Orphan's Cry

Chapter 2

Chapter 2After Leah finished up her eggs and toast she offered her bacon to Amy, explaining she still couldn’t quite manage it…not with last night still so fresh in her mind. Amy didn’t push and instead helped herself.

There was no sense in wasting food and Leah had agreed to go see a doctor with her. She’d pick her battles for now.

An hour after breakfast, they’d packed their bags back up and tossed them into the back of Amy’s faded red Land Rover so they could head back to town.

“Still a bit surprised you drive this thing,” Leah admitted as she climbed in, “it has to be, what, thirty years old? Where did you even find it?”

“Oliver? My dad bought him for me years ago. Very reliable if you’re willing to do a bit of your own work you know, and I mostly use him to drive out to the cabin or trips home.”

Leah stared as Amy cranked the engine over. “You named your car Oliver.”

She smiled fondly as the engine roared to life and she threw the vehicle into gear. “I decided he looked like an Oliver. Don’t you think so?”

Leah just shook her head.

“The radio only gets AM band,” Amy mentioned apologetically once they were out on the M4, “and we’ve got about a two hour drive, so if you wanted to ask more questions?”

Leah was obviously trying to relax but still seemed a bit out of sorts, so Amy decided to go with a different tack. “You could roll down the window and put your head out if you like.”

She caught Leah’s disbelieving look out of the corner of her eye. “Werewolves…we…actually do that?”

Amy smiled. “Some may do it in their wolf forms, but I know a few who just love the feeling of the wind in their hair.”

She’d thought that would get Leah to laugh, but instead she went quiet again for a second, looking down at her hands with a grimace.

When Leah finally broke the silence again, she sounded curious, if a bit uncertain. “So…I’m supposed to be able to control it? Changing, I mean.”

Suddenly some of Leah’s earlier behavior suddenly made perfect sense, and Amy wanted to kick herself for being so thick. “You…oh. Oh, I see, sorry. Yes, you can control it, but it’s something that does take practice, and with everything you had to deal with…”

Leah stuck out her tongue. “Hey, I think I was doing pretty well for not having any idea!”

Amy grinned. “You were, you are, all things considered. Especially for being a vegetarian werewolf.” Honestly, of all the ridiculous things…

“Oi!”

Amy relaxed just a bit as Leah finally started to laugh. She’d known that trying to let Leah know she didn’t have to hide anymore would be tricky, but she hadn’t expected her to be so angry, at first. Now that she understood how long this had been going on, though, the puzzle was finally starting to come together. She’d expected Leah had been on her own for a few months, maybe six tops. That she’d made it on her own with no idea what to do for more than a year…it still left her flabbergasted.

Well. Flabbergasted and incredibly furious. If she ever got her hands on the bastard who bitten Leah and never bothered to make sure she would be all right…

Her hands tightened on the wheel, and Amy had to force herself to relax. None of this was Leah’s fault, after all, and she certainly wasn’t mad at her.

Fortunately, Leah hadn’t seemed to notice her brief moment of anger. “So…there are other werewolves.”

“Yes.”

“Like us.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Do they…do you…pee on things? To claim them as your own?”

Amy needed a moment to keep herself from laughing or she might have lost control of the car. “Well. I don’t, but I suppose I can’t speak for all weres out there.”

Leah blinked. “You keep saying ‘weres’ like there’s more than—wait, no.”

Amy grinned. “You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.”

“That was from Star Wars.”

Amy winked.

Leah rolled her eyes. “I guess it’s good you’re not really into that, though. I always thought watersports were a bit gross.”

Amy went quiet as she passed a lorry, then spared a moment to give Leah a shy look. “So…does that mean you’d still like to be mine?”

Leah blushed. “I think so. I’m still working on…all of this. But…yeah.”

Amy smiled over to her. “Good. I’d have wanted to help you either way, but…good. That’s…that’s good.”

Leah’s hand snuck across the handbrake to squeeze hers, and Amy’s heart might have skipped a beat or two while she squeezed back.

“I’ve got a few more questions,” Leah admitted after another mile or two had gone by, “like…you said you’re an alpha?”

“Yes,” Amy nodded, “that’s right.”

“So what am I? And where’d that come from?”

“Well…” Amy considered the best way to explain. “Honestly the terms we use these days mostly came into use in the last hundred years or so. When packs were relatively isolated it was just a matter of hierarchy, and everyone knew the score pretty much automatically. The more packs connected, though, and we started to organize ourselves a bit more, the idea of putting labels on various concepts came in.

At first it was pretty basic—calling someone a leader if they had a pack, calling others followers, that sort of thing. But there was a naturalist who published a series of papers where he described the wolves he was studying using the Greek letters—Alphas for the leaders, Betas for the stronger wolves supporting them, and Omegas for the weakest or most common types. The idea of using the terms for ourselves caught on, and it stuck.”

Leah sat there, taking that on board for a moment, but before she could ask another question Amy coughed. “Of course the one problem with that idea is that he was studying wolves in captivity. Wolves in the wild don’t work that way, but I suppose he was only human.”

Leah frowned. “So why use those terms if it doesn’t really work that way?”

Amy shrugged. “It’s a useful sort of shorthand. I mean, it’s easier to say I’m an alpha to someone than it is to say I tend to be a natural leader who can take the initiative and have a talent for forming strong relationships with the people around me when introducing myself.”

Leah snorted. “Okay, true. So…where do you think I fit?”

“I think you’re a beta—and a strong one, or at least you will be once you get a bit more experience and a better diet. If you were an alpha, there’s a good chance you’d have been discovered by someone before now, because they’d have seen you as encroaching on their territory.” Amy paused, keeping her eyes focused on the road. “If you were an omega…they tend to have a strong urge to find others, and if you hadn’t, I’m genuinely not sure you’d have survived for so long.”

“Oh.” Leah went quiet again, and Amy could feel the slight awkwardness again until Leah brought up a new line of questions.

“So,” she asked cautiously, “your parents are…”

Amy couldn’t help her smile. “Happily married, live out in Berkshire. I just wasn’t sure you would want to meet them right away.”

“Because they’re both…like us?”

Amy blushed. “Well…and it’s a bit of a big step, bringing a girlfriend home. Didn’t want to go too fast, you know. We hadn’t…” She coughed nervously and tried to focus on the road and not the way her face was burning. “I liked you, I like you, but I didn’t want to make you feel like I was trying to get too serious right away.”

“You know, it’s cute when you get a little flustered,” Leah admitted, “but I suppose it would have been. Still, you know what I’m getting at. Are they…?”

Amy nodded as she pulled around another slower moving car. “They’re both wolves, yes. Alphas—that’s a bit unusual, but they’ve always made it work.”

Leah considered that. “So are you an alpha because they’re alphas?”

“It’s a little more complex than that, but the odds are a bit better. Parentage goes into it, but it’s as much about your personality as your genes. The only thing that’s a little unique is that there’s something in the way all of our brains are wired. Alphas can use some tricks with their tone of voice, posture, things like that, to give commands that beta and omega wolves are inclined to follow.”

Leah gave her a skeptical look. “What, like hypnotism? Snap your fingers and I cluck like a chicken?”

Amy snorted. “Not quite so dramatic as that, but in a sense. I couldn’t make you hurt yourself—or anyone else. But things like getting you to follow me when we started to run in the woods, or if I was giving orders while hunting or in a fight.”

Leah thought that over, worrying at the edge of her bottom lip. “When you asked me to come out with you this weekend—to visit your cabin—did you…did you use that on me? Influence me to say yes? Knowing the full moon was coming?”

Put like that, Amy knew why Leah had to ask. Still, the question stung a bit.

“No,” she shook her head, trying to keep the pain out of her voice, “absolutely not. I might have batted my eyelashes a little, but that was all.” She took a deep breath and tried to keep her focus on the road. “I could tell when you were getting nervous about the idea a few times, and tried to ease off or take your mind off it, but I’d never…I’m not that sort of alpha, Leah. I’d never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do of your own free will, I swear.”

Leah looked down at her feet, shuffling them nervously against the floor mat. “Does that mean there’s some out there who would?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I won’t lie and say all werewolves are innately perfect, but the ones that might, generally don’t last very long.” Amy explained, her voice going quiet and serious.

“The thing about using those kinds of commands is that it’s most effective with someone who has been around you, that you have a connection with, and it’s typically reserved for emergencies. Family members, packmates, anyone with regular contact. An alpha who is constantly demanding things or forcing the members of their pack to do things they’d rather not, would be a sign of poor leadership. The council frowns on that kind of abuse of power, and they might encourage members of that pack to challenge and remove their leader—or possibly even nudge an outsider to do it, in particularly extreme cases.”

Leah’s head came up. “Council?”

“Yes, they’re sort of…hm.” Amy considered how to put it in simple terms. “Kind of like a cross between Parliament and, well, a city council. Respected pack leaders, elders, that sort of thing, who gather periodically to enforce laws and handle matters outside of more mundane authority. They maintain that registry I mentioned, for example.”

“Huh.” Leah sat back, her eyes thoughtful. “Do I get to vote for my werewolf MP?”

“Not exactly, but there tend to be regional gatherings, and when larger issues come up, the regional groups usually have one or two people who are nominated to represent us.”

“Got it, I think…”

Leah went quiet as they reached London, but as they left the motorways for local traffic she perked up, watching the pedestrian traffic with increasing interest. “Okay, so that guy on the bike…”

Amy looked over to where Leah was pointing. “Mm? What about him?”

“Is he a werewolf?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Leah hummed thoughtfully. “What about the lady there with the wooshy skirt? Bet you could hide a tail under that.”

“No, sorry.”

Leah gestured toward the other side of the street. “What about that bloke with the hat?”

“Again, no. Oh—but the lady he’s speaking to? She is.”

Leah gave her a skeptical look. “But she doesn’t look like a werewolf.”

Amy couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Leah, when you’re not in uniform do people say they think you look like a mail carrier?”

Leah frowned as she sat back in her seat. “Well, no. Not as such.”

Amy nodded. “So why should we be any different?”

Leah gave a soft huh, then looked back out the window. “How do you know?

Amy shrugged. “Smell mostly—but there are other tells I will point out when I’m not driving.”

“Can you at least give me an example?”

Amy couldn’t repress a teasing smile. “Well, for one, most of the ones who live in our area are regulars at my pub.”

“But I’m a regular at your pub!”

Amy took advantage of the red light to turn and give her a long-suffering stare.

Leah blinked, then flushed with embarrassment. “Okay, that just sunk in.”

Amy huffed a little laugh before turning her attention to the last leg of their drive. “Good. Let’s move on, please.”

A few minutes later Amy had pulled them into the parking lot of what looked like a perfectly ordinary urgent care clinic.

“What, here?” Leah looked around with obvious disappointment as they left the car. “Really? It looks…boring.”

Amy shrugged. “What’d you expect? Something a bit more like Diagon Alley? Platform 9¾?”

Leah’s shoulders hunched slightly. “Well…maybe a little.”

Amy reached out to ruffle her hair. “Trust me, Pup,” Amy said as casually as possible, though she kept a close eye out for Leah’s reaction to the given pet name, “If we had something like that I’d have taken you there.”

Leah leaned into the touch with a happy little sigh. “Okay, I guess I believe you, luv.”

Amy grinned, and gave her a quick kiss before they reached the door. “Come on, you. Let’s go see if you’ve got worms.”

Leah snorted with disbelief. “Oh, you are joking…aren’t you?”

Amy just winked as she opened the door for her.

* * * *

Leah couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed that the interior of the clinic was as mundane as the outside. There was a check-in sheet at the reception desk just like most doctor’s offices, and a clipboard with new patient paperwork to fill out while they waited for her to be called back.

“I can help with anything you don’t know,” Amy offered as they sat down, “just ask.”

Leah nodded as she uncapped the pen. The first part was easy. Name, address, national insurance number, phone number. She hesitated at emergency contact for a moment, then decided to list Amy’s name and number.

Flipping to the other side of the page, she tried to figure out the form for a moment, then had to admit defeat. “Okay, I have no idea what any of these are.”

Amy leaned over. “That’s fine. Let me see if I can help.”

Leah tapped her pen against the first field. “Birth pack?”

“Since you were turned, you can just do N/A for that one.”

“What about pack ranking?”

“That’s where you want to put beta. It’s not officially confirmed but it’s good enough for now.”

“But…” Leah tapped the next field for current pack. “I’m not actually in a pack, so how does that work?”

Amy’s eyes flicked to the page before she looked away. “The term we use for a wolf who is out on her own is a disperser. Usually when you’re old enough to leave home it’s common to go out on your own for a while. Sometimes it just means you’ve decided to look at the options before you join an existing pack, or for an alpha it might mean you’re looking to form a new pack eventually. Technically that covers me, too. I’d moved to London because I wanted the chance to strike out on my own for a while.”

Leah’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t press too much on that, and settled for just filling the box in as Amy suggested. “All right. So…resident territory. Is that London?”

“Yes and no—most packs have specific areas, but in your case—there’s a bit of neutral territory around the pub because it’s a major gathering area, and your apartment building would be part of it. You can just put neutral territory, or the Howl if you want.”

Leah looked at the next field—Current alpha(s). “Well, at least this one is easy.” She’d begun to write Amy’s name, then stopped in surprise when Amy reached out to take her hand away from the page. “But…aren’t you, though?”

Amy had gone red with embarrassment. “It’s…I’m flattered, honestly, but for the purposes of these forms, it’s different. Putting my name there implies a certain legal status. I’m an alpha, and I’m your girlfriend, but right now I’m not your Alpha, if that makes sense?”

It didn’t entirely, but Leah could practically hear the capital letter, so she settled for crossing out what she’d written and left the rest of the field blank. “Is that okay?”

“Yes, sorry, that’s perfectly fine.” Amy worried at her bottom lip for a moment, then made better eye contact. “After all this is taken care of and we handle getting your registration sorted out, I promise we’ll talk more about this, alright?”

Leah considered that, then nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I suppose I don’t want to screw up any of my paperwork before it’s filed.”

“Now,” Amy tapped her thumb against the next field, “do you recall the date you transformed for the first time?”

“Yeah—November 6, 2014.”

“Good.”

Leah considered the next field: Breed. “Huh. Well…I don’t really know, and you said that I was turned, right? So I wouldn’t really be, like, a purebred would I?”

“Probably not,” Amy hedged, “I haven’t actually seen you in your wolf form, just when you transformed to your wereself, so it’s hard to say.”

Leah had just finished writing mutt, for lack of a better idea, when she heard Amy take a sharp breath. “What? I mean, seems reasonable to guess…”

Amy coughed, clearly uncomfortable as she did her best to explain. “You’re not wrong, necessarily, but that’s…it’s a very insulting term to use. If anyone were to call you that at the pub, I’d want you to tell me straight away. At the very least I’d be adding an asshole tax to their tab as a warning. In certain situations, it could easily lead to a fight.”

Blinking with surprise, Leah tried to take that on board. “Oh. Even if it’s kind of true?”

Amy shook her head. “Would you call someone who comes from a Pakistani family a Paki?”

Leah went stiff with shock. “Of course not. That’s racist as shi—oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

Now Leah was the one flushing with embarrassment, staring down at the form as she crossed out what she’d written once again. “So…what’s the best thing to put?”

Amy considered that. “Mixed breed is a bit more…ah…publicly acceptable.”

“Ooookay.” Leah frowned at the final field. “WRN? WIN? What do those stand for?”

Amy relaxed a bit as the conversation moved on to a much easier topic. “Ah, WRN stands for Werecreatures Registry Number—or Werecreature Insurance Number. They changed the name a few years back but they keep both terms on the forms. You don’t currently have either so you can leave it blank.”

Leah groaned. “Does that mean this visit is going to cost me something?”

“Oh, no,” Amy assured her, “don’t worry about that, all registered packs pay dues to the council based on their number of members and approximate pack income to help cover everyone. That way dispersers like us are still covered. Once you have your number, the doctor will just update your paperwork and send the bill on to them.”

“Right.” Leah filled in a few things under her medical history—no known allergies, scar on her thigh from where she’d been bitten, no recent surgeries or illnesses—then capped the pen. “Think I’ve got it, then. At least as best as we can.”

Amy nodded, taking the clipboard. “Okay—I’ll take this back up to the desk, and they’ll probably be calling you back in a few minutes.”

* * * *

Leah settled onto the exam room’s table and stared up at the ceiling tiles, half tempted to start counting the dots. It would have been nice if they’d let Amy come in with her—she had no idea what this doctor was going to ask, but she had a feeling she’d be getting a lot of questions she didn’t really know how to answer.

After a moment she realized she could hear a woman’s voice through the door—a bit muffled, but she could catch high, clear tones and some kind of a continental accent. German, she thought, but she could be wrong—and then Amy’s voice, similarly indistinct, but sounding apologetic.

Maybe they’ll let her in after all?

She’d just had enough time to form that idea when it was knocked right out of her head by the doctor’s voice rising in a clearly astonished shout.

“What do you mean she isn’t registered?”

Oh, hell.