Chapter 371
idental Surrogate Chapter 371-Unleashing the me
E
I fall into a little daze as I watch Hank work, as I hold my sleeping baby in my arms. It’s not that I’m not
paying attention –
it’s just that…I don’t really understand what they’re doing or saying, so to me it’s all just quiet repetitive
work.
I do pay attention, of course, when Hank deems Cora patched up enough to roll her over onto her side
so that they can
perform an ultrasound. Cora gives a low moan when the nurses move her, a sound which at once pains
me and gives me
a little thrill of hope. Because as much as I hate to hear my sister in pain –
Damn it, at least it means she’s alive. I watch carefully as the nurses hold her still, as Hank expertly
spreads some clear
jelly on her stomach and then begins to search for a heartbeat. Then I bury my head in my hand a few
momentster
when he finds it – a fast, faint fluttering of noise. My little niece or nephew, still fighting for life.
I drag my hand away from my face a momentter to see Hank nodding to his nurses and Cora
lowered back on her belly.
Then, Hank turns to me, pulling off his gloves as he crosses the room and falls into a crouch so that we
can be almost
face-to-face while I stay seated.
“You saw?” he asks, looking up at me a little from his lowered ce on the floor. “Yes,” I reply, nodding
sharply. “The baby
is alive, but – ”
“Right,” he says, ncing back towards Cora. “It’s – it’s not preferable, obviously, for a mother to be so
gravely wounded
so early in a pregnancy. Frequently the body will decide…” he sighs and shakes his head, trying to
come up with the right
words. He looks up at me as he finishes his thought, “the body will sometimes decide, E, to prioritize
the mother.”
“So miscarriage…” I say, looking over at my sister.
“There’s a higher risk of it right now, yes. E,” he says again, his voice curious now, drawing my eyes
back to him. “Did
Cora ever mention to you the possibility…”
“Yes,” I say, nodding, knowing where he’s going with this. “I can do it, Hank but, the people who hurt us
in the woods – “I
shake my head, realizing that he’s not going to understand what I’m talking about if I start babbling on
about priests in
dark robes and the God of Darkness. “As we were getting away they they bound my gift and my wolf,” I
say, giving a little
shrug. “T tried to heal her in the car, but I couldn’t ess the gift.”
“Really,” Hank says, his eyebrows going up in surprise. “So you can – you can actually like, use it to
heal people – to heal
wounds like that -”
I narrow my eyes at Hank suddenly, a little disturbed by his curiosity about the gift when we should be
concentrating on
helping my sister. What, really, is he asking me here?
“Sorry,” Hank says, putting his hands up in a little plea for forgiveness. “I’m I’m just a doctor, E. It’s all
I really do, try to
fix bodies. The idea of being able to wield medicine like that – it’s a dream. But please forgive my
professional distraction.”
I let out a little sigh and nod, my eyes moving back to Cora, wanting to move on from it.
“Well,” Hank says, standing up to his feet and looking at Cora himself. “It would help Cora, and the
baby, a lot, if you were
able to…I don’t know, E, unbind the gift? I know a lot about wolf biology, but not a lot about the
religion or the magic of it
all. Is there anyway to get around this? Perhaps one of the priestesses of the Goddess, your mother?
Could they help you
get…in touch with her? Ask for her aid or something?”
My eyes sh to him suddenly as I realize that – that Hank may have stumbled on something here.
“That’s…a really good idea, Hank,” I say, getting quickly to my feet and looking around the room. “Can I
use a phone,
please?”
He nods to theputer and the phone in the corner of the room. “Of course, E,” he says. “The
entire facility is at your
disposal.” He nces back towards Cora now. “I’m going to run some tests,” he murmurs, taking a
deep breath and
steeling himself.” Let’s update each other, if we have news?”
I nod eagerly to Hank and then carry Rafe over to the littleputer in the corner, where I open a web
browser and begin
to search for the contact information of the temple in the center of our city, hopping to hell the
priestesses there can do
something to help.
Sinir
The priest before us sweeps a fist out in front of him, his teeth bared in determination as he sends a
sheet of me racing
towards us. Roger, in mid- leap, takes the hit first, yelping and turning away as the fire burns him,
singing the edges of his
fur but burning out before it gets deep enough to actually hurt his flesh.
I crouch defensively, my roar of attack turning into one of pain as I turn my back to the fire but feel it
curling at my clothes,
my skin, the back of my neck – a deep and searing touch that’s gone after an instant as the wave
passes me.
Then, cringing at the sound of my men behind me likewise taking the brunt of the me, I turn back to
the priest and stand
again,ing back to Roger’s side.
“I’ll do it again,” the priest says, his teeth gritted as he res at us. “I will burn you until your charred
skeletons are all that
are left -”
“You won’t,” I snap, taking another step towards him. “Or else you’d have done it by now.”
Something shes in the Priest’s eye – frustration, I think, in being caught out. Roger, understanding
my point, bares his
teeth and begins to prowl forward now.
“You’re weakening,” I say, considering the priest carefully as we advance and he takes slow steps
backwards away from
us. “I don’t know why,” I continue, my shoulders hunching now as I prepare my attack. “Maybe you
burned out your energy
on that illusion below – maybe your magic was amplified by your connection to the other priests.
They’re all dead, by the
way.”
I watch carefully when I see the priest flinch at this information, wondering at the effect. “It doesn’t
matter,” the priest
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snarls.” I will take you out, and your men will fall without their leader -”
Slowly, I just shake my head. “No. They fight for more than me,” I say, my hands itching to turn into
ws now, my teeth
aching to be fangs. But I hold back, wanting to keep him talking wanting to get whatever information I
can. “Even if I died,
they’d take you to defend their Luna. To defend their future King.”
The priest begins tough now, a dirty, hysterical thing. “Wasted,” he says, the words ripping
victoriously from his teeth.
“Your Luna is dead now, Alpha,” he says, “as is yours, and your pathetic little mutt with her,” heughs,
turning to Roger
now.
Roger loses it then, crouching to leap, but I grab him by the scruff before he can. Because, while the
priest’s words make
me want to tear him to pieces as well, we still need more. We need to know about his master.
“And what will happen to you,” I say slowly as Roger winds himself back in. ” When you are dead. Who
will mourn you?
This master to whom you’ve sold your life?”
“The Master is nothing anymore,” the Priest says, his back almost literally against a wall now, and
realizing that he’s out of
space, he crouches and begins to prepare again, the fires that have never left his hands burning
harder, hotter now. “The
Master is gone now = he has his boy, and so our service to him is done. If I die today, it is the will of the
Dark God. And I,”
he says slowly now, his face lit from beneath by the light of his mes, “I will relish his gift of death.”
And then, with a scream that tears through the hall and makes all of us flinch, the priest unleashes his
mes, burning
himself out and willing himself to take all of us with him.
Roger roars, leaping directly for the fire that threatens to consume us all – But I beat him to it, my wolf
taking over my
body and surging in front of him in front of all my men brunt of the me.