Kelley Armstrong - Broken

At five, the Pack was at its lowest recorded size. Changing that wasn’t as easy as it might seem. In the past, Packs grew primarily through procreation, with werewolves fathering babies and taking the sons, the gender that carried the werewolf gene. In a modern Pack, with modern sensibilities and a modern Alpha, taking children from their mothers wouldn’t happen. Under Jeremy’s rule, Pack wolves had two options: surrogacy-and take the child regardless of gender-or joint-custody arrangements with the mother, since by the time a boy had his first Change, he was college-aged and old enough to keep that part of his life from his mother.

The problem was that, until Clay and me, no one in the Pack had showed any inclination to procreate. Antonio was content with one son-Nick-as Jeremy was with Clay. Maybe someday Logan or Peter would have had children, but they were gone now, killed in a mutt uprising five years ago. As for Nick, no one expected him to embrace fatherhood anytime soon, if ever. Although Clay and I were now doing our part, neither of us had any interest in replenishing the ranks by ourselves.

The other method of increasing Pack ranks was assimilation-taking in mutts who wished to join after they proved themselves capable of following Pack Law. Again, this worked far better under previous Alphas. Back in the days when Pack wolves hunted mutts for sport, there’d been no shortage of mutts clamoring for membership.

Under Jeremy, though, the Pack only harassed man-eaters, who certainly didn’t qualify for Pack membership without serious rehabilitation. Most mutts who’ve developed a taste for hunting humans have no interest in being “fixed.”

So far, the only candidates had proven disappointing: a closet man-eater hoping to escape detection by hiding in our ranks, one randy SOB hoping that the Pack’s communal attitudes extended to communal sex privileges with the sole female werewolf, and a problem gambler hoping the wealthy Pack families would buy his loyalty by paying off his creditors.

Marsten finally seemed serious about getting off the fence and joining the Pack. So our numbers were likely to increase by one. Yet until then, we didn’t consider him full Pack, which is why no one had suggested calling him to Toronto with Antonio and Nick.

So, for now, we were five.

I was the first to spot Nick and Antonio, and I hurried over as fast as I could waddle. Bear hugs, kisses and backslaps ensued, and I’m sure anyone watching would’ve thought we hadn’t seen each another in years, instead of just a couple of weeks.

Antonio had been Jeremy’s best friend since childhood. Nick and Clay were also lifelong friends. Both Sorrentinos were dark-haired and dark-eyed. Nick was a half-head taller than his father, with the polished good looks of someone who doesn’t think hairstylists, fashion magazines and skin cream are only for women, but who draws the line at manicures and facials.

Normally, Nick would have swept me off my feet and kissed me in a way that wasn’t exactly fraternal. Today, though, he stopped short, and settled for a hug and a smack on the lips.

“Am I getting too big to pick up?” I said.

He smiled. “No, I’m just being careful what I do to a pregnant lady in public.” He leaned down to my ear. “Wait until later, and I’ll make up for it.”

“I heard that,” Clay said.

Nick grinned. “Of course you did. And you can see it too, if you want. Maybe learn something.”

Clay made a comment, and Nick turned to answer, but his gaze snagged on my stomach. A look passed through his eyes as if he still wasn’t quite sure what it was, how it got there or, most important, what it would mean.

I grabbed Nick’s hand and squeezed it. Our eyes met, and I smiled. He leaned down to kiss me again. I put my hands on his stubble-covered cheeks.

“Couldn’t find time to shave?” I teased.

“I’m growing a beard.” He tilted his head and posed. “What do you think?”

“Sexy. The gray adds a nice touch of sophistication.”

“Gray?” His hand shot to his cheek.

Behind me, Antonio laughed, then caught me up in a hug that did lift me off the ground. “You realize he’s going to spend the rest of the day in front of the mirror looking for that gray?”

“I think it’s sexy,” I said.

Nick turned to Clay.

“No,” Clay said. “You’re not borrowing my razor. You grew it, you get rid of it.”

“Troublemaker,” Antonio murmured to me.

He kissed my cheek, then leaned back for a better look. The shortest member of the Pack, a couple of inches under my five feet ten, Antonio was also still the brawniest and most powerful. He and Nick had passed themselves off as brothers for as long as I’d known them. Nick had been born when Antonio was a teen, so-combined with a werewolf’s slow aging, and Antonio’s zeal for healthy living-it had been decades since they could have passed for father and son.

“You look more beautiful every time I see you,” Antonio said. “Pregnancy suits you.”

I made a face. “I’m huge. Getting bigger by the hour.”

“You’re pregnant. You’re not supposed to be getting smaller.” One arm still around me, Antonio turned to the others. “So, I hear you have a little adventure for us.”

I SLID INTO THE BACKSEAT BESIDE NICK. CLAY SQUEEZED IN on my other side.

“Hey, Jer?” I said as we shifted around and fished for our seat belts. “Remember when you replaced the Explorer and I suggested buying the model with the third-row seat? Really would have been a good idea.”

“That’s why I offered to sit back there,” Jeremy said from the passenger seat.

“And how would that help? I’m not any wider than you. All my extra load is up front.” I bumped Nick’s hip. “You’ve got another couple more inches. Shove over.”

“This is fine.” Nick put his arm around me. “Nice and cozy.”

I swatted him away. “Move.”

“Settle down and buckle up, kids, so I can drive,” Antonio said, looking in the rearview mirror. He glanced over at Jeremy. “Maybe we should finish raising this generation before we start another one.”

Jeremy shook his head.

“I didn’t want to bring this up in the terminal,” Antonio said as he turned out of the parking building. “But does this have something to do with your problem?”

He handed Jeremy a folded sheet of paper. Jeremy read it, face expressionless. When he lowered and refolded it, I undid my belt and reached through the opening between the front seats. Jeremy hesitated, then handed it to me.

“They gave us that when we got off the plane,” Antonio said.

Clay looked over my shoulder as I read: it was a public health announcement, warning of cholera in the municipal water supply.

“Cholera?” I said. “I thought it was E. coli.”

“So did they, at first, I suspect,” Jeremy said. “That would be the natural assumption, given the source and the symptoms.”

“What’s cholera?” Nick asked.

“It’s a bacterium that gets into the water. Overcrowding and poor sanitation are the usual culprits. It’s almost unknown in the Western world now, but it was a serious problem in the nineteenth century.”

“Victorian England,” I said.

Jeremy nodded.

Cholera is an intestinal infection, not unlike E. coli. The main symptoms are diarrhea and vomiting, which can lead to dehydration and eventual death, but only if left untreated. With treatment and fluid replacement, the fatality rate is less than 1 percent.

Cholera is transmitted through feces, primarily by food and water becoming contaminated with raw sewage. Jeremy was pretty sure London ’s cholera problem had been resolved shortly before the time of Jack the Ripper, but sporadic cases had continued, as the problems of overcrowding and poor hygiene continued.