The Day We Lost Our Pups, We Left Our Alphas novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Forms

Neither woman saw a body. They discharge themselves, and at the lodge gate Vera is on the porch wearing Teagan's baby shawl.

The nurse at the desk would not meet my eyes.

"The Alpha's driver took care of the arrangements," she said. "He had the family's paperwork. We're very sorry."

"Where is she?" I asked.

"Ms. Hartley, I really can't..."

"I want to see my daughter."

"The family asked that there be no viewing."

Roz leaned over the counter. She had a hospital blanket around her shoulders and a cut across her chin that nobody had bothered to close.

"Which family?" she said. "Mine or hers? Because neither of us asked for that."

The nurse's hand moved over a form, and I read it upside down.

Released to: McIntyre. Authorized by: G. McIntyre, Alpha.

Orson had signed for two babies while we were still too drugged to ask one question.

"Is he allowed to do that?" Roz said.

"It's pack custom," the nurse said. "We've always honored it."

Behind her, the surgeon came out of the hallway with her glasses pushed up into her hair.

She looked at me and then at Roz, and she said, "You two should be in bed."

"We're leaving," I said.

"You've both had emergency surgery. I can't release you."

"Then I'll sign whatever says you didn't."

She stared at me for a long moment.

Then she pulled a form out of a drawer and set a pen on it.

"Come back in a week," she said. "If you start bleeding, don't wait for anyone."

I signed. Roz signed.

We were both still holding our ribs as we walked out.

A cab from Tamarack took us up the pass road, past the switchback where a tow truck was winching our truck out of the ravine.

The driver kept glancing at us in the mirror.

"You girls from the lodge?"

"Yes," Roz said.

"My cousin works the gate up there. He says the Alpha called the whole pack in at dawn. Said the wives had been in an accident and it would be a quiet day."

Roz and I looked at each other.

"A quiet day," I said.

"Funny way to put it, huh?"

The cab let us out at the gate.

Two of Devon's border wolves stood in it, in their grey patrol jackets, arms folded.

I knew both of them. One had been at my wedding.

Roz walked straight up to him.

"Move," she said.

"Ma'am, the Alpha says nobody from the car crash comes in today."

"I live here."

"I know. I'm sorry. Those are the orders."

"Your commander is my husband."

The wolf's eyes went somewhere over her shoulder.

"He said the same thing, ma'am."

I felt Roz stop breathing.

I put a hand on her arm.

Her skin was hot, and her fingers were shaking.

"Devon said that?" she whispered.

"Roz," I said.

"He's standing in my house and he put you on the gate to keep me out of it."

"Roz."

She shook me off.

"I will tear this gate down with my hands."

"Teagan," said someone behind us.

It was the surgeon, who must have followed in her own car. She stood by a silver sedan with the door open, and her coat was on wrong.

"I don't know your customs," she said. "But I've worked that desk for eleven years, and I have never seen a family sign for a stillbirth before anyone had asked the mother. I wanted you to know that, before you do anything."

She got back into her car and drove away.

I stood there with her words in my head.

I didn't know what to do with them yet.

I only knew they were wrong.

"Look," Roz said.

She was pointing past the gate, up the long drive to the lodge steps.

Someone had come out onto the porch.

Vera stood there in a cream cardigan with one hand on her round belly.

Around her shoulders was a knitted shawl, soft grey wool with a seam of green along the edge.

My grandmother had made it.

She finished it the week before she died, and she told me it was for the baby.

I had left it folded in the nursery, in the crib I had assembled with my own hands.

Vera lifted her chin and saw us.

For a second, she didn't smile.

Then she did, and waved, and tucked the shawl closer around her neck.

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