Chapter 2
Alette
“Here at Haunted Health, all monsters are respected for their differences. Whether you have claws, tentacles, or wings, we treat the individual. On the left, you will see our tank for water births—not only for merfolk, but also for Kraken and Fishpeople who wish to lay their eggs in a protected environment,” says Liam, the nurse assigned to our tour of the obstetrics ward.
“What would keep a fiercesome Kraken from laying their eggs in the ocean?” asks my sister, Sarah. She rubs her protruding belly as if soothing her unborn pups from potential distress over baby Krakens.
“Predators, rival Kraken, or simply a cruise ship churning the waters can disrupt the egg sacks,” Liam answers with a slow blink of his singular eye.
Get a grip, Alette! I stare at the Liam Yates, BSN on his nametag so I don’t stare at his eight arms or cyclops face.
You would think I’d be accustomed to seeing lots of types of monsters from growing up in a werewolf family, but weres stick to themselves.
“Parents can avoid these hazards in the shallows, but then the eggs are vulnerable to birds, crabs, and low tide. If you notice the network of tanks on the back wall, those are where we keep the eggs safe until hatching. The parents will raise the sentient hatchlings at home, but Haunted Hearts will release the non-sentient hatchlings if it’s too tough for them.
It’s one of the ways we accommodate all monsters’ individual needs,” he continues as we wander the maternity ward.
“Ghastly,” whispers my mother too loudly.
“For werewolves such as yourself,” Liam finishes without losing his pep. “For Kraken, it’s the way of their reproduction. In the oceans, the nonsentient would swim off immediately, and this would be a non-issue.”
“I like how sensitive you are to patients’ needs.
Don’t you think, Sarah?” I ask my sister to take her focus off mothers giving away their babies.
Sarah has cried at the drop of a hat since becoming pregnant, and from the way her lip quivers, she’s a heartbeat from sobs.
“I bet they will cater to your food cravings and everything.”
“I drive across town to the little deli on Fifth Street every day to get my girl her morning sandwich of olive loaf with Limburger on rye,” Sarah’s husband, Michael, declares.
His pride rings true in the loud volume he uses to announce my sister's strange food preferences. The oaf means well; he’s just an overgrown puppy.
That he won my sister will never cease to amaze me.
“I’m sure we can bring treats when we visit Sarah,” I say to fill the silence.
Liam’s too bewildered to speak. I mean…we do have a rather large, loud entourage: my parents, the parents-to-be, my four brothers, and myself.
I’m sure it’s not every day a werewolf pack with their lowly human tour the maternity ward.
If three of the founders weren’t human, I’d bet I was the only human in this place.
Liam shoots me a strange look before answering. “Yes, family members are encouraged to bring trinkets from home to make patients feel at ease. Special bedding, family photos—”
“But I’m sure you won’t be in here long enough to get homesick,” I say with a glare at Liam.
“Yes,” he says, turning to Sarah. “A typical were-birth will have mom and babies out of here in thirty-six hours…depending on the time of day. We only release patients during regular business hours—unless they’re vampires…because…you know…but that doesn’t apply here.”
Sarah and Michael’s eyes grow to saucers at the mention of vampires.
I want to slug Liam for scaring her…again.
Who tasked this idiot with new patient tours?
Sarah told me Dr. Bracken Griffiths has a delicate bedside manner, which makes her feel safe, so why stick us with Scary Liam the Loser?
All I want is for her first litter to be an easy, happy experience.
Is that too much to ask for the woman who has been my best friend and taught me everything?
“Ohh look,” my mother says, waving us to a large window. “It’s the nursery! Look at all the little claws! Cutsey-wootsey little yeti—”
“Actually, that’s a chuchunya hybrid,” Liam says, leaning over Mom’s shoulder.
He looks sheepish and backs away a few steps when Dad growls loud enough to ruffle our hair.
“A yeti would be taller, with longer limbs for mountain climbing. That stocky guy is built for racing across the Arctic Tundra. However, his mother is human, which is why there’s red woven into his white fur. ”
“What a cutie!” I can’t help but squeal when the little guy kicks his foot upward to suck his toes within a huge toothless grin.
His other leg waves to us as he rocks himself.
Chuchunya must be very social—or at least his parents are, because he seems to be flirting with Mom.
His basket reads, Garrah Chuchunya, son of Gleb and Hannah, born 15 pounds, 2 ounces. “He was born that size? So big!”
I clap my hands over my mouth as my cheeks heat. Sarah pushes her way to the front to read the baby’s stats out loud. “Is that why the parents traveled from the Arctic to have the baby here?”
“No, they brought another couple with them for a medical matter unrelated to Hannah’s pregnancy.
However, that little guy decided he wanted to see the nursery for himself.
We barely got her to the delivery suite in time for Dr. Griffiths to catch him,” Liams says before excusing himself to make a call.
I guess leaving us with a nursery of babies as entertainment is a professional move, because we chat amongst ourselves until he returns.
“How exciting,” mother murmurs as she coos at a pair of tiny avian twins. Their bassinet is ringed with a nest of dried plants and littered with eggshell shards. “Look how these little guys wrap their wings around each other.”
“Those twins are amazing,” Liam replies as he rejoins the group. “Genetically belonging to different fathers and hatching from different eggs, they still bonded in the womb. If you separate them to bathe or feed them, they sob uncontrollably.”
“Have you had similar experiences with werewolves born in the same litter?” Sarah asks with hope shining in the tears in her eyes.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, doesn’t she remember our upbringing?
Her littermates, our brothers, teased us mercilessly.
As the adopted daughter, I stuck out like a sore thumb—which my brothers loved to remind me of when mother wasn’t in earshot.
From stealing my clothes at the river’s edge on bathing day to giving me the bloodiest cuts of meat to gross me out, my brothers took bullying to another level.
Maybe I took the heat off her, so she doesn’t remember…
or maybe she’s blinded by happy mommy hormones.
“None of you bonded like that,” Mother replies, saving them from one of my rants. “I raised strong-willed babies with cast-iron stomachs and razor-sharp claws.”
I wince at her wolven description of us.
While it’s true that I grew up in the same den without the modern conveniences of running water or electricity, I couldn’t be more different than the rest of the family.
When they found me in the woods, I doubt I was much stronger than these little hatchlings.
Some days, I wonder if my intestinal problems are really the genetic disease ulcerative colitis, or if they’re a result of starving in my first days of life.
How long was I alone in the woods? What else found me before the Werebrown family?
It’s not a stretch to guess unhealthy bacteria found me first—on the dirt floor of a forest, there are millions of harmful bacteria, right?
What if all my painful flares could be cleared with probiotics, a different diet, or many of the other things I found on the human’s internet?
“That’s right,” chimes in Dad after he catches my gaze. “Even Alette toughened up with you bruisers as her teachers. Those little birds are delicate and wouldn’t survive in our pack the way she did. The Werebrown family is tough, but my little girls are the toughest of all.”
Sarah wraps Dad and me in her arms, struggling to hug us around her giant belly. I know Dad’s tough girl talk is because he’s worried about Sarah more than he’s letting her see. That’s why we’re here, when the rest of the werewolf community has birthed pups in their dens since the dawn of time.
Sarah’s carrying five pups, when Mother only carried three in her first and then two in her second. Michael’s family is cursed with single litters, so they’re thrilled to have so many pups coming at once. Dad’s happy too, but I can read him like a book, and he’s scared for his little girl.
“We love to win over families on the fence with these cute little guys,” Liam says as he walks the ten feet to the elevators. Why does he watch the floor display count upward before pressing the call button? Wouldn’t pressing the button summon the nearest elevator? Why does that strike me as odd?
“Next, I’m going to take the parents-to-be to the emergency room to go over intake procedures, so they know what to expect if they aren’t checked in when the big day arrives.
The rest of you will take separate elevators.
The café in the basement is where we will all meet up, so head there for your complimentary lunch. I highly recommend the sirloin.”
“Score!” yells my brother Kip. He exchanges high fives with my other brothers over my head. Sometimes they make me hate my four feet nine inches height. Okay, I hate being so short all the time.
The thought of sirloin churns my stomach too.
I don’t think I can handle the grease right now…
but then again, the roughage of a salad sounds just as painful.
Mother shoots me a sympathetic look when her werewolf hearing catches the angry growl of my guts.
I had another flare last night that had me crying on the floor.
Mother came to check on me and found me sobbing in the outhouse for the fourth time this week.
Sarah, Michael, and Liam disappear into the first open elevator.
Maybe this is the opportunity I need to confront Mother.
With Sarah settled but not popping yet, I have a tiny window of time to be the center of attention.
How will they react when I ask about going on a wellness retreat for people with gastrointestinal issues?
While I doubt they’ll trust the crunchy instructors—since they aren’t doctors like at Haunted Health—I would hope they would respect me enough to let me go.
Will they understand I want to explore alternatives to a lifetime of diarrhea, or will they just see it as me escaping to the human world?
Even though joining the human world would mean a career…
a purpose…healthcare based on the relationship between a patient and her doctor, not a pack leader…
central heating and cooling in an actual dwelling…
I could control my life instead of listening to a pack leader I hardly know.
He doesn’t know my body as I do. In the human world, these choices are made by the individual or, at the very least, the individual’s parents.
Pack dynamics don’t match human conditions…
Maybe my parents are more intuitive than I give them credit—
“Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was backing up,” I say to the ogre standing too close to me.
“Your wheelchair, miss,” he says in a voice that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.
“Oh no, that’s the other Werebrown. I’m not pregnant,” I say with a laugh.
“We must escort patients to their rooms in a wheelchair. Hospital policy, miss,” he says with a frown behind his tusks.
“But I’m not a patient. It’s Sarah—”
“I’m so sorry, Alette,” Dad whispers as he grips my shoulders tightly. “Master Grant demanded it, and you wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“Please understand that we don’t want you to live a life of pain,” Mother says as Dad pushes me into the wheelchair. “It breaks my heart to find you crying every night. Once you have the J-pouch surgery, you can return to the pack and live a normal life.”
“No!” I shout as I fight the hands on my shoulders.
I have no hope against Dad’s werewolf strength, and the ogre is holding me down as well.
My traitorous brothers fight my kicking feet and waving arms to secure my limbs to the chair with metal straps.
“I have a plan. Please listen! Please! There’s a nonsurgical way! ”
“We’ve listened to you cry and sob as you wait it out, honey,” Mom says as tears roll down her cheeks.
"It’s for your own good. You will thank us when it’s over,” Dad says through gritted teeth.
“Alette, stop being a baby,” Kip yells in my face.
“Yeah, sis, act like a werewolf,” adds my brother Scott.
“That’s the point,” I scream as hysteria threatens to take my thoughts. Strapped into a wheelchair, I yell at my family through the closing elevator doors. “I’m not a werewolf! I’m a human! I have more options! Just listen—”
I fume as the ogre orderly punches buttons and whispers into a radio.
My heart hammers in my chest with rage. How dare they!
I’m an adult. They can’t just throw me into a hospital against my wishes.
I have rights! Certainly, there’s some legal—of course, there’s not…
because they’re werewolves. The pack leader’s word is law.
That means Dad went to Master Grant with my pooping problems. I’ll never be able to look the bear shifter in the face again.
I hate them. I hate my guts. I hate their guts, too.
“This place is better than anything in the human—”
“Shut up,” I snap at the ogre. “You’re not going to win me over. We’re never going to be friends. Just stay out of my line of fire, and you won’t get burned.”
The bastard has the gall to smirk at me.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re as small as a sprite but fiery as a dragon,” he says with too much laughter in his voice. I glare at him until the bell rings for the doors to open. “I have a daughter just like you—almost three, and she’s your size with your attitude.”
My screams of frustration fill the hallway. I’m not small. I’m not insignificant. I control whether I live or die, dammit.