The Alpha's Daughter (17 page)

Griz, however, had other uses for that mouth.
He attacked her chin and neck with tiny, sucking kisses and nibbles
that raised goosebumps on her arms. He continued over her shoulders
and chest and she threw back her head in pure pleasure at the
sensations he was causing. His fingers fumbled with the front clasp
of her bra. He cursed. She laughed. He tugged at it with
impatience.

"Let me," she said breathlessly as she
slapped at his hands, "It's the only one I have. You'll ruin
it."

"Then get it off," he said irritably, a
little breathless sounding himself.

"You're growling," she laughed as she
unclasped the red bra and let it slide down her arms.

"Too bad," he growled, making her laugh
again. He cursed again at the sight of her full breasts as the bra
fell away and was on her before the straps reached her elbows.

He kissed, he suckled, he gently bit then
gently licked the spot he so gently abused. That he could be so
aggressive and so tender at the same time amazed her. His tongue
laved a pebbled nipple. The phone rang.

"Shit."

"Shit," Jazz wailed an echo. "No one ever
calls!" She knew there was phone in his office, but she'd never
heard it ring. "Tell them not to call," she complained
unreasonably.

"Would you rather they were knocking on the
front door?" he asked, chuckling.

"Oops." She glanced at door window where only
this morning she'd removed the old blind. Anyone standing there
would have had a full view. The phone rang again.

"I have to get this," he told her as he
lifted her from his lap.

"I know, but you should tell them modern
doctors don't make house calls."

"There's nothing modern about this place." He
kissed her nose before running to the office.

He was back in two minutes. "Come on, get
dressed. Sandy Wardman's in labor."

The man who answered the door looked frightened. His face was
drawn and his black hair stood up straight where he had run his
fingers through it.

"She's bleeding bad, Doc," Wardman greeted,
waving a frenzied hand.

Doc pushed past the man, all but shoving him
into the wall. Clearly knowing where he was going, he strode down
the hall. "Keep him here," he called over his shoulder.

"You can't keep me from my mate!" the man
shouted, but he made no attempt to follow.

"Obviously," Doc shouted back.

"He has no right," the man complained to
Jazz.

"You called him." Jazz shrugged. She didn't
know what this was about, but she was on Griz's side. "You have
coffee?"

She'd just poured the water in when Doc
called for her. "You stay here," she told Wardman, who looked like
he would argue. "Doc's busy. He doesn't have time to make you, but
believe me when I say I do," she said, gripping the man's bicep.
"You make the coffee and you wait. I'll come back as soon as I can
and tell you what's happening," she said more gently, "Okay?"

Wardman's head began to nod and Jazz took off
at the sound of her name being called again. She heard Wardman
whispering behind her.

"Don't let her die. Please don't let her
die."

She correctly chose the open door and entered
a horror soaked in red. The towels protecting the bed were covered
with it, the floor spattered. The woman, Sandy, lay with her eyes
closed, her dark lashes a smear of pitch against the bloodless
white of her face. The lace of her sweat soaked nightgown quivered
with the shallow movement of her chest, the only sign that she
still drew breath.

"What can I do?" Jazz asked, ashamed she
couldn't control her shaking voice.

"I need to take the baby," Doc said without
looking at her. "Grab one of those clean towels." He motioned to
the folded stack on the chest of drawers. "Hold the pup. That's all
you have to do. Hold the pup until I can get to him."

The whole time he was talking, his hands were
working, pulling things from the bag, things she didn't want to
think about him using. Those hands were deft and sure as he cut
into the woman's flesh.

Jazz felt the bile rise in her throat and
choked it down. She reached for the towel and spread it over her
arms. Doc turned and laid the infant in the towel, just that
quickly, and turned back to the mother.

The infant, a boy, was tiny, too tiny in
Jazz's limited experience. His translucent skin was paler than his
mother's. He opened his blue lips, but emitted no sound. She
quickly wrapped him in the towel, lifting her head to ask if there
was anything she could do for the struggling child.

Doc was holding out his hand watching a
golden ball of light form in his palm. Jazz held her breath as he
turned his hand and hovered the golden light above the woman on the
bed. His face was a study of intense concentration as he moved the
light over the open wound. The room was filled with his light and
power.

"My God, he's a healer," she whispered.

Jazz had heard stories of healers, but the
stories she heard were always second hand and never from someone
who witnessed the real thing. She thought they were the stuff of
too many Tequila shooters on a boring night at the bar.

The baby coughed, a soft choking noise. His
mouth looked filled with mucus. She used her pinkie to clear it out
and turned him on his side. More mucus spilled and he let out a
weak cry. Then his little arms began to flail.

"Griz? Oh God, Griz, help him! Doc!"

Doc didn't speak. His head was cocked as if
listening to something no one else could hear. It wasn't
trancelike. His face held a look of concentration that was too
intense for such abstraction. He ran his glowing hand over the
mother's body.

Holding the baby to her chest, Jazz watched
as the flesh knit before her eyes. Griz turned to her and a ghost
of a smile played across his lips. He held out his massive paw and
she laid the tiny infant in it with his head resting on the giant's
wrist. This time, the glowing light wielded by the healer was
softer, more delicate. It took no more than a minute or two to do
its work. Color flooded the pup's face and he began to wail. Griz
closed his eyes as if it was sweet music. His face softened and his
body relaxed.

He closed his fingers into his hand,
extinguishing the light, and brought the baby to his chest. He
chucked the tiny chin with his knuckle.

"You'd better be worth all the trouble you've
caused, little wolver," he whispered. "Your mama almost died
getting you here." He rubbed the babe's lower lip with his finger
and the child's mouth opened and reached for it. Griz laughed
quietly. "You're a greedy bit. That's good. Grow and be strong,
wolver, and make your pack proud."

He said it like a blessing and Jazz felt the
power in his words. Were they the words of a healer with the power
still flowing through his veins? Or were they the words he heard
his father repeat each time a child was born to his pack?

"Can you clean Sandy up? She'll be weak, but
the babe at her breast will make her feel better."

"Oh! Ah sure, Griz. Sorry, but that was
pretty amazing." She was embarrassed to be caught staring.

"It is," he agreed. "I learned to wield it
when I was just a cub and it still hasn't ceased to amaze me."

"I'll take care of things here," she said,
taking the child from him. "You go break the happy news to the
father."

"Oh, I'll be happy to break something," Griz
said as he left the room, once more his growly self.

The new mother, Sandy, smiled her thanks as
she was helped into a clean nightshirt. Jazz tidied the bed,
removing the soiled towels and straightening the sheets. The linens
needed to be changed and the baby thoroughly washed, but for now,
the exhausted mother was content to hold her new child in her
arms.

Content, that is, until the raised voices of
the men seeped through the closed door.

"I'll take care of it," Jazz told her in
response to the poor woman's look of concern.

Sandy held out her hand to stop her. "Tell
him," she said and then went on to weakly explain what had
happened, "Tell him I wanted this," she concluded. "I begged for
this. Me. Tell him. Please."

"I will, sweetie, I will." Jazz stroked the
woman's hair and smiled her reassurance. "You take care of the
little guy there and I'll take care of the big ones."

Jazz found the men arguing in the kitchen or
rather Griz arguing and Wardman pressed up against the wall with
Griz's hand about his throat.

"
You
didn't call because
you
didn't want to be
beholding. Bullshit, Wardman, Bull-shit. You couldn't afford it? A
chicken? A dozen eggs?" His hand tightened. "You didn't call
earlier because you knew what I'd say. I told you to wait. She was
too worn, too frail from losing the last three. But you couldn't
wait, could you? Well, you've got your son, but God only knows if
you'll ever have another. At least your mate's been spared though I
wonder if you care." He let go of the man so quickly, Wardman fell
against the kitchen table.

"Griz!" Jazz said sharply.

"What!" His answer was just as sharp.

"I… I need to see you, uh, talk to you.
Privately."

Jazz started for the door, turned back to
make sure he followed and saw the look of misery on Mr. Wardman's
face. Ignoring the glaring Griz for the moment, she went to the man
and put her hand gently on his shoulder.

"Go see your mate. She needs you and she
wants to introduce you to your son. He's beautiful,
abso-fuc…absolutely beautiful. Go on now. Go see." She leaned in
and whispered, loud enough for Griz to hear, "And don't mind Doc.
It was a pretty tense situation and while he's great under
pressure, afterwards he tends to put his foot in it."

She turned back to the fuming doctor who, in
spite of his clean shaven face, looked more like a grizzly bear
than ever. She pointed her finger at the door. "You, out."

She closed the door. He opened his mouth. She
spoke.

"Sandy wanted this, not her mate. She begged
him."

"He wanted a damned son at the expense of his
mate," her grizzly growled. "I told him. I told him the last time.
It was too soon. She was too weak." He threw his hands in the air.
"And then not to call when her labor began. Godammit, I didn't even
know she was pregnant."

"They didn't call because Sandy thought the
pains would go away," Jazz interrupted, "She'd come so far with
this pregnancy, she thought everything would be all right. It all
happened very fast after that. He was ashamed he didn't call
sooner."

"I warned him," Griz said again.

"You're not listening, Griz! You warned him,
but you don't share his bed. Sandy does and she wanted this. She
begged. She cried. He gave in. They didn't tell you because they
were afraid of your reaction." Jazz shook her head in much the same
way he always shook his. "You can advise them, but you can't
control their lives!"

Griz grabbed her by the shoulders, his
fingers digging into the soft flesh. "They're dying. With my skill
and my magic, they think I should be able to save them all. I
can't. I can't help a woman conceive when there's no physical
reason why she can't. I can't save the infant that dies in the
womb. I can't save the mother who bleeds out before I can get the
veins closed and I can't keep choosing which life to save - the
mother or the pup. I can't help them. I can only bury them and I
can't tell them why."

"You'll find out why," Jazz didn't know what
else to say to console him. She placed her hands to either side of
his clean shaven face, no longer so pleased that she could see what
was written there.

"What if I can't?" There was such agony in
the question.

"You will," she said and she believed it.

"I'm failing them."

"You're failing yourself, not them," she
said, suddenly angry. "Whatever is doing this was here before. You
didn't bring it here, Griz. It's not your fault. There's not one
wolver in Gilead who doesn't see the good you do here, who doesn't
see how much you care about this pack." She pushed herself away
from him and pointed at the house. "Sandy and that baby boy would
be dead but for you. That counts, Griz. The clinic counts. You're a
doctor for God's sake. Surely you lost patients before."

Griz nodded reluctantly. "I did, but the pack
I belonged to before was huge and I could maintain a professional
distance. It wasn't so…" He paused and searched for the word.

"Personal," Jazz finished for him. Though her
father's pack was small, she'd felt the difference, too. Gilead was
more like a large family. Not everybody loved everybody, but they
were family just the same. There were few closed doors here to hide
behind though she suspected her grizzly worked harder to keep his
closed than most. She also knew how lonely living behind closed
doors could be.

Relenting, she wrapped her arms around his
middle and laid her head on his chest. She felt him stiffen and
then relax, if only a little.

"You do the best you can and you keep doing
it until you find a solution. In the meantime, Griz, try to
remember they're wolvers, not puppets. Tell them why you're worried
for them, but respect their decisions, even when they make the
wrong ones. Let them know you love them."

"I don't want to love them. I want to cure
them," he grumbled like a little boy and that finally made Jazz
smile against his chest.

"I know, but would it be so hard to do
both?"

They stayed at the Wardman's for most of the
night, Doc checking on Sandy periodically to make sure things
remained okay. Jazz changed the sheets and combed the woman's hair
and cleaned her up as best she could with a basin and a sponge. The
baby was placed in his bassinette so the mother could get some
sleep, but Sandy was afraid the child might wake in distress and
not be heard.