“God. Do something. What is happening?”
“It’s okay, Malcolm,” Autumn heard Mary say. “Come with me and help me get the babies dressed. Don’t look over there. They’ll take care of her.”
“She’s bleeding to death!” he gasped.
The words sent a chill down Autumn’s spine. She was feeling cold all over. If she was losing too much blood, there was no help for her. They could hardly give her wolf blood, and where were they going to get bear blood out here that was even her type?
Everything began to fade. She felt barely tethered to the events around her. She could still hear someone talking excitedly to Bess, but she could no longer make out the words they were saying. She felt like she was floating above it all, observing the two women gathered together at the foot of the bed, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
A baby cried, quickly followed by another. She had some sense of Malcolm and Mary calming them. Oh, God, Malcolm. He must be so terrified with eight brand-new children and a wife dying behind him. This was it. The only thing she would ever do in her life was bringing these tiny lives into the world, children she’d never know and that would never know her. Tears filled her eyes and everything faded completely away as she fell into darkness. There was nothing there, no angels, no demons, no light, no fire. It was just a void, and she was alone in it.
She didn’t know how long she spent in the limbo of death, waiting to see if she would be taken up or down or if this was truly all there was in death. It seemed like a long time, but she was eventually aware of a voice calling to her, a soft pleading tone in her ear, begging her to come back to him. It was Malcolm. She could hear the fear in his voice, something she’d never heard from him before.
Opening her eyes, she found that she was no longer in the hospital bed but had been moved to their bedroom. She had on a fresh gown, but something felt strange beneath it. She tried to pull it upward, to feel what was going on there, but Malcolm stopped her.
“There you are. Thank God. No, let that be. You have a dressing where they had to do an emergency appendectomy.”
“A what?” she muttered.
“Your appendix ruptured, and Kara had to go in. You’re fine now. She called in a secondary doctor to double-check you and everything is going to be just fine. You just lost a lot of blood.”
“Who?” she tried to say, but it came out as, “Whuh.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. You just need to rest. Mary called in a few of the women that volunteer as caretakers to help with the babies until you feel well enough to be up and around.”
Autumn wanted to ask to see them, but she heard herself just making some half noise and then the darkness fell across her again. This time, she wasn’t aware of anything but the comfort of the quiet that surrounded her. It was like being asleep, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she still found herself wondering if she was really dozing or had died again.
It was a relief when she woke up hours later to find Malcolm curled up beside her. He wasn’t sleeping, just lying there watching her as if anxious that she might not wake up again; so that made two of them, she thought.
Bess came in to check her vital signs and give her some medications that she told her were antibiotics. Autumn tried to protest, saying she wouldn’t be able to breastfeed.
“Oh, honey, that ship has sailed. You’d be hard-pressed to feed eight babies on breastmilk alone anyway, but it’s definitely not an option on these antibiotics and the pain medication I’m giving you.”
“Then don’t give it to me,” she muttered.
“Not an option, sweetheart. A lot of nasty business ended up where it shouldn’t be when your appendix burst, so you’re lucky to be here at all. You’re not going to have much of a chance if we don’t finish treating the muck with plenty of good old penicillin.”
“Can I see my babies?”
“Sure. We’ll bring them in here in a while. Right now, just get some more sleep and let us take care of the little ones. You’ll be up and about in no time with your accelerated healing, but you’ll have to stay in human form and take the slow route. It’s not safe for you to shift right now due to the internal stitching.”
Autumn wanted to ask more questions, but she found herself drifting away again, this time not so far into the darkness. Now, it was just far enough to find herself in a weird dream about running through tunnels and woods, trying to escape something that she didn’t seem able to shake.