Chapter 10: First Howl of Fear
The warmth of the bed was a lie. One moment, Lyra was submerged in the deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion, the ghost of teeth on her shoulder a fading echo. The next, she was bolt upright, a silent scream trapped in her chest, the sheets tangled around her legs like restraints.
It wasn’t a nightmare. It was a sound.
A frantic, rapid thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum that wasn’t in her ears, but in her very bones. A tiny, racing drumbeat from deep within her own body. The baby’s heartbeat.
It was too fast. Wilder than the pulse of a startled rabbit. A hummingbird’s panic given sound inside her womb.
“Reggie.” His name was a gasp, stripped of all air.
He was awake instantly, a massive shape shifting in the dark. “Lyra? What is it?”
“The baby.” She clutched her stomach, her face pale in the scant light from the window. Rain still lashed the glass. “The heartbeat. It’s… it’s going too fast. Something’s wrong.”
She swung her legs out of bed, but a wave of dizziness hit her, a cocktail of residual adrenaline and pure, undiluted fear. Her hands shot out, bracing herself on the nightstand, and her claws—still too close to the surface after the fever—sank into the wood with a sickening crack.
Reggie was already moving. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to rationalize. He saw the terror in her widened eyes, heard the certainty in her ragged voice. He snatched his jeans from the floor, yanked them on, and grabbed the heavy car keys from the hook.
“Can you walk?”
She tried. She took two steps and her knees buckled, less from pain and more from the sheer, overwhelming sensory overload of the tiny, frantic life inside her shrieking through her blood.
“Right.”
In one smooth motion, he scooped her up, one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. She was trembling. He carried her out of the bedroom, through the dark living room above the silent bakery. Her head fell against his shoulder, and she fisted a hand in his t-shirt, her other hand splayed protectively over her belly.
“My bag,” she whispered. “By the door. Clinic keys.”
He snagged the heavy veterinary satchel without breaking stride, shouldered the door open, and stepped out into the storm.
The rain was a cold, needling assault. Wind tore at them, howling down the deserted main street. Lyra buried her face in his neck, but her senses were screaming. She could smell the wet asphalt, the ozone from the departed lightning, the damp wool of his sweater. And underneath it all, that terrifying, rapid-fire rhythm thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum.
Reggie ran. His boots splashed through deepening puddles, his breath pluming in the chill air. She was light in his arms, but her fear was a weight all its own. He could feel the tension in her, a wire pulled taut. Then he felt a sharp prick through his leather jacket, a skittering tear along the shoulder.
He glanced down. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her jaw clenched. Her fingers had shifted, claws extended, and they were digging into the tough leather, shredding it in her helpless anxiety.
“Almost there, Lyra,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady against the wind. “Just hold on. Both of you.”
She let out a pained, shaky breath. “It’s not slowing down. Reggie, it’s not slowing down.”
The emergency veterinary clinic was a squat, brick building at the edge of town, its sign a blue glow in the rainy dark. Lyra’s key fumbled in the lock, her hands uncoordinated, until Reggie shifted her weight, took it from her, and got the door open.
The silence inside was a shock after the storm. It was the silence of stainless steel and clean tiles, smelling sharply of antiseptic and anxiety. Fluorescent lights flickered on overhead, humming a sterile white song. Posters of canine anatomy and dental care for cats looked down with cheerful indifference.
Reggie set her gently on the examination table in the first treatment room. The metal was cold even through her thin nightshirt. She immediately reached for the portable Doppler unit on the charging station, her hands shaking so badly she nearly dropped it.
“Let me,” he said softly, taking it. He’d watched her use it during their quieter, happier check-ups. He squirted the conductive gel onto the probe, his movements deliberate and calm.
She yanked her shirt up, exposing the swell of her stomach. The skin was taut, pale. No visible movement, just that terrible, internal racing she could still feel.
He pressed the probe to her skin, moving it slowly. Static hissed from the speaker. Then, cutting through the white noise, they found it. The heartbeat. But it wasn’t the strong, steady whoosh-whoosh they’d come to love. It was a frenzied, metallic-sounding tat-tat-tat-tat-tat, like a moth beating itself to death against a lightbulb.
Lyra’s breath hitched. A sound of pure despair escaped her.
“Okay,” Reggie said, putting the Doppler down. His mind was moving fast, discarding options. Their usual human OB-GYN was forty minutes away in the city. This was a werewolf pregnancy, and something was acutely wrong. He looked at her, at the wild animal fear in her eyes. “Who do we call? Not a human doctor. Who in your pack knows about this?”
She was staring at the ceiling, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Silas’s mother… she’s a midwife. But she’s two hours north, in the territory.” Her voice broke. “We don’t have two hours.”
Reggie looked around the clinic, at the cages, the surgical lights, the IV stands. His gaze landed on the business card taped to the computer monitor: Dr. Evan Aris, DVM – Emergency & Exotic Specialist.
“What about him?” Reggie asked, pointing.
“Evan? He’s just a vet. A human. A good one, but…” She trailed off, the but hanging in the air. But he doesn’t know about us.
“He knows animals,” Reggie said, his logic bypassing the supernatural entirely, focusing on the core need. “He knows bodies under stress. And he’s on the emergency call list. He lives five minutes away.”
“Reggie, we can’t—”
“What’s the alternative?” he asked, his voice low and firm. He was already grabbing the clinic phone, dialing the number from the card. “We need help now. We tell him what we can.”
The phone rang twice before a groggy voice answered. “Aris.”
“Dr. Aris, it’s Reggie Strongforth. I’m at the clinic with Lyra. It’s… it’s the baby. Something’s wrong. We need you.”
There was a pause, then the sound of rustling fabric. “I’m on my way. Don’t move her. Start an IV line, lactated ringers, wide open. I’ll be there in four minutes.”
Reggie hung up and turned to the supply cabinet. He’d helped Lyra restock often enough to find the bags of fluid and the IV kit. His hands, usually so deft with dough, felt clumsy with the plastic wrapping.
“I can do it,” Lyra whispered, holding out a trembling hand. The professional in her was clawing its way to the surface, past the terror. He handed her the kit. With a focus that seemed to momentarily override her panic, she tore the package open, tied a tourniquet around her own arm, found a vein, and slid the catheter in with a practiced efficiency that was surreal against the backdrop of her pale, terrified face. She connected the line, opened the flow, and then sank back against the table, the brief burst of energy spent.
Headlights swept across the room’s window. A car door slammed. Moments later, Dr. Evan Aris hurried in, his greying hair mussed, a heavy parker thrown over pajamas. He took in the scene: Lyra on the table, hooked to fluids, her face etched with pain; Reggie, looming protectively beside her, his jacket in tatters; the frantic, audible tat-tat-tat-tat still issuing from the Doppler speaker he’d left on.
His sharp, clinical eyes missed nothing. He didn’t flinch at the shredded leather. He simply moved to the sink, scrubbed his hands, and approached Lyra.
“Talk to me, Lyra.”
“Fetal tachycardia,” she said, using the clinical term like a shield. “Heart rate’s over 240. Sustained. It came on suddenly. No pain, just… the sense of it. I could hear it.”
Evan nodded, his expression neutral. He picked up the Doppler, listened for himself, his brow furrowing. He then placed his hands on her abdomen, palpating with a gentle, firm pressure. He felt the hard curve of her womb, his touch purely diagnostic.
“Any trauma tonight? Any stress?” he asked, his eyes flicking to Reggie, then back to her.
Lyra and Reggie shared a glance. A basement. A storm. A bite. Fever.
“Yes,” Lyra said simply.
Evan was silent for a long moment, his hands still on her stomach. He was listening, but not just with his ears. He was a man who had treated lynxes with broken bones, eagles with poisoning, a whole secret world of creatures that didn’t fit in textbooks. He looked at Lyra’s sharp, tear-streaked features, at the unnatural, amber-gold flicker in her eyes, at the way Reggie stood, not just as a worried partner, but as a bulwark.
“Alright,” Evan said finally, his voice dropping, losing its purely professional edge and gaining something quieter. “We’re going to do an ultrasound. I need to see what’s happening in there.”
He wheeled the machine over from the corner. Lyra helped him, through sheer habit, smearing more gel on her stomach. The grainy, black-and-white image flickered to life on the screen.
There was the familiar shape, the curved spine, the outline of a head. And there, a blinding, rapid-fire flutter on the screen, a visual echo of the terrifying sound. The tiny heart was a frantic, pulsating blob.
Evan manipulated the transducer, his face intent. He zoomed in, adjusted the depth. He was silent for so long that Lyra felt the cold from the table seep into her soul.
Then he moved the probe a fraction of an inch, angling it differently.
The image shifted.
Another curved spine. Another outline of a head.
A second, blinding, rapid-fire flutter, just out of sync with the first.
Evan let out a slow, controlled breath. He pointed to the screen with a steady finger, tracing two distinct, separate sacs, two distinct, racing heartbeats, tangled together in the confines of her womb.
“Well,” he said, his voice a mixture of awe and profound relief. “That explains the symphony.”
Lyra stared. The world narrowed to the fuzzy, grey screen. To the two sets of flickering, frantic light.
“Twins?” Reggie breathed, the word barely audible.
“Twins,” Evan confirmed, a small, tired smile touching his lips. “And what we’re hearing isn’t distress, not in the way we thought. It’s a feedback loop. Their heartbeats are resonating, amplifying each other’s rhythm. It’s exceptionally rare, and sounds alarming, but look.” He pointed again. “Good movement. Strong, if fast, cardiac activity. They’re not in trouble. They’re just… talking to each other. Very, very loudly.”
The tension that had held Lyra rigid shattered. A sob erupted from her, this one full of a devastating, overwhelming relief. She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. The claws had retracted completely, leaving only human fingers, stained with tears.
Reggie’s hand found hers, enveloping it. He was staring at the screen, at the two little frantic stars blinking in the dark universe of her body. His giant frame seemed to sag, all the fear leaving him in one long, quiet exhale.
“Two,” he murmured.
Evan watched them for a moment, then quietly began wiping the gel from Lyra’s stomach. “The rhythm should settle on its own, now that the initial… stress… has passed. But I’d like to monitor you both here for a few hours. Let you rest. Let them calm down.” He looked squarely at Reggie, then at Lyra. “And for what it’s worth, your secret’s safe with me. I’ve always suspected this town had more interesting wildlife than the brochures let on.”
He left them then, pulling the door mostly closed, giving them privacy in the sterile, bright room.
Lyra finally looked at Reggie, her eyes red-rimmed but clear. The terrifying rhythm inside her was already beginning to slow, separating into two distinct, strong beats. A duet instead of a scream.
“Twins,” she said, echoing him, testing the word.
A slow, wondrous smile spread across Reggie’s face, transforming his features. It was the smile that usually preceded his earth-shaking laugh, but this one was softer, filled with a quiet, staggering joy.
“You know,” he said, his thumb stroking the back of her hand, his gaze drifting back to the now-dark ultrasound screen. “This means we were both right. We do need a bigger oven.”