The Characters of Clayton, Rya, Kennedy, Dallas, and the Valentines belong to Rachelle. The character of Cora is expanded on with Permission from Rachelle, and is written for the pleasure of the International Wildflower Pack, the WhiskeyQueenn fandom. #WildflowersUnited #iwp    

::Thank you Rachelle Whiskeyqueenn for your inspiration- 6.16 Clayton #5 in Werewolf stories::

Midwife's Musings

Midwife Gretchen's POV

Dr Valentine waited for me to finish with my patients before he came into my office, he always required my presence when he checked Cora. I think being around her grieved him. Her near-death in the fire and troubled pregnancy reminded him too much of his past. His pregnant mate died, drowned in an accident. He tried to kill himself afterward. His grandfather told me about how hard it was for their family. They used the wealth and influence of the Valentine pack to get him into medical school. I myself had used the skills my mother had given me as a midwife to survive and travel after my rejection. Experience I used to help many she-wolves who were rejected or mate-lost for more decades than I could remember, experience I was using to help a she-wolf from Adams training under my best student, and even this poor male unawares. He needed to learn to feel again, to breath again, to love again. 

"The medicinal burn oil has done an amazing job, Ms Gretchen. I don't think Cora needs it anymore," Dr Valentine announced. He was amazed that the concoctions of an old she-wolf could be so effective. My old wolf wheezed a laugh at this young pup; he amused her to no end.

"It works well for silver scarring as well, Dr Valentine. I will have Cora write the recipe down for you. A few years ago we had a young she-wolf it would have benefited greatly, but it must be used from the start and I was traveling when she was whipped. By the time I returned, it was too late to do anything for the poor girl or her scars. I always keep a supply of it available but the healer at the time... Well, let's just say the Alpha wanted the girl to bear the scars as a warning to others." I watch him carefully, I know that he is friends with the Alphas. He makes a sour face, one that portrays the prejudice collected from others. I realize in that moment just how different he is from his mother and father. I rise from my desk. "Do not believe the tale you have been told about that day, young pup. Rya is more gifted than both of us, she is moon blessed."

He looked thoughtful, weighing and studying my words as he always did before discarding them. His mother and father would be disappointed.

'Oh Goddess, why are the young so foolish? Was I ever that way?' 

It was so long ago, I no longer remember. I watched the young doctor Luna Catherine had hired at great expense to replace Peter, as he used his training and gadgets to check Cora and Corina. He was interested in the medicinals I used for my she-wolves and the oils used to treat Cora's burns, but not in my methods. Very few burn treatments could be used on wolves because of the silver content and severe burns would scar us as easily silver. The oil used for thousands of years treated silver sickness, burns, and wounds better than any modern ointment, and he wanted to understand exactly how it worked. It wasn't enough for him that it did. We had very different views of doctoring, I trusted instinct and experience, while he trusted technology and training. His bedside manner left much to be desired. 

Was he a competent medical professional? 

Absolutely, he had skills I had never dreamed possible. 

Was he a good doctor who healed the spirit as well as the body? 

No, no he was not. 

He could heal a body, but struggled to mend a heart or spirit. His lack of empathy and overly controlling attitude prompted Peter refer to him as Dr High-and-mighty. It could be because he was an Alpha, born and raised, but I felt it had more to do with the loss of his pregnant mate the first year of their life together. If he didn't feel anything for his patients or anyone, then he didn't have to feel anything for himself. Mate-loss often kills a wolf, especially an Alpha who is programmed by the Goddess Herself to protect and preserve the lives around him. It was a wound that did not heal fully and was easily re-opened , like rejection. He failed her and it crippled him. He was the same age as Leong when his mate had died; two young alpha wolves facing the same horror, yet how different they had turned out. I wondered if Cora's gifts could heal him as well, although she seemed to have a great dislike for the Alpha turned physician. He may just have to heal himself. I wondered if young Dr Valentine would ever be able to love again without hesitation or manipulation. Would his jaded fear would give way to trust? If he would ever let the Goddess lead his path without resistance. I knew he would be able to say the words any she-wolf would long to hear and believe in the warmth of the morning, but when the storm came, would he stay the course?

~

As I rubbed the medicinal oil into Cora's almost invisible scars, I silently laughed about how Cora would not have cared if she was scarred or not. A month of treatment had kept her skin healthy as she lay beyond comatose, healing the burn damage. My beautiful girl had run back into the fire to save the spoiled, worthless daughter of our even more worthless Alpha and Luna. Cora was always putting others before herself, obsessively doing her duty to protect and care for other wolves. I let my thoughts dwell on the young girl Rya for whom Cora had sacrificed so much. Rya would have been a perfect candidate for the oil, but the healer at the time had only put pain ointment on the whip burns the Alpha had given her for having the audacity to be his son's mate and to fight for him. It was the wolf way and she should not have been punished for it. 

Her wounds were terrible and by the time, I got back from my yearly trip, it had been too late to lessen the scars. Then the Alpha had ordered her shunned by the entire pack, hoping she would end herself, I believe. But Rya had proved them wrong, proved herself stronger and with Cora secretly aiding her, we had helped her escape from here for a season. I would rather have trained her myself, but Belinda would do an excellent job, she had been my best student. Cora made a small sigh in her sleep, I rubbed my hands over her belly. The pup kicked me playfully. Corina was going to be a handful, just like her mother and, for a moment, I was saddened that I would not be the one to deliver her. I was preparing a young she-wolf who had never known the love of her own mother, to bear her first daughter. I longed to hold her child, to smell the sweet fragrance of new life but the Moon was calling me and this pup was another's to bring into the world, one who was also moon blessed.

My thoughts dwelt on Catherine's agenda, she planned to bring Rya back solely for the purpose of getting an heir for the Adams Alphas. Since Kennedy wasn't Clayton's mate, she couldn't give them a pup. Catherine had not been able to train her to be a proper Luna, so she had begun taking Kennedy with her to meet other Lunas, but more importantly the unmated males of other packs. Aurora said Catherine called these training meetings "hunting trips." But I knew Kennedy would get pregnant, reject her true mate, and return to Clayton if for no other reasons than he was all she had ever known, and it was her father's will. That evil Beta, his whole family should have been extinguished, nothing good had ever come of them and I doubted it ever would. Kennedy was beautiful, breathtakingly so, but on the inside she was her father's daughter, filled with cruel intentions and entitlement. They were a festering wound in our pack, generations old. 

I would have feared for Rya's return had Cora not returned, but Cora would protect our true Luna from the impostor and her father. She had, after all, trained with some of the greatest warrior packs in the world while having cooking lesson. Cora could fight as well as she could cook. I wondered what would happen if she challenged the Beta. I might wait to go to the Moon to watch her kill him. I had treated many young, unranked she-wolves over the years, who were victims of his 'attentions'. In fact, most of the highest male wolves including her father, had indulged their wolves. My complaints against them had been buried or ignored by Catherine and her mother before her. Cora had even confronted Clayton about it, he told her not to interfere to which she threatened to end the Beta if it continued. Someday, the Moon's hounds would come for them all, and I hoped my Cora's teeth were the ones in Killian's throat. She had started her training with the Spartans, and their she-wolves were known to be particularly vicious towards those who abused females. 

I watched our fierce she-wolf sleeping, she was one of a kind and I was proud to have been the midwife to birth her, I felt about her like she was my own granddaughter. I loved her as much as I loved her grandmother, beautiful and uniquely strong she-wolves who made a difference in all the lives they touched. I pressed a kiss into Cora's temple, inhaling her spicy peach scent and her pup's more plum one. Another generation to serve the Moon and do what is right under Her laws.

~

In the clinic lobby, Leong sitting in a chair by the window, reading. His resemblance to his great-grandfather is almost unnerving. He rose swiftly and opened the door for me. I nodded my thanks, he had such good manners from a young wolf I knew to be the most powerful one in the world, because like Lao, Leong was more than just a wolf. He paid the price to carry his family's secret and their spirit, but at least he could laugh again. I wondered if the Alpha and the Beta realized what had come to their territory in the guise of a humble delivery man. It made my old wolf snicker at the pretentious pair and the Luna they shared as she imagined them crushed in the dragon wolf's jaws with glee. 

Had Dr Valentine revealed the secret of his identity or just assumed they knew? No, he would say nothing, his pack was as good at keeping secrets and information to themselves as they were at finding such things. Sometimes too good.

"Leong, you may use my office if you wish for a more peaceful place to read, I am done for the day," I offered.

He shook his head, "I would not intrude on your profession, midwife. I am simply waiting for Charlie or Ms Coraline to come, so Cora will have one of us available if she needs."

I smiled at him, praising him, "You are a good and loyal friend, Leong. I think Dr. Valentine will be sending her home later today. She is asleep now if you want to sit in her room, I think she will enjoy waking up to your company before you go home."

He grinned his thanks back. He loved Cora, and would choose her for his second mate if he could. It grieved me that their customs would not allow for love after a moon-mate was lost. So young to be alone and with such a long life ahead. He had let go of his impossible dream and held onto his friendship with Cora. He himself brought the herbals I needed to create the oil for Cora's burns. I always had a small amount prepared, the ingredients were rare and very expensive. When I had Coraline call Shin Mae, she immediately informed her great-grandson. The next dawn as the fog cleared, he was standing on my porch with enough ingredients to make gallons of the rare oil, refusing any kind of payment, instead adding his gifts to my own. Cora had come back from the desert land of the almost dead. Now that she was awake, he would leave as he came, traveling with the wind as was the nature of his kind.

~

The sunshine felt good on my old bones as I made the walk to my house; it took so much longer now. I left Cora asleep, Corina finally stilled inside her, such a busy little little pup, just like her mother. She-wolf and she-pup were doing much better with her mate's presence. Her mate, Markus... there was a trouble young male if I ever met one. Traumatized by a single afternoon, he witnessed the deaths of his mother and all but one grandparents. A day that saw his brother and sister crippled. Those events almost destroyed his young soul. He had the greatest flight or fight response of any alpha wolf I had ever met. He fled emotional conflict, emotional contact of any kind really. He could be a great alpha, but his impulsive reactions meant he could not be trusted to carry the mantle of his power. He had a tendency to isolate himself, to not think things through, to not consider his actions beyond his skin, to not listen or observe especially when he was upset, and as a result he was almost disconnected from his wolf. I spent many hours with his father before Matthias had returned to The Sky. 

I needed to spend time with Mark while I still had time. If he was going to have any chance of regaining his mate, he would have to choose to change. Cora could change him, temper his nature, give him the love he had lost, but would she give him a second chance? And Cora was going to have to choose to forgive, one of the few skills she lacked. Forgiveness was the only thing Cora did not know how to give or accept. She could hold a grudge the way Atlas held the sky, and pull on a soul's hidden insecurity the way the Moon pulled the tides. Her gift  was to lash her enemies with a silver tongue that would cut deeper than any blade. Even as a teen, I had seen her reduce older wolves to tears. She had so traumatized our false Luna that the girl cried for weeks, much to Catherine's chagrin.  The Moon had blessed and cursed Cora with a will which could not be bent or broken. The sound of someone chopping wood drew me from my thoughts. Cora's mate was working at my cottage again. Time teach him how to handle more than a horse.

The Moon Goddess was a fickle mistress, easily bored and difficult to entertain, She had given the most stubborn, strong-willed she-wolf I had ever known a mate who appeared to be as equally difficult and self-determined. The storm they would share would make or break them. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9.2018 - CLAYTON is published!!!

Clayton (The Wildflower Series) by Rachelle Mills https://www.amazon.com/dp/164034487X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_S8sbDbB084P46 via @amazon

2.2019- DALLAS is published!!!

Dallas (The Wildflower Series Book 2) by Rachelle Mills https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXRVB7M/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_o9sbDbPFY61NH via @amazon
Find them on Amazon

::Thank you to Rachelle for allowing this CLAYTON Fanfiction to be published.:: 

If you are reading this on a site that is not Wattpad, it has been taken

and published without my permission.