A Wolf in the Fold

BettLynn made a happy noise that reminded Elain all too much of the noises Juju and Bea sometimes made when they ate.

  Elain was still alone in the kitchen with BettLynn when the puppy emptied the first bottle and started whining. Since they were both a mess already, Elain didn’t bother cleaning up herself or BettLynn. She prepared another bottle one-handed, trying to keep the puppy in her arms and secure while they waited for the bottle to heat up. When that one was ready, Elain gave it one more shot. She flipped the puppy onto her back in the crook of her left arm as she had before, and held the bottle just out of reach.

  “Okay, you can’t claim you’re starving now. Shift back, BettLynn. Please?”

  BettLynn struggled to reach the bottle, her eyes glancing at Elain’s as she did. When BettLynn let out another growl, Elain felt the instinctive growl immediately come up in the back of her own throat in reply, her Alpha warning the little puppy who was really in charge before she could even stop it from happening.

  BettLynn blinked, her ears pinning back. But then she did something that startled Elain so much she almost dropped the bottle and the baby.

  She shifted back.

  Mai and Carla appeared in the doorway just as Elain was sticking the bottle back into a now human BettLynn’s mouth. Elain turned, pinning a fake smile on her face that she hoped would fool them both. “There we go. See? Back to baby.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mai was more than happy to take over from Elain. Carla, however, followed her daughter to the master bedroom, where Elain peeled off her formula-sodden shirt and rinsed it in the bathroom sink before tossing it in the hamper.

  “How’d you do it?” Carla asked.

  “How’d I do what?” She knew her voice sounded too tight, too strained, but she couldn’t do anything about that.

  Carla caught her by the arm before she could go into the closet to grab another shirt. “What’d you do to make her shift back?”

  “I just did what Jim did and told her to shift. I think she wasn’t as hungry with the second bottle, so she finally did.”

  Carla wouldn’t let go of her wrist. “Elaaain.”

  She swallowed hard. It was difficult to believe that her mom, who was a human and not an Alpha wolf, could make her feel like she was five again and had just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “That,” she softly said. “I did that.”

  “Did what?”

  How did she even explain this without sounding like a royal asshole for doing it in the first place? “You can’t tell Mai.”

  Confusion clouded her mom’s expression. “What? Why on earth not? Elain, what did you do? Just tell me.”

  Her face heated. Now she felt like a real shit. “I growled at her, okay? She tried to growl at me again, and it just came out of me before I could even stop it. All right? She growled at me, and I growled back, and I guess my growl was bigger and badder than hers and she changed back. Okay?”

  Her mom released her wrist. Elain found another shirt and pulled it on before turning back to her. “You can’t tell Mai,” Elain insisted.

  Her mom looked deep in thought. “No, you’re wrong. I think we need to.”

  Panic threatened. Now she grabbed her mom’s wrist. “Mom, she’ll never forgive me! She’ll never let me around BettLynn again, and I can’t say as I’d blame her, either!”

  Out in the living room, they heard the back sliding door thrown open and Brodey’s voice. “Is she okay?”

  “Yes.” Mai sounded twenty times better than she had before. “Elain got her to shift back, thank the Goddess.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Bedroom.”

  The door opened and he walked in, immediately frowning as he closed the door behind him. “Okay,” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  It felt like molten lava filled her face. “Nothing’s wrong!”

  He strode across the bedroom. Elain released her mom’s arm and backed up as Brodey cornered her in the closet. “Babe,” he said, his tone low and full of Alpha warning, “you tell me what’s wrong right now. Please don’t make me edict you, because I will.”

  She burst into tears.

  He pulled her into his arms. “Shh, I’m sorry. But you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong.”

  “She growled at BettLynn,” Carla whispered.

  “What?”

  The three of them moved into the master bathroom and shut the door to give them an extra layer of privacy. Between Elain softly sobbing the events and Carla helping to translate her blubberese, Brodey got the story.

  “That’s it? You growled and she shifted back?”

  Elain nodded.

  He burst into gales of hysterical laughter.

  Elain shoved him away from her. “It’s not funny!”

  He grabbed onto the counter for support as he laughed so hard he could barely breathe. “Yeah…funny…holy crap!”

  Carla stepped in front of Elain as she moved to go after him. “Back off, honey. I’m sure he’ll explain in a minute.”

  Elain wasn’t sure if it pissed her off more that he was laughing when she felt so horrible, or that her own mother also looked amused.

  “There is nothing funny about this,” Elain said in a lower volume when her mom shushed her.

  Unfortunately, that set Brodey off laughing even harder. Tears streamed down his face and he stomped one booted foot like a demented horse tapping out numbers for a trick.

  Elain tightly balled her fists, her nails digging into her palms. When she tried to step around her mom, Carla caught her by the upper arm, fingers digging in. She marched Elain over to the toilet, where the lid was down.

  She pointed. “Sit. Now.”

  Brodey froze and another round of laughter burst from him as Elain obeyed her mom without question. He slid to the floor, his arms wrapped around him as he tried to suck in breaths of air through his laughter.

  Elain scowled up at Carla. “Yeah, that helped, Mom.”

  It took him the better part of a minute to finally get himself under control. Even then, he snickered and guffawed his way through the explanation. “She’s part wolf, babe. BettLynn. And coyote. I’d be willing to bet their pups are similar to full wolf pups in some ways. Even when they’re little and two-legged and not shifting yet, sometimes they’ll test their parents. They’ll growl. And like any bio-wolf or bio-dog, wolf parents will growl back. That’s normal.”

  “Normal?”

  He nodded as he slowly climbed to his feet. “Completely normal. Healthy. You have to set boundaries. Just like with a human child. I’m sure Mom here can tell you. She probably had a look or tone of voice she could use on you to keep you in line without having to lay a single finger on you.” He snickered and pointed at her. “Just like she did to get you to sit.”

  Elain stared at her mom, who kindly smiled as she nodded. “He’s right, sweetie.”

  Relief swept through her and she burst into tears again. Brodey crossed the bathroom and pulled her into his arms once more, one hand buried in her hair and gently pressing her face against his shoulder, the other wrapped tightly around her waist.

  She was vaguely aware of her mom leaving them alone and shutting the bathroom door behind her.

  “Shh,” he soothed. “It’s all right.”

  “I’m a horrible person.”

  This time, he didn’t laugh. “You’re not horrible. You’re fantastic. See? It’s instinctive in you already. You’ll be a fantastic mother if you ever decide you want to be one.”

  “But I growled at her!”

  “I know. That’s good. You might have taught her a valuable lesson.”

  “She’s a baby!”

  “Again, that’s okay. Yeah, maybe she tested the waters a little sooner than the regular wolf child might, but no harm, no foul. Maybe this is what Mai needs to learn, too.”

  “I can’t tell her!” She looked up, horrified. “I cannot tell my best friend I growled at her baby.”

  Gently cupping her face in
his hand, he stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I’m not going to force you to tell her. But in all honesty? I think you need to. She’s a coyote. She’s just so overwhelmed right now, maybe she isn’t thinking about stuff like that. This is a huge shock on top of everything else she’s dealing with.”

  “But she’s got Down syndrome. We can’t go around growling at her.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? You heard Dr. Alberto yesterday. The best thing we can do is take everything one step at a time, as it comes with her. Treat her as normally as we can. If a normal wolf pup growls at its parents, they growl back and assert dominance over the pup. It’s not like you’re spanking an infant. We have no book to follow here. We have to let BettLynn show us the way.”

  Torn between relief and horror, she let Brodey pull her close again. He slowly rocked her in his arms, trying to soothe her. “I know this is overwhelming for you, too. There’s so much you don’t know about us. About wolves.”

  “Understatement of all eternity, Brod.”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You are far harder on yourself than any of us are on you. I think you’re even harder on yourself than Mai is.”

  Brodey got Dr. Alberto on the phone again while still locked in the bedroom with Elain, and had Elain tell her what happened.

  Relief and irritation mixed when the doctor laughed. “Well, your husband’s right, Elain. It was a normal, natural thing you did.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She handed the phone back to Brodey. “You were right.” Without waiting, she unlocked the bedroom door and went to talk to Mai. BettLynn had fallen asleep with a full tummy. Mai had just gotten her changed and put into her crib when Elain found her.

  “We need to talk,” Elain whispered.

  Mai motioned her out into the hallway and closed the nursery door. Then, she turned and threw her arms around Elain. “Thank you. Whatever you did, thank you.”

  Brodey and Carla stared at them from the end of the hallway as Elain finally put her arms around her friend. “Well, you might not be thanking me so much.” She admitted what happened.

  At first, Elain thought Mai was crying. Especially from the way her body was rocked by spasms. When she pulled free of Elain and raced down the hall to the living room, Elain couldn’t see her face, only that she had a hand clamped over her mouth.

  When Mai ran out the back sliders and left them standing open, the three of them had almost caught up with her when they heard Mai’s peals of laughter ringing across the backyard.

  “I take it you’re not mad at me?”

  Mai turned and threw her arms around Elain again, hugging her. “Thank you! No, I’m not mad. I’m an idiot. I can’t believe how stupid I am. Alpha Auntie Elain figured it out.”

  Once again, Elain found herself hesitating before returning her friend’s hug. “So…we’re good?”

  “Hell, yes, we’re good. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it yesterday.”

  Unfortunately, it turned out not to be that simple. When it came time for BettLynn’s next feeding, she shifted into puppy form and wouldn’t shift back for Mai. Elain even tried taking Juju and Bea out for a walk, getting completely out of the house for a few minutes.

  When she returned, BettLynn was angrily whining, but still in puppy form.

  Exasperated, Mai held out the bottle to Elain. Elain took it and picked BettLynn up. After flipping her onto her back and cradling her, she held the bottle out of reach. “Come on, sweetheart. Shift back for Aunt Elain.”

  The puppy whined, but continued struggling.

  “BettLynn, shift back. Please?”

  Brodey leaned against the kitchen cabinets, arms crossed, silently watching. Carla sat at the table, also not offering any advice.

  After a few more minutes of this, BettLynn let out a growl.

  Elain’s growl in response once again left her throat before she even thought about it.

  As she had before, BettLynn pinned her ears back, but she shifted into human form.

  Elain immediately gave her the bottle before carefully handing her over to Mai. Then she left the kitchen.

  Brodey followed her, waiting until they were outside on the lanai to grab her arm and turn her around to face him. “It’s okay,” he gently said. “She has to learn this.”

  She didn’t pull free. “It doesn’t feel good to do it. She’s a baby. And Mai’s her mother.”

  “I know. Mai will have to learn how to do it herself.”

  “Jim’s human. He was getting her to shift back yesterday.”

  “He’s a male.”

  “What difference does that make?”

  Brodey shrugged. “You said it yourself, maybe she’s a daddy’s girl. Micah was so busy consoling Mai yesterday, I don’t think he took a turn trying it. Who knows? He might not be able to make her shift back, either.”

  But when the men returned that evening and they put the theory to the test, Mai still hadn’t been able to get BettLynn to shift from puppy to human for feedings, although Elain and Brodey, and even Carla, had all been able to do it.

  Adding insult to injury, Micah took a turn feeding her. He only had to ask BettLynn once to shift back before the baby complied, no growling needed.

  Elain felt horrible for Mai, like she was unintentionally complicit in breaking her friend’s heart. Made worse when Mai sadly smiled at her as they watched Micah feeding the baby. “It’s all right,” Mai told her. “I’m just glad we can get her to shift back. I don’t care who does it.”

  After Mai excused herself and went to their bedroom, Jim following close behind, Elain sat on the couch. “I feel like a total shit.”

  Micah raised an eyebrow at her. “Stop it,” he lightly said. “It’s okay. She’s just overwhelmed right now. There’s nothing for you to feel badly about. I’m actually very thankful to you.”

  “Why?”

  “You figured this out.”

  “I feel like I’ve taken one more aspect of normalcy away from Mai.”

  “He’s right,” Carla scolded her. “Quit trying to guilt trip yourself. I’m sure Mai will figure this out soon enough and then she won’t need help with it.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mom.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Unfortunately, as time grew close for them to depart for the Gathering in Yellowstone, not only had Mai not figured out the magic secret to get her daughter to shift back from puppy form, it seemed she was the only one of their close-knit family and friends who couldn’t get the baby to shift back, eventually, at least.

  Jim, however, had clearly taken the lead by a mile in that department. BettLynn never growled at her daddy, and rarely made him ask more than once for her to shift back for feedings.

  For her part, Elain couldn’t shake her mixed emotions about the whole situation. She felt simultaneously guilty that she wasn’t upset over BettLynn’s shifting abilities, and left out of the discussion in a way. She wasn’t a mom. She couldn’t say she knew how Mai was feeling, because she wasn’t in Mai’s shoes.

  She also felt badly for feeling glad the baby could shift so young. BettLynn would have enough things to deal with in her life. At least in this one way, she was able to level her own playing field, so to speak.

  That couldn’t be a bad thing. Not that she’d say that aloud to Mai. Poor Mai didn’t verbalize it, but Elain knew the young mother felt like a failure, no matter how irrational—and flat-wrong—that was to the rest of them.

  Elain, however, could feel the emotions washing off Mai anytime she was within a few feet of her friend.

  Adding to Mai’s heartache was the decision, based on Dr. Alberto’s suggestion, to keep BettLynn in a small harness at all times, with a leash on it. Especially while out in Yellowstone, for her own safety. One the baby couldn’t escape from in puppy mode.

  When Jim and Micah came home with a harness for BettLynn one day the week after she’d started shifting, a pink one with comfortable elastic
that they’d had custom-made for her, Elain sensed Mai had neared the end of her mental rope even though she forced a smile while the men fitted it on the baby.

  But it made sense. Because BettLynn had developed a habit of shifting whenever she got bored and wasn’t hungry, able in that mode to run around the house and play with Juju and Bea.

  All Elain could do was offer as much moral support to Mai as she could while feeling helpless to give her any constructive advice, and keeping as much physical distance as she could from her friend whenever possible to avoid absorbing the mix of emotions Mai was putting out. Which, on an RV trip from Florida to Yellowstone, meant Elain spent a good deal of time cooped up in close proximity to Mai and unable to avoid feeling those emotions. Emotions so overwhelming that she spent a lot of the trip riding shotgun with Brodey while he drove.

  Fortunately, they made the trip in four days.

  “I get the distinct feeling the guys wish we’d flown,” Lina said, a playful lilt in her voice. While she spent her nights in the other RV with Jan and Rick and the Beasts, she spent the daytime riding with Mai, Elain, and Carla.

  “I could tell Liam wasn’t exactly happy to let me come out without him,” Carla said.

  Brodey had just parked their RV outside the Old Faithful Lodge complex, where they would check in to their cabins. Rick pulled the other RV in behind him.

  Elain shrugged. “Ask me if I care if they’re unhappy about it. We had to get here, and here we are.” Her nerves, combined with feeling road-weary and the constant, nagging tingle of worry she’d lived with for several weeks that still wouldn’t go away, in addition to feeling Mai’s distress, had stretched her nerves to the limit. Now at their destination, she wanted to be locked away, alone in a room with her guys—or even alone-alone—and spend a few hours not moving or being forced to interact with other people.

  “I don’t know why you guys are complaining,” Mai grumbled. “You’re not the one who has to keep your daughter on a leash.”

  Elain and Lina both gave her hugs. “It’ll be okay,” Lina told her. “Maybe someone will have some advice for us.”