I lifted the smallest pup, crooning to her.
“Hey, there, little girl. What’s your name? Lexi? Well, hello, Lexi. I am Holden. I am your nanny, at least for now.”
Tucking the pup in close to my chest, I walked into the medical area on the deck. Lexi was the last pup I needed to examine.
“First, we need to weigh and measure you, so we know what progress looks like. I know that Dr. Max did this already, but he only knows how to do this like a stern doctor.” I loved talking to the little one, and she seemed to appreciate my running commentary. I could see the intelligence in her green eyes as she watched my face.
I placed the pup on the scale, removing my hands from her while I read the display. Picking her back up, I placed her on the table next to it. “Hmmm… you weigh as much as a piglet. You should weigh as much as a lamb at this age, Lexi.” I tried to keep the worry out of my voice. While they were all much too small, the other two pups still were bigger than this little girl.
The pup looked up at me with sad eyes and sneezed, shaking her head.
“Yes, you should, little one.” I reached out and grabbed a tape measure and started taking some measurements. “You are a pipsqueak.” I frowned before looking the tiny pup in the eyes.
“Were you the last one born?” I hated calling an animal a runt, since it seemed so demeaning to them. The last pup born typically was the smallest, according to studies. Lexi looked at me, her little puppy expression serious and shook her head. Again.
I laughed. “No? You weren’t? Well, little girl, you are perfect, in my mind. I am glad you were not the last born.”
I finished up the measurements and marked them down. “Would you like a treat?” I held out a piece of beef jerky.
The wolf pup sniffed it and then delicately took the dried meat from my fingers. She then waited for me to drop her back down on the ground.
I raised an eyebrow, then picked up the pup and carried her out to the enclosure. I watched as the pup shuffled over to its siblings, dropping the piece of jerky into their food bowl before snuggling in between her brother and sister.
I frowned. That was… very unusual for a wolf. I wondered if I was anthropomorphizing the pups. They were not human. They were predators, wolves, and they didn’t act like humans. Typically. And yet…
This situation traumatized these babies. And appeared to be grieving the loss of their parents. They were not eating or drinking – which meant they were not thriving. This was not good. I went back into the house, turning on my computer to look for suggestions for what I could do next.
After several hours of researching, I only had one partial idea. I yawned, realizing the similarities between what the pups were going through and what I had felt when my husband had died. I had stopped eating while I grieved. I still had problems sleeping. Until everything caught up with me and I would crash for ten or more hours.
Opening the French doors, I went out onto the deck and sat in one of the large rattan chairs, pulling up my feet. The warm evening meant the pups were lying on their blankets outside of their den. I exhaled before reentering the house to collect another set of blankets and a sleeping bag.
Placing the sleeping bag on the deck near the pups, I first covered the sleeping pups with another blanket. I sat down and looked at them, wondering again how best to help them. Yawning, I took off my shoes and wiggled into the bag, folding up another blanket to use as a pillow. Tonight, the nanny would sleep with the kids.
Waking up, I felt the chilly air on my face. It took me a few minutes to remember that I had fallen asleep outside with the pups. On the hard wood floor of the deck.
Looking towards them, I only saw two of them. Where was the small one, Lexi?
I jerked upright, frantically looking around. A small squeak sounded near my hips, inside the bag. I raised the top fabric of the bag and saw the tiny pup peering up at me from the warmth of it.
“Looks like you had a visitor.”
I whipped my head around, my breath catching in my chest. Shane stood a few feet away, the sun behind his head so I couldn’t see his face.
“Yes, I guess.” I stuttered, pushing a hand through my hair, which had unraveled from its braid during the night. I groaned.
Lexi crawled out of the bag and went over to nose her siblings.
“She looks happier.” Shane frowned, his tone bewildered.
“How does a wolf pup look happier?” I wondered out loud. I clapped a hand over my mouth and then yawned in the next moment.
Shane squatted down, allowing me to see his face better. He grinned.
“She is interacting with her siblings today.” He tilted his head towards the puppies. I watched as Lexi walked around, sniffing Betta and Soren, both who remained lying on their sides. After several minutes of poking them with her nose, she sighed, stepped between them and laid down. The other two shifted, moving closer to her, and all three closed their eyes.
Shane looked back at me. “Think you can entice them to eat?” He held out a fresh bowl of diced meat.
I shrugged. Only one way to tell.
Taking a piece, I shimmied out of the bag and knelt beside the pile of puppies. With the piece in my fingers, I whispered, “Lexi!”
Lexi opened one eye. I held out the piece of meat near the pup’s nose. Lexi’s nostrils flared, but she didn’t move for a few moments. Then she bit down on the piece of meat.
Afraid the pup would do the same as what she had done with the jerky, I waited, holding my breath. This time, though, Lexi chewed the small piece of meat and swallowed.
“Good girl, Lexi!” I turned towards Shane, grinning, but he pushed the bowl closer to my hand. I sat crossed legged and fed Lexi a couple more pieces of meat.
When I tried to feed Betta or Soren, though, neither took the meat, even though both sniffed at it. Lexi then started to lick their faces, her breath meaty smelling. Waiting a few more minutes and then I offered another piece to Betta. Betta took it, eating it in a few bites, but refused to take any more. Soren wouldn’t even take one piece.
“It’s progress.” Shane replied softly. “None of them had eaten solid food up to now. You encouraged Lexi to eat a little and Betta to eat one bite. Perhaps they will eat more later.”
Except they started trembling, rolling over onto their backs, whimpers being squeezed from their little bodies.
“Shane! What is happening?” I looked up at him, my eyes wide with fright.
“Go into the house and call Max, Holden!”
I turned and fled.
Shane
“Go call Max!” I yelled at Holden. I could hear the pups voices, not on the Pack bonds, but almost like it was a parallel path in my mind.
Lexi kept repeating No Shift! Bad man! Over and over, her will to remain a wolf pup slipping over her form.
Betta and Soren kept to a refrain of No shift! Not Safe! But I could feel another’s influence there. A memory that the pups were holding onto. It almost felt like my brother, their father and Alpha.
The pieces came together in my mind. Lycanthrope pups were born in their human form, but these three had been wolf pups both in the lab and since then. First shifts rarely happened until the pups reached puberty, but they had shifted early. I wondered if it was my brother’s influence, to keep them safe. Since the pups could handle much more in their wolf’s form than they could as a little kid.
I reached down my Pack bond to Max, explaining my theory to him. He agreed, but also realized we needed to keep Holden away while the pups worked for control. She was not aware of our world. He promised to keep her on the phone.
I shifted my body to hide the pups from her as much as I could. I reached out and cast my net for the pups. I knew I had Alpha capabilities. There was a possibility I could bring them into a Pack bond with me, particularly since they had been in one with my brother.
I kept feeling the strands slip away as I reached for them, trying to give the pups some of my resolve to stay as wolves. I could tell they feared shifting, of becoming human. I extended again, reaching out with my mind…
Suddenly, the bonds snapped into place. I felt the pups fear as it poured into me. I closed down my other Pack bonds, not wanting Baron’s Pack to feel their anxiousness. These pups did not belong to Baron. These bonds were separate from those, consisting only of them and me.
I poured love and strength into them, striving to calm them down, to ease whatever horror that had forced them into a shift. One by one, the pups relaxed, keeping their wolf form. They fell into a deep sleep as Holden ran back outside.
I wiped a hand over my face, trying to hide the sweat that had been pouring down it just moments before. I sat on my heels and breathed in, turning my face to the sun that was just rising over the horizon.
“How are they? Max is on his way.” Holden slid to a stop beside me, staring at the sleeping pups.
I turned to look at her. “They’re okay. They got through this, Holden. They are just sleeping now.”
She nodded, her hands running over the pups’ fur. “Poor babies.” Her voice was soft.
I could feel their minds turn towards her, especially Lexi’s. Holden represented safety for them. She wasn’t lycanthrope. She wasn’t part of the lab. She was just pure love to them. I could see them tentatively reaching out to her, as if they could include her in their Pack bonds. I shook my head, smiling. Holden was human, she couldn’t be Pack. But I wouldn’t stop them from trying. They needed what she represented.
“What is it?” She had caught my little smile.
“Nothing. Just… it is so ironic that we have had this success — Lexi sleeping with you and eating from your hand. Betta eating one bite. And then they go backwards.” I couldn’t tell her about the Pack bond they had established with me. Even if it was a step forward. And surprising.
We heard a motorcycle roar into the driveway and then Max flew out of the house to us. “How are they?”
I looked up at him. “Quiet for now.”
Touching on our private connection, I added, I think I created a bond of some type with them. Soren, Lexi, Betta and I. I can see Lexi reaching out to Holden, but she doesn’t realize that Holden is human and cannot be Pack.
Max nodded, his face thoughtful, before he started examining the three, trying not to disturb their sleep.
Finally, he sat back and looked at us. “You are right. They seem to be okay now. I will give them a more thorough exam later on when they are awake, though.”
I nodded, my mind touching on the new created Pack bonds I had with them. Even if I hadn’t wanted to be an Alpha, I guess I was. At least for now.
