Page 20 of Bitter Heat
“The new doc is living with us,” Kerry reminded him. “Janus will be there if there’s a problem this evening.”
Fan’s expression brightened a little at that reminder. “I suppose he will. Crow trusts this Heelies man. And therefore, so do I.”
With that, the post-procedure interview seemed to be over. Fan bustled out of the room and back toward the main living area, leaving Kerry to dress on his own.
Putting his clothes back on felt weird, like he’d just committed a crime and was covering up the evidence with pants and shirt, which is exactly what he’d done in a way. Ending a pregnancy was a hanging crime. Everyone knew that.
Though he hadn’t taken the pills yet. He could still change his mind.
As Fan led him to the front door of the house, Kerry shook free of his own, self-centered thoughts to ask a question of Fan. “How did you know what the lake looked like? I thought you never left this land?”
Holding the door open and gazing wistfully out into the clearing, Fan smiled. “I wasn’t always bound here. I used to move more freely.”
“What happened?”
Fan handed Kerry the cardigan he’d taken off when he first entered. “I lost our fifth son, and I made a promise to wolf-god that I wouldn’t leave this clearing until I become a pater.” Pain raced over Fan’s face, but he hid it quickly. “He has never seen fit to bless me, and so I remain bound by my oath. Now be on your way, little one, and wolf-god bless you. I have lunch to make before my alpha and his partner return from their work up-mountain. They’ll be wanting food.”
Kerry didn’t linger, though the burning of his cramping womb was harsher now. Fan shut the door on his retreating back with a finality that echoed around the hollow. Kerry looked down at the tin in his hands.
He was on his own with his choices now.
Kerry had neverendured anything so painful in his life. Not even his hours at the mercy of Wilbet’s cruel hands could compare to this anguish. He thought he might die.
How was it possible that this pain came from the cramping of his own body? It felt alien and other, like a gripping hand ripping through his lower abdomen, leaving him yelling and gasping on his hands and knees.
Naked and alone, he endured the agony, his mind wiped clean of the reason for it and only understanding the gasping need to breathe between harsh bouts of pain.
He’d chosen a clearing deep in the forest, close to the lake, but far enough from the hollows and houses that he’d felt safe to disrobe and wait. The lake would wash him clean when the pain ceased. And if the worst happened—if there were complications, he’d let wolf-god’s earth have his body. It would only be right.
But Kerry hadn’t anticipated this kind of pain. Despite Fan’s warnings, he was unprepared for the misery. It was beyond the telling of it.
The forest cradled Kerry in its palm as he agonized and suffered. The soft, brown pine needles beneath his palms and bare knees held him. The swaying trees stretching high into the sky rocked him. He grabbed fistfuls of needles in his hands as blood slipped down his thighs and dripped from his swinging balls. He cried out as another cramp wrenched him.
Time passed, and he collapsed to the forest floor, groaning and sobbing, nerves and heart inflamed. The earth was there for him, and perhaps wolf-god, too, and yet he had never felt so alone.
CHAPTER SIX
The cool waterof the lake was exactly what Janus needed after a long day in the saddle going up and down the mountainside with Dr. Crescent. He slipped into it naked and aching all over. Groaning as he swam out into the waters, he quickly slipped beneath to wet his hair and then resurfaced to float on his back.
He’d had another eventful day with Dr. Crescent. They’d visited house after house—or hovel after hovel, depending on how one viewed the dilapidated buildings in which many of the mountain families lived. They’d dealt with the decrepit-ness of very old age, they’d done womb-checks for pregnant omegas and performed check-ups on healthy children, among handling all kinds of ailments and injuries. The variety of families he’d witnessed had astounded him—old, young, some with many children, and others with just one or two. He’d met betas, alphas, omegas, and every combination thereof living together as adults, and Janus had seen more ragged-looking children than he knew how to count.
There had even been one shocking household with two young omegas both contracted to one alpha. Janus wasn’t positive that was legal. In fact, he was rather sure it wasn’t. And worse, both omegas appeared to have born the alpha multiple children. Astonishing! And yet they all lived within the same compound of connected buildings, seemingly without any dispute between them. The omegas seemed to be good friends, despite one being theÉrosgápeof the alpha, and the other…not. It was utterly deranged as far as Janus could tell. WhatÉrosgápeallowed his alpha to knot and reproduce with another omega if they, themselves, were not infertile or sick? He’d never heard of such a thing.
When he’d asked Dr. Crescent about it all afterward, the doctor told him that the family was a member of a small but growing religious sect that believed wolf-god wanted each alpha to reproduce as many times as possible, even if that meant taking on more than one omega. There was apparently another family living over the ridge in which the alpha had contracted with four omegas, and reproduced with three of them. Scandalous.
The family Janus had met, though, all shared the surname Whitehoul—another anomaly since city omegas usually preferred to keep their surname—as well as seven whelps between the two omegas. And the darker of the two, the one who was not the alpha’sÉrosgápe,had been pregnant with an eighth.
Manders—the second-youngest child in the family and a dark little thing with nearly black eyes—had been the reason for their visit. He’d lost his foot in a crushing accident involving a runaway cart earlier in the year. The family had been hauling lumber to add to their ramshackle, sprawling home when the axle broke and the cart ran over Manders’s foot. A difficult situation, to be sure, but they all seemed determined to face it together as a family.
After greeting the parents and being taken to where Manders sat inside by the fireplace peeling apples for a pie, Dr. Crescent had checked the way the stump was healing. Finding it scab-free and not in the least inflamed or swollen, he turned to Janus, “Dr. Heelies, what d’ya recommend now?”
Janus had accepted the challenge. He suggested that a specialized, fitted boot for the lower half of the boy’s leg, complete with a wooden foot carved to the correct size, might be ordered from the city. The alpha and his two omegas had all shot each other wide-eyed looks until Janus realized that there was no way this family could afford such an expensive prosthesis—especially for a growing boy who would have to replace it within a year. He’d quickly shut his mouth.
“That’s a mighty kind suggestion, Dr. Heelies.” Dr. Crescent had been generous with him. “Something to aim for in the future, mayhap, when Manders is grown. But, for now, I think a sturdy crutch at his current height with a cushion under the arm might be the less expensive course.”
Janus had readily agreed, hot shame at his own ignorance making him sweat.
Now, in the lake, he washed away that sticky residue. He ducked under the cold lake water, swimming with his head beneath and his eyes closed, willing the frustration and helplessness away. He might not be able to help Manders now, not with his limited funds, but Caleb was a resourceful and soft-hearted man. Maybe he could be persuaded to put on a charity auction of his artwork in the city with the benefits going to the mountain people’s healthcare, especially to help those like the boy he’d seen today.
