all over his Region. Many of them had never been seen again; some had been found. Their bodies had been, anyway. He shuddered…just like that female last week.
According to his Ranch Healers who’d done their best version of an autopsy on each body, the ones who’d been found had given birth within hours of death. Now, with Sarah in the hands of seemingly knowledgeable humans, he wondered just how many more answers their modern techniques would have found on the bodies of the females they’d discovered.
He needed to pound his Council into making cohesive decisions on how to better protect their young females, and wrangle the best trackers from each District into his Hunter packs on the Ranch. Maybe using their lack of forensic knowledge would allow him to push for university-trained doctors without a fight.
But his allowing Sarah even within sight of a human hospital, not to mention his approval of her surgery, was bound to become the Council’s biggest priority, taking the heat off them to come up with something useful to do about the violence that seemed to be silently stalking them.
With a pain-filled grimace, Jethro wondered if the President of the U.S. had the same problems with his own Congress. He does not rule how we do, his wolf huffed. He couldn’t really argue with that. An Alpha was not voted into office and could not be voted out. And his Council...he did not have to follow all their rulings, their hands were tied in many cases. He only had to follow The Laws.
For just a few minutes he allowed his mind to wander before clearing it of any thought, using a meditation technique that Sarah had taught him. But it didn’t last very long. Sarah had taught him so much, he’d willingly sell his body to human science for a lifetime of torturous experiments if that’s what it’d take for her to be saved. He knew normal mated and bonded pairs didn’t feel as deeply as he and Sarah felt for each other—a side effect of being the Alphas—that was part of the problem with trying to convince everyone that her being cut into by humans wasn’t a problem.
Few Weres would do everything “humanly” possible to save their bonded mates. The mental and emotional binding didn’t run through each cell of their bodies, like it did with him and Sarah. How to explain that nothing on Earth would have stopped him from finding a way to save her and not make it sound like he had no faith in his own kind, or found them weak?
Jethro shuddered, trying to push the image of Sarah’s bloodied body into a far corner of his mind. He felt Solomon stir in his arms and pulled him tighter. Putting his nose into his son’s hair, but looking to the ceiling, he made no movement as the tears rolled silently down his face.
Anything. I’d give anything to save my family. If you’re listening, remember this bargain—take anything, my Region, my House, my Ranch…my life—I will give it all, willingly, and with no reservations—if you will keep my mate and my son alive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Only days after her surgery, Sarah was sitting in a large conference room, pale but not weak, listening to her mate take on the entire Council alone. Well, not alone, but Solomon’s 11 year old presence wasn’t doing him any favors in the eyes of the old men sitting in judgment of things they knew nothing about.
Letting out an ear-piercing whistle, she stood. “I have heard enough from you morons,” she yelled, pointing at each Councilor individually. “Are you all just stupid? Or is there a real—meaning valid—reason for this circus?”
She stood, hands on hips, glaring. Jethro blew her a kiss from his seat at the opposite end of the conference table.
Sarah was trying her hardest not to laugh in derision as all the Councilors started talking at the same time, while her mate just leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. He knew she was about to let loose on them, something totally deserved, and she planned on making the most of her time in front of them. Alpha’s mates were allowed to participate in all the meetings the Alpha did, though she wasn’t allowed a vote—which she thought was dumb because she and Jethro didn’t always agree on everything.
But in this case, they were united.
“Let me see if I get this straight,” she said, after another shrieking whistle. Raising her hands up, she touched a finger for each reason, “Number one, they were humans. Number two, it was a human hospital. Number three, they were humans. Number four, the cut me in pieces,” she looked down at herself, “well, you got that one wrong, I seem fairly whole, if I do say so myself. Number five, they were humans…”
Looking up at the Council, she smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant one, “Oh, dear me, it seems as if your only reason was because they were human.”
Shouts of agreement echoed, and Jethro just chuckled. This is gonna be good.
“You are, without a doubt, the largest group of brain deficient, thought incapable, backwards, Medieval idiots I have ever seen in my life, and I grew up in the Dakota packs, so that is saying a LOT. You all can kiss my pasty white ass because my mate chose me above your moronic Dark Ages code that smacks of Pack Rule,” she said, red faced, loud, but calm.
Over their protestations, she yelled louder. “Your only reason, hell, the basis of any of your reasons are because it was humans, in a human hospital. So why in the hell are you yelling about training Weres to be doctors and nurses, huh?” With only enough of a pause to breathe, she continued, “What, you think that by send
ing our youth to universities they’re going to somehow spontaneously combust into humans? Cease to be werewolves? Turn into Were dissecting monsters?”
Jethro swore he heard crickets. His snort turned into a chuckle. Then became full out laughter.
No one joined him, not even Sarah or Solomon. As their only surviving child, Jethro had decided to start taking him to Council meetings, starting with the one where he knew they’d be questioning his decision to save Sarah by using humans. His son was not going to be getting a nice introduction to a Council meeting, but Jethro knew it would be invaluable to show his son and heir how he could wrest control from the Council during times where there was no way an agreement would be reached.
What better way to see it in action than when the Council was angry for his father saving his mother?
Wiping his eyes, still chuckling, he stood and walked over to Sarah and helped her down from the tabletop she’d climbed on top of. Giving her a tender but passionate kiss, he led her by the hand back to her chair. “Stay sitting this time, my lovely little one, your spirit may be a badass, but your body still hasn’t healed completely. I’ll take it from here,” he smiled and ran the back of his knuckles down her cheek, stroking over and over until he felt her calm beneath his touch.
My little hot head is going to burst into flames one of these days.
Our mate is strong, his wolf snorted, protecting his heart.
I know she is. But someday she’s going to overdo it. I just hope we’re there to catch her.
We’re not leaving her. Ever.
Jethro didn’t have an answer to that statement. He figured he’d die before she did, given the age gap between them. He didn’t like remembering the nearly 20 year age difference. Unusual even for Weres.
He turned to take on his Council and was shocked to see Solomon standing before them, back straight, hands on his hips in a perfect, but slightly more intimidating stance, than his mother. Before he reached Solomon, to pull him out of the Council’s crosshairs, he heard him speak.
Lovers: An Aleph Series Stories Novella Page 5