Ellida

by J. F. Kaufmann

  The moon probably shone nicely through the thick and tall ancient trees, and the forest probably bathed in its silvery light. I knew I should have noticed things like that, but I couldn’t have cared less about the beauty of the night that surrounded us.

  Our little game of submission and dominance was over. Jack jerked me from my seat and crushed me against his chest. His mouth met mine in a ferocious, deep kiss. His tongue was rough and demanding, and I responded with the same force.

  He pulled my dress up, cupped my bare butt and sat me on the warm metal of the car hood. For a moment I struggled with Jack’s buckle, and then, cursing aloud, cast a little spell that dealt with it beyond repair.

  Time seemed to slow down. Jack’s strong hands wedged my knees apart. I heard him tear a wrapper and smelled the rubbery scent of a condom mixed with a hint of strawberry. And then there was only the hot length and width of his shaft pressing into my body and filling me completely. The swelling of the knot, hard thrusts, swirling stars and dancing dots behind my closed eyelids… the hot lava that erupted inside my womb, Jack’s climax seconds after mine… And then silence, disturbed only by two sets of heartbeats mingled into one, the night, the moon and its silver light that gilded the forest, and us with it.

  My arms were still clenched around Jack’s neck, and my legs wrapped around his waist. He rested his weight on me, still locked inside my womb.

  I’d never felt safer and more powerful, more loved and cherished.

  We didn’t talk. He nuzzled my neck and earlobe, then moved to my mouth, planting fluttery kissed on the corners of my lips. He lingered there for a while before his head dipped down, found my nipple, still erect, still sensitive, and sucked it gently. I moved my hips, and felt him moving inside me in response. Before the knot released, he was rock-hard again. We just continued loving each other on the shiny metal surface of my red car, gently, tenderly, as if making up for the rough coupling we’d shared less than ten minutes ago.

  AFTEWARDS WE sat down on the quilt that Jack had spread on the grass. From the trunk, he took out a food basket with sandwiches, cheese, fruit and a bottle of chilled Chardonnay. It told me the whole evening, handcuffs included, had been planned before Jack had heard about my trip to Silverbell Ranch.

  I slipped on my rumpled dress and, hungry as a hunter, methodically went through the food on my plate.

  “I’m sorry I upset you today,” I said a little later, sprawled across Jack’s outstretched body. The night air was crisp, but I felt warm and protected.

  “You pissed me off royally, baby. I was about to call you when Ingmar phoned me.” He turned over and braced himself on an elbow, tucking me under him. “Astrid, I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner here. And I don’t think you put yourself in much danger today with your little adventure. This is our land, you should be protected here. I only wish you’d told somebody about it. Ahmed, mom, James, anybody. Why didn’t you phone me?”

  “To do what?” I said defensively. “To ask you for permission to go for a short drive with my friend? Jack, I’ve been under surveillance of one sort or another for almost my entire life. I’m tired of babysitters, escorts and bodyguards. I thought, once here, I’d be free within these—how many, five, six hundred—square miles. Why am I going through all this training if I still can’t be left on my own?”

  Jack let out a deep sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “I was afraid it’d come to that. I knew if we pressed you too much, you’d try to break free,” he said quietly, as if he was talking to himself. He sounded sad and worried.

  Gee, the whole thing had been blown out of all proportion. It had nothing to do with my trip today, it was Jack’s own monster in the closet peeking out. I had to put things back on track. I framed his face with my hands and looked into his eyes, shadowed with concern.

  “Jack, I’m not going anywhere. This is my home, this is my life. I’m happy. I love you. I don’t want to be anywhere else. And I’m going to Silverbell again, maybe even tomorrow. I promise, though, I’ll call you before I go, or Ahmed, or somebody. Happy now?”

  I caught a spark in his warm, honey-gold eyes and realized Jack was not above a little emotional blackmailing. He wasn’t concerned about my staying, restricted movement and pressure. He knew me better than that. He knew I was happy here in Red Cliffs. He’d just wanted to make me consider my own safety as my priority. And he was right. My protection was the whole town’s prerogative, and it was only fair that I also took it seriously.

  I laughed and kissed him senseless. “That was a dirty trick, Jack Canagan. I should have seen through it. But you’re right. I should be more cooperative.”

  “Well, you know what they say, the end justifies the means,” he laughed back, catching a breath.

  “Okay, Machiavelli, you scored a point but the game’s not over. We’re just half-through the negotiations.”

  BEFORE WE went home, Jack had promised to send Peyton on a fake business trip so that she could stay with Ingmar and do her training. I got permission to visit them as long as somebody went with me. Simple announcement of my travel plans was suddenly off the table. I also got a weekend at The Watchman’s. Here Jack had tallied another big one, first because he had already promised me that long ago, so I didn’t get anything new, and second, he’d made me reciprocate with a whole list of quirky stuff, starting with the shiny pair of handcuffs forgotten on the nightstand beside the bed.

  To seal the deal, I got back one night per week to wear a nightgown of Jack’s choice, and he’d promised to bring home his police uniform. For dry-cleaning.

  Thirty-Three

  THE FIRST days of spring brought three Red Cliffs women—two werewolves and one human—to Astrid’s office for prenatal checkups.

  After trying to get pregnant for years, all three of them had conceived during the month of March.

  Werewolf pregnancy was almost the same as human. A werewolf fetus was as vulnerable as its human counterpart and required similar prenatal care. Astrid did the routine tests to establish the blood rhesus type and went through a basic questionnaire to set up an accurate medical history.

  THE GENETIC material of humanoid races was 99.5 percent identical, which allowed them to interbreed. The remaining half percent accounted for their differences, including in the blood.

  Werewolves, like their human and wizard cousins, could be rhesus negative or positive blood types. Unlike humans, the rest had only one blood group. It was highly compatible with the blood of other races, which made mating between them possible, if not frequent.

  Only Tel-Urughs stood apart. Procreation among them was rare, although it seemed it happened more often when they had other partners, notably humans. The rarest of all were children from pure-blood Tel-Urugh parents.

  A low birth rate among Langaer was one way nature controlled the size of the races of long living individuals. Given their tendency to meddle in humans’ bloody affairs, and a long history of internal conflicts between the clans, werewolves did die; especially at a young age when they were more like humans and therefore vulnerable. Betty had told Astrid that so many of their kind had died in the two World Wars that even now, decades after, the population was still far below their optimal numbers.

  Nature should have balanced out the loss with a sort of werewolf baby boom, but somehow that hadn’t happened, at least not here in Red Cliffs. Most young couples were struggling with medically unrelated infertility and the miscarriage rate was high.

  THERE WERE no secrets in the close-knit community of Red Cliffs. With their keen sense of smell, werewolves could easily detect subtle hormonal changes in their women, long before any physical changes occurred. Pregnant human women were trickier to identify that way, but gossiping, Red Cliffers’ favorite pastime, was a nice compensation for that inconvenience. Given their deep fondness of children, Red Cliffs celebrated those three almost simultaneous pregnancies. It was the most welcomed news, even more because Frances Colby was expecting her second child.


  To her dismay, Red Cliffs immediately had attributed it to Astrid’s presence among them, which she vehemently denied.

  “They’ve gone overboard this time,” she said to Ahmed, annoyed. “How could I be responsible for three women getting pregnant? That’s nonsense.”

  “Or coincidence. Or collective psychology in action. They believed your presence would bring balance. So you came, they relaxed and—voila! We see that among humans all the time: with no reasonable explanation, a couple can’t conceive. They give up, or decide to adopt, and the next thing you hear, they are pregnant.”

  “And now I’m the Red Cliffs’ Venus of Willendorf, on top of everything else,” Astrid said, laughing. “Do I look like a tribal fertility symbol?”

  “Nah. Hips too narrow, bosom too small. Red Cliffs certainly won’t carve stone figurines of your image.”

  “Well, thanks a lot, that restored my peace of mind. This is not collective psychology, Ahmed. This is collective craziness. When I get pregnant, I’ll attribute it to you, publicly, at least the psychological component. You and your cardamom black tea help me to relax.”

  Ahmed pecked her cheek. “Make sure Jack knows you are talking about my spiritual contribution only.”

  AS SPRING slipped into summer, the obstetric files in Astrid’s computer started filling up. Sadly there were several miscarriages, as well, but after two months, the women came back pregnant again.

  After that, even those last skeptics were convinced that Astrid’s presence had restored the natural harmony and balance in their lives.

  “ALL THOSE pregnancies would’ve happened no matter what. It’s just a coincidence, Peyton. All my efforts to explain that to Red Cliffs fall on deaf ears,” Astrid said to her friend.

  They sat in Astrid’s office at the Clinic waiting for Frances to get dressed and join them. Four-year old Graeme was kneeling in front of a chair, absorbed in an elaborate drawing of construction machinery.

  If Astrid had expected Peyton’s sympathy, she was about to be disappointed.

  “Do you really need to fight it so hard?” Peyton said in a snappy voice, unusual for her. “You always seem to find a reason to deny a part of yourself. You fought your wolf, your wizard and now your Ellida, at least on some level. Why can’t you just accept the fact that, as a force of good, you have your part in the sudden increase in our fertility rate? You know you do.”

  She smiled. In part, Peyton was right.

  “And when did you become my moral compass in addition to being my on-call conscience?” Astrid said, laughing. “Bad things will continue to happen, Peyton. I can’t eliminate them. If I’m responsible for this, people will assume I can prevent bad things from happening. I can’t.”

  Peyton frowned. “Oh, come on Astrid, give us more credit! Nobody thinks you’re a deity. But you are our spiritual leader and you possess powers and energy we don’t. And you are destined to use it for our benefit. It’s similar to being a doctor. You help people, in both ways.”

  “This time I’m not fighting against, Peyton. I’m fighting for. For reason and logic. See, Miss Spock’s still alive and kicking, and she needs rational explanations. Tribal parapsychology doesn’t satisfy her.”

  “Who’s Miss Spock?”

  “My wolf’s best friend.”

  “I thought I was your best friend.”

  “You are. To both of them.” Astrid winked and stood up to open the door to let Frances Colby in.

  “Everything seems fine, Fran,” Astrid said with a smile, sensing the young woman’s tension. “Please, have a seat. I assume I can talk in front of Peyton?”

  Frances had actually asked Peyton, her life-long friend, to accompany her to the Clinic. Her husband was on a business trip and she and Graeme were alone. The Colbys had just moved into their new house outside the town, and Peyton had been helping Frances with unpacking and settling.

  “You are in week fourteen now. The baby’s developing normally.” Astrid turned the monitor to Frances, and pointed with a pen to different parts of the sonogram, “Here. Left arm, left leg… Spine, head… Graeme, sit on my lap so that you can see, too. See, that little dot here? This is baby’s heart. Look at the baby’s face. See the eyes? Here is the nose, then the mouth, and the chin…” Astrid turned back to Frances. “Everything’s perfect. You are carrying a healthy baby.”

  The expectant mother let out a deep sigh of relief, her eyes misty with tears. To give her a few moments to collect herself, Astrid turned to Graeme. “Did you bring your broken truck?”

  Graeme reached inside the pocket of his overalls and took out his yellow dump truck with a broken axle.

  “I think I have my special glue here,” Astrid said and fished a tube of ordinary paper glue out from her desk drawer. She dabbed it on the damaged shaft and spread it with her fingers, letting her energy forge the broken halves.

  She gave the truck back to the boy. “All done! Let the glue dry out.”

  A smile on Graeme’s round face mingled with a fascinated expression.

  “What do you say, Graeme?” his mother reminded him.

  “Thank you, Astrid!”

  “Thank you, Dr. Mohegan,” Frances corrected him.

  She ruffled the boy’s hair. “Astrid’s okay, we’ve already agreed to that, haven’t we, Graeme?”

  “Your mom wants to talk to Astrid,” Peyton said to Graeme. “So, how about a nice chocolate fudge sundae at Lulu’s while we’re waiting for her?”

  “With rainbow sprinkles?”

  “Sure.”

  Astrid walked them to the door. “Are you joining us tomorrow for a spa party? Maggie’s here. Jack and James are out of town and Eamon’s going fishing with the Blues Brothers.”

  Peyton gave her an apologetic look. “I’ll be out of town, too.”

  “Another business trip?”

  “Uh-huh. I love my job,” she said with a smile.

  “Have fun, then. We’ll miss you.”

  “Likewise. Sort of.” Peyton said, laughing, and took Graeme’s hand. “Let’s go, young man. You and I have serious ice cream business to deal with.”

  AS SOON as the door closed, Frances turned to Astrid. “Dr. Mohegan, as you know I have a history of miscarriages within the last three years. I’m terrified that something could go wrong with this pregnancy.”

  “There are no guarantees, of course, but I don’t see any reason for concern. Those miscarriages you had always happened before the tenth week, right? Every pregnancy is different. I thoroughly examined you. There’s nothing pointing to a physiological problem. Miscarriages do happen, even multiple, more often than we believe they do. You are now in the second trimester and everything looks fine. Relax a bit. Do you want to know the sex of the baby?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s leave it for next time, then. If you have any question or concerns, come here, or phone me. Anytime. You have all my phone numbers. There are other doctors here, if you can’t reach me for whatever reason. Doctor Demmir has lots of experience with werewolf pregnancy, far more than I.”

  In fact, Astrid considered herself a resident obstetrician under Ahmed’s supervision. She discussed every detail of each of her pregnant patients with him. “If you want to talk to Dr. Demmir, I’d be happy to book you an appointment. Dr. Demmir has had a long career, and many medical specialties, including gynecology.”

  Frances shook her head. “No, no, Dr. Mohegan. I’ll stay with you. Dr. Demmir’s awesome, we all know that, but I’m more comfortable with you. And you are the Ellida.”

  Oh, not again, Astrid moaned silently but managed a smile. “Thank you for your vote of confidence. I’ll see you in a month.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Mohegan.”

  ONCE ALONE, Astrid phoned Ahmed to come. A few minutes later, his smiling face peeked in. “What’s up, Dr. Duplant?”

  “Come in and check Frances Colby’s sonogram. I want to be sure I didn’t miss anything.

  Ahmed stood beside her
chair and carefully studied image by image. “It’s a boy, huh?”

  “It’s a boy.”

  Without moving his eyes from the screen, Ahmed added, “Are you done for today? Your husband’s here.”

  Astrid’s heart made a happy somersault. Jack had come back a day early!

  “My husband?” she said smiling. “Oh God, not you too. It seems I got married, only I don’t recollect the occasion. What’s wrong with all of you?”

  “Your wedding will be just another reason for a big celebration. For these people here, you can’t be more married than you are … The baby’s perfect, Astrid. Relax. You’re doing fine. Ellida or not, you’re a doctor first, and an excellent one for that matter. Keep that in mind.”

  The door opened and Jack stepped in. He took in the sight of Astrid and Ahmed still hunched over the computer screen.

  “Back up, Ahmed, nice and slow, and no one gets hurt,” he said, laughing.

  “Good to see you, too, Jack,” Ahmed said. “When did you return?”

  Astrid threw herself on Jack. “Oh, my God, I didn’t expect you before tomorrow! Jack, I’m so happy you are back. Although I won’t let you spoil my spa party,” she blathered, showering his face with kisses. “You and Uncle are going fishing tomorrow. Uncle’s also back, isn’t he?”

  She stopped and pointed to a black cloth zipper bag he’d draped over the chair. “Hey, what’s that?”

  Jack scratched his head. “Ahem, my police uniform. It’s been sitting there in the cupboard. Not likely that I’m going to use it. James never wore his, not even once. This is a formal position, you know, comes in the package. Mike Kowalski, my deputy, is de facto sheriff. Not that he has a lot to do, either.” He sighed. “Anyway, it has to be cleaned, it’s a bit dusty.”