I almost argued. I could have said all sorts of things, needled him, picked at that sore spot until it festered: why not, what's wrong with my family, you just don't want to admit that we're in a relationship, and so on. I started to say these things, just to see what his reaction would be.

But I let it go, because I wasn't ready for that argument any more than Ben was ready to meet my family.

I started bleeding that afternoon. I should have been relieved—my period, that's all it was. But it was late, there was too much, and something about it wasn't right. So I went to the doctor on Monday.

The nurse drew blood. The doctor wanted a urine sample. She wanted me to strip and sit on the examination table in a flimsy paper shirt. Then she poked, prodded, all the rest of it. In the five or so years since the last time I'd been in a doctor's office, I hadn't missed it, not once, not at all. The place had a weird smell. Everything was disinfected to within an inch of its life, but the antiseptic only covered up an underlying odor of illness telling me that sick people passed through here all day long.

I sat there for an hour, waiting. When the nurse poked her head in and said I could get dressed, I nearly sprang off the table.

"Is Dr. Luce coming back? Did she say anything?"

"She'll be with you in just a minute."

The door closed, and I dressed quickly. A knock came a moment later. It cracked open before I said anything, and Dr. Luce, a busy middle-aged woman, short, with graying hair and a fancy multicolored patterned lab coat, hustled in.

"Good, you're dressed. If you'd take a seat there?"

She took the chair at the desk, I sat in the one right next to it. My stomach was jumping with anxiety. She wasn't smiling. If nothing was wrong, she'd be smiling. She glanced at my hands, which were kneading the fabric of my jeans, then met my gaze.

"Kitty, did you know you were pregnant?"

I froze, mouth open. That wasn't what I thought she would say. In retrospect, I should have expected it. All the signs were there: the exhaustion, the nausea, which was how everyone said it started. But that didn't apply to me, apparently. For some reason I couldn't process the question. She waited patiently, but my mouth was too dry to speak. I had to swallow a couple of times.

"No. I mean—no. Were? Were pregnant?"

"You've had a miscarriage. I'm very sorry."

"Oh," was all I could manage.

She launched into the prognosis. "You're fine. You're going to be fine, I'll say that first off. I'm not surprised you didn't know, you were probably only three or four weeks along based on the hormone levels. You'll experience cramping for a few more days; I can give you a prescription for that. This is actually fairly common…" And so on. I wished Ben were here. I very much wished Ben were here to hold my hand.

"I recommend waiting several months before trying again."

"I wasn't trying this time," I blurted.

She pursed her lips. "Then I recommend taking extra care with protection for the next few months."

Protection, hah. Mornings after a full moon, with the Wolf still so close to the surface, filling me, curled up with Ben, protection wasn't exactly the first thing on my mind. In fact, that was probably when it had happened—last full moon. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn't know enough about my own cycle, my own plumbing, and the whole process to know if that was when it could have happened.

"Doctor, you saw my record. My…" Um, what should I call it? "My preexisting condition. What impact does that have on any of this?"

"Yes, the lycanthropy. I'm afraid I have no experience with that—it hasn't made its way to the literature yet. I don't even know where to go to find out. Do you have any contacts? Anyone you could ask?"

"Yeah, I think I do. Thanks."

I accepted all her advice and the prescription form in a daze. She kept asking if I had any questions, and I couldn't think of any. I should have had questions, lots of questions. But the whole world had gone fuzzy, like I was looking at it through a filter.

I made it to my car and found my cell phone.

After two rings I heard, "Hello, Dr. Shumacher."

Dr. Elizabeth Shumacher was the new head of the Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology, the government research branch that really ought to start sending out bulletins to people like Dr. Luce. But really, how often did any doctor expect to see someone like me show up in their waiting room?

"Hi, Doctor, it's Kitty Norville."

"Oh! Hi, Kitty, how are you?" She sounded cheerful and genuinely happy to hear from me—unlike her predecessor, who had always acted like he was starring in a spy drama.

"Okay. I have a question: What do you know about lycanthropes and pregnancy?"

"Not a whole lot. The research hasn't gotten that far. Everything I have on file is anecdotal."

"What do the anecdotes say?"

"Well, everyone I've talked to, everything I've heard or read, says that female lycanthropes don't get pregnant."

"No, that can't—"

"Rather I should say they don't stay pregnant. They can conceive, but the embryo doesn't survive shape-shifting. They miscarry every time. My guess is a female lycanthrope may become pregnant many times and never realize it, since she'll never be more than a couple of weeks along before she has to shift. If the timing is right she might be as much as a month along. But I'm guessing that's rare."

Holy shit. I leaned back in the seat, holding my forehead, feeling ill all over again. Feverish, I wanted to throw up. I rolled down the window and let in clear air.

Dr. Shumacher kept talking in the manner of a scientist who's launched in on a topic she finds utterly fascinating, without much thought about her audience's reaction. "It makes sense, if you think about it. The mutation has to reproduce via infection because biological reproduction is impossible. This is probably true of vampirism as well. The same mechanism in vampirism that stops aging prevents the cellular growth required for biological reproduction. Formulating a theory along these lines is pretty high on my list…"

She must have known something was wrong when I stayed quiet for so long. She said, "Kitty—why are you asking this? Has something happened?"

"It's about a friend," I said blithely, transparently. She'd guess the truth. "I'm asking for a friend."

Why didn't I know this? Why had this never come up before? Why hadn't Meg—the alpha female of my old pack, who'd held my hand when I was new, then driven me out when I wasn't—told me any of this? Had she known?

Why didn't any of us talk to each other? Warn each other?

"You'll call me if you need anything, yes? You're my primary informant, you know," she said, concerned. I couldn't tell her. I didn't feel like talking about it.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll call. Thanks." I moved like a robot to put away the phone.

I held my stomach. Why had I never thought of this before? Why had I never considered? I hadn't wanted kids. I didn't want to be pregnant. This shouldn't matter. Then why did I feel gutted? I hadn't known, so it shouldn't mean anything. But it did, and the shock of that was one shock too many.

Ben came home from a courtroom appearance late that afternoon. He found me sitting in the kitchen, the lights out, working on my third beer. I hadn't filled Dr. Luce's prescription. Alcohol seemed to work just fine; I was starting to feel very, very relaxed.

He set his briefcase on the floor and pulled up the chair across from me. "What happened?"

I took a deep breath. I'd been rehearsing this carefully. My brain was hazy, though, and it came out weird. Obliquely. I spoke too slowly to make sure the words came out right. I must have sounded nuts.