Page 2 of Black Dog

Ram's primeval forest went supernaturally silent. There was no wind in the giant trees. No sound of song, skitter, or peck. Just quiet. Elora had the stray thought that the pairing of beauty and the possibility of death was surreal. When she looked back, she saw that flakes had dusted and started to cover the beautiful coats of the fallen wolves and the trail of her blood made a sharp and grisly contrast to the pristine white of new snow. No matter. It would be covered soon enough.

Life goes on.

They reached the mouth of the dolmen lair. There were no sounds and no sign of wolves. She hoped she and Blackie wouldn't be turned away, because the shelter of the den was their only chance of survival. She'd never heard of a wolf pack accepting overnight guests, but since working for The Order she'd learned ofmuchstranger things.

Blackie had to go in first. Elora reasoned that it would be easier to push him down a hole to the cavern beneath than it would be to pull him in. Once he understood what she expected, he put himself on his belly with a series of whimpers and groans and wiggled himself down the dirt ramp. She didn't hear any protest coming from inside which was a very good sign.

She was just barely able to fit through the entrance with her tummy so distended. It was torture to pull herself down on her side, but that was the only option, given the pregnancy and the placement of her wounds. She was still losing blood, but she didn't really have time to give that much thought.

The lair was surprisingly clean. Just hard packed earth. It was also considerably warmer than outside, not exactly balmy, but there was a ten-degree difference. She smelled water. Apparently there was an underground hot spring that leaked warmth through some holes in the rock at the rear of the cavern. Clean, warm water at the top of the world.

"Nice digs," she said to the wolves. "Thanks for having us."

She pulled herself away from the entrance toward the back hoping that the combined body heat of the pack and the warmer air coming from the spring would help to keep the one of them who didn't have a fur coat - that would be her - from freezing.

There was just enough light coming in from the mouth of the den above for Elora to count seven wolves. That meant they had lost six. Because of her. Flame and Luna had survived. And Stalkson. But not Point Wolf, the Greeter. She started to feel teary about that, but forced her thoughts in another direction. She could feel guilty about the wolves and grieve for Point Wolf later.

Elora found a place near the back of the cavern to sit against a wall. Blackie hobbled over on three feet and lay down beside her. Out of habit as much as anything, she reached out and ran a hand down his back. It would be impossible to say which one of them was more comforted by that contact.

She didn’t allow herself to linger in self-pity. She needed to get out of the wet pants. No matter how cold she’d be without them, she’d be even colder with them on. Trying to maneuver against the wall, she rearranged herself into a semi-sitting position and reached for the boots that had to come off before the pants. That was when the first contraction stole her breath.

Smelling the amniotic fluid, the wolves were curious. That mess on the cavern floor had been surrounding Elora's baby half an hour before. Flame and Luna came toward Elora, sniffing the air.

Blackie, who was lying on his side, exhausted, saw the two wolves advancing. He leapt to three of his feet in one fluid motion with his ruff standing up and growled low in his throat until Flame and Luna tucked their chins and backed away. When the contraction ended, Elora took in a long, deep breath and put her head back against the rock behind her.

"Okay. So we're in for it, Helm. When we get out of this, we're going to have to work on your timing."

It seemed like it took forever to get the boots and then the pants and underwear off. The pants hadn't gotten wet above the crotch, so thankfully she had a butt-size dry square to put between her bare behind and the cold dirt.

Her socks were wet so she couldn't put them back on, but she thought her toes stood a better chance inside the boots than outside. By the time she had finished the pants-off project, her body began to register exhaustion. Or maybe blood loss. Or both. The fact that she hadn't actually peed herself didn't mean that it hadn't been a stressful day. She would have loved to drift off to sleep. The only thing that was stopping her was the relentless pain in her shoulder that tag-teamed with the relentless pain in her thigh. But of course, a contraction could get them both to sit down for a break.

Hadn't she read somewhere that the brain can only process one pain at a time? What else did she have to do but test scientific theories? Not much going on at the moment that was more important than rating pain and, after the trip she'd made to the current dimension, she was an expert on pain. So she tried it out.

If she was thinking about the pain in her shoulder she didn't experience the sensation of pain in her leg. If she was thinking about the leg wound, the hole in her shoulder was nothing more than an intellectual idea. If she truly focused on how cold it was getting, she didn't feel either one. Well, what do you know?

All such internal discussion came to an abrupt end each and every time a contraction hit. Theonlything that could distract a woman in mid-contraction was loss of consciousness.

For no real reason except something to do, she decided to start keeping track of how far apart the contractions were. Thanking goodness for small favors, Elora was grateful she hadn't forgotten her watch. Fortunately, it was a sports model with a light. For the time being, there was just enough light in the lair for Elora to see shapes. She suspected that the wolves could see a lot better than she could. When the sun set, it would be black as pitch in there.

She pushed the little button to light the face. Four fifteen. It would be getting dark about six thirty and the sun wouldn't come up until eight. If Ram didn't find her before six thirty, there would be thirteen and a half hours of darkness. And there was no way he could find her in the dark. Blackie might be able to do it. If he wasn't with her. And if he wasn't injured.

Maybe she should have told Ram where she was going. She wished to the dead and fickle gods shehadtold him where she was going. She wished she'd remembered the sat phone even more. Of course Ram couldn't find her before six thirty. That's when she would be expecting him to arrive at the cottage. Just before dark.

Elora pulled the plaid puffy down as far as it would stretch over her bare legs and wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her hands under her arms to get her fingers warm. Blackie was snuggled up to her left side which helped a lot. The wolves curled their bodies into circles, noses under tails, and nestled together for warmth. Every now and then Stalkson would leave the den for a while, then return to growl and nip at another wolf to get them to surrender their spot. Position was arbitrary. It seemed that Stalkson thought that displacing another wolf was always preferable to looking for an unoccupied space. Maybe he was saying, "Thanks for keeping that warm for me."

As she sat there in the low light of the cavern, trying not to think about how much she hurt, she replayed in her mind everything that had happened to her since she'd arrived in this dimension. The Ralengclan's words echoed in her mind. Even if she had been living an illusion that was constructed around her like an elaborate fiction, even if there was another story of which she was completely unaware, it had nothing to do with her or her life in this dimension. She was not a Laiwynn princess. She was a Black Swan knight who was about to be somebody's mother.

When the next contraction started she looked at her watch. Ten minutes after five. Nearly an hour.

She woke to a contraction. It was dark and she was disoriented for a few seconds. She pushed the little watch light button. She must have been so tired she'd gone to sleep in spite of the constant throbbing of the wounds. In the pale green light of the watch, Elora saw that Luna had curled up on her right side and Flame was draped over her legs.

Being surrounded on three sides by the warm bodies and soft fur of canis lupis probably went a long way toward relaxing her enough so that she dozed off. Apparently Blackie had decided to trust the females to come closer.

It was six forty-five. Ram would be home by now. She pictured him coming home to a cold dark cottage and knew he'd be crazy with worry.

For several hours the contractions had seemed to be all over the place. Two that were an hour apart would be followed by another in twenty minutes. Finally the birthing process settled into a regular rhythm of thirty-minute intervals.

For the hundredth time, she replayed the conversation with Ram about packing up and moving to be near the clinic - just to be on the safe side of things.

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