Wolf’s Bane

“Please, follow me. I’m so glad to see you. The kids will love to meet their godmother,” Alicia said, letting her old friend out of her embrace and excitedly pulling her by her wrist so they could enter inside the house where the young mom lived her peaceful life.

The memory, however, still sparked in the mind of all present as if it all had happened just the previous day.

+++

“What do we have to do?” Hero got up from Helena’s office sofa and stood right behind Sorah, hugging her protectively.

“Make love to her and bite her,” Helena said, sounding as if it was the most obvious and easy thing to do.

“Huh? In… front of you…?” Alicia asked, immediately blushing.

“You mean the marks ceremony, Luna?” Hero asked.

“No, you’ll have that when and how you choose to. You could just bite her, deep and hard, even out of bed, but I believe that you both would have a nicer experience if you did that while making love. You’ll do that in one of the rooms on our medical wing, and immediately after you’re done, I’ll enter the room to help you take care of her. I’ve seen the process only once, but I know pretty well how it goes, and we’ll have our Dr. Sawyer, who is a very good medical practitioner.”

Helena then went quiet and the silence reigned among them for a while.

“Well, your room is being prepared right now…” the Luna said, breaking the pause. “I just mindlinked the Doctor, and she’ll get everything ready and let me know when we can go to the room. For now, I don’t recommend that you have any dinner because most probably you’ll be throwing it up when the pain starts… However, you can drink as much water as you want since it’s necessary to keep you hydrated.”

“I would have thought that we’d need to wait for the full moon,” Alicia murmured, trying to make some conversation since she was more excited than nervous at that moment.

“Well, the full moon favors us, giving us more energy, but it’s not exactly a need for this process,” Helena smiled. “Except perhaps for the pop culture references in most stories and Hollywood movies.”

“I just didn’t think that it would be that soon…” Hero said shakily, still pale like a paper sheet.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

“If I give you time to think much about it, you might change your mind again, Mr. Wall. I’m not letting that happen. Now, I’ll take your mate. She might want a bubble bath and something relaxing before going through this. V will take care of you, ok? We will see you in an hour, down at the clinic.”

And with those not so comforting but factual reminders, Helena took Alicia to her room.

“Bro, does she really know what she’s doing?” Hero let his well-built body fall on the sofa again, as if there were weights tied to his broad shoulders and he couldn’t stay standing any longer.

“Bro, she didn’t grow up in a pack… but she has a lot more knowledge than me on wolf history and unusual matters like this one. I believe her grandma had a special place in the pack that her family left behind when she was a baby, so she passed a lot of knowledge to my mate. The elders trust her and I place my full faith in her and her knowledge.”

“I’m sorry if I’m sounding like an ungrateful doubting Thomas here, bro, but this is my mate we’re talking about… and I just… well…” the slumped mob leader sighed uncharacteristically as he kept his arms tensely folded in front of him.

“I know there’s not much that I can say for you to relax. I have to say, I understand your point perfectly, but I understand your mate’s, too,” the pack leader said as he sat beside his distraught childhood friend. “You’re doing the right thing, and I’m glad that you counted on us to go through this with you.”

Then, V raised his fist and hit Hero as hard as he could on his shoulder.

“What the HELL!!!” Hero looked back at him, and from paper white his face swiftly turned red. “What’s WRONG WITH YOU, MAN!?”

“I don’t know if you remember, asshole, but you left without saying a word! I’m glad to see you again, but I still have many questions. And because of that, I’ll have to drag you downstairs so you can apologize to dad and Eron, who missed you like hell! We’ll spend your mate’s preparation time with them, so get up off your sorry ass and walk with me.” V ordered, half-mockingly and half chuckling.

“Of course, Alpha Camden, your wish is my command… damn crazy man you’ve become now… nice to see you, too.” Hero sarcastically said, rubbing where V hit him but not making a bigger fuss.

After all, Hero knew that Virgil was right.

He didn’t even think of the circumstances in which he left the packhouse before and didn’t think of the possible consequences either. He just found himself in an emergency situation, and the only people he could count on were them and yet he still left…

And now, he was home, and glad to be back, even if it was just for a day or two.

+++

“This is the room,” the feminine, tall and slim dark-eyed doctor with long black hair in a ponytail said as she opened the door and let her companions walk in.

An hour later, Hero and Sorah were with Virgil and Helena, following the doctor through the medical installations in one of the wings of the large packhouse.

Theirs was a simpler hotel room instead of a hospital room, yet it had an oxygen tank and the required monitoring machines that would be connected to the lady who was about to be turned after their small “conversion ritual” as Helena called it.

The large bed was waiting for them, and for the first time, the Ogre and his mate were hesitant to jump in.

“Bathroom is right there, with shower and bathtub. However, I recommend that right after the bite we should be called in so we can start monitoring her,” Dr. Sawyer said.

“No time to be romantic then,” Alice joked with an awkward smile on her face. “Am I to turn into a werewolf as soon as he bites me?”

“No. You’ll just be ‘rewired’ and might start hearing a voice in your head. The first shift will happen when you and your wolf are comfortable with each other and both decide to try shifting,” Helena stated, in that cold, business mode that V knew so well, which was the exact opposite demeanor of the nervous Alicia.

It was the Luna’s way to keep herself together during delicate situations, and this definitely was one.

“O… kay, I think we need to leave them alone now. Good luck bro!” Virgil said as he began walking out of the room specially prepared for the task ahead.

“Yes, I agree with Alpha Virgil. When you’re done, there are some hospital clothes for you both right over there,” the doctor stated as she pointed towards the nightstand that had a small pile of neatly folded clothes.

“Thank you all, we’ll… uh… let you know,” Hero said, slightly blushing as everybody started to leave the room.

“Remember, it needs to be really deep… if you’ve ever let your wolf have full control, this is a good time to do it again. He will know how hard to bite. Trust him,” Helena somberly said, hugging both the scared man and excited woman, then leaving the room.

“My wolf…” Hero thought… “Lyon… can you really take care of that?”

He was not used to asking requests from his wolf, even if Lyon still trusted him and had saved him on more than one very dangerous occasion.

She’s my mate too, bro. Leave it to me, I promise that I’ll do it right.