Ty and I had just left a bar. It had been a relatively useless place in terms of finding the rogues, but it had been useful in learning more about the world.

I'd met a werewolf, Jared I think his name was. He'd asked me for his help, and in doing so had given me insight into the people here. It had been strange when he told me not everyone was a werewolf, or that not everyone had some sort of power. I'd never heard of such a thing. They were called humans, and essentially, that's what Katarina had become. She was now something that didn't exist in our world. It had left me scratching my head.

Jared had asked for help and he, in return, offered to contact someone who may be able to help me track down the rogues. I had thanked him and given him the contact information we had for this world, but I wasn't sure if we were going to be there much longer. The rogues were appearing to move quickly. We'd only been a few hours behind them, and still there was no sign of them when we'd gotten to the world.

I'd given Mrs. Greene the witch we had for our contact, the one who helped us cross worlds, in case of emergency. I had never dreamed that she'd need that information, so when I saw her there, standing in front of the place we'd been staying my heart nearly dropped out of my chest.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing is wrong."

I felt my body relax. Katarina was okay and so was our baby. I then tensed again.

"If everything is okay, then why are you here? I told you it was for emergencies."

"I would think the possible birth of your baby would be a bit of an emergency, Alpha," Maude said with a hand on her hip. Maude was good at her job, but sometimes she was just a little too relaxed. She did just enough to stay in the boundaries of respect sometimes, and that was about it.

"The baby is going to be born right now? That's impossible. It's only been-" I started to think back in my mind, determining how long it had been since that night. "It hasn't even been quite two months yet."

"That baby of yours doesn't seem to care. He's nearly six months along."

I ran a hand through my hair when what she said registered.

"It's going to be a boy?" I asked.

Mrs. Greene nodded with a slight smile before it vanished.

"Why do I get the feeling that something is in fact wrong?" I asked her.

"With this pregnancy and with the state of Katarina, we aren't entirely sure what to...expect." Maude seemed to be choosing her words extremely carefully.

"What do you mean by that."

"Katarina, as you know, has been under tremendous stress during this entire process. Dealing with the loss of her wolf has been eating away at her, I know that her nightmares have been getting worse, you even said so yourself. That baby has grown at an absurdly unnatural rate..."

What are you trying to say, Maude?" I'd felt the tension tightening all my muscles with each word she spoke. I knew Ty could feel it as well.

"I'm saying there are no guarantees one way or the other, but there could be a chance that all the stress to her body from this pregnancy, and then the stress of giving birth could be potentially...fatal, sir."

I clenched my jaw and fists, and I felt my wolf flare up within me. I turned to Ty.

"I'm going back. I want you to stay here. When I get there, I will send two more men back and you will continue the search, is that clear?"

Ty nodded. "Yes, sir."

I turned my attention back to Maude. "You and I need to have a little chat."

I took us a little ways down where we'd set the designation place for transport with the witch. Within a moment we were back in familiar territory, just a mile outside the limits of my pack. The witch was no where in sight, probably off somewhere else.

"It took me nearly three days to finally get ahold of that witch you told me about, she's an evasive one. Then a few hours to finally convince her I was a friend that needed to talk to you."

"It's hard to gain a witch's trust. I only had it through my father," I said. I knew she was only trying to avoid the conversation. I wanted to avoid it as well. If it was said aloud, then it made it all that more real.

"Tell me what's going on."

"I already told you. It's just that."

"You haven't told me anything really, you just dumped on me that my mate may not survive the pregnancy."

"Is that so hard to believe given everything that's going on? That child should not be here for another seven months and it could be here at any time. She is having no time to adjust to that baby growing inside of her and who knows what she'll be able to do without her wolf. She's not complete, sir."

It wasn't the first time I'd heard that. Katrina had told me the goddess had said she wasn't complete either. I didn't believe that though. She was, she just needed to find whatever it was inside of her that was keeping her wolf away. Who was I to argue with a goddess though?

"There are people there, in that world we were just in, who don't have wolves, and new children are born every day."

Maude looked at me oddly. She'd never heard of any such thing either.

"That may be the case, but they aren't all giving birth to children who grew three times faster than they were supposed to, and they aren't giving birth to a werewolf child. The fact of the matter is, Alpha Granger, we have no clue what is going to happen when that child is ready to be born. I wanted to tell you so you could be prepared for anything."

"Telling me this is a possibility is going to do nothing in the way of preparing me, Maude. Nothing could possibly prepare me for something like that."

"It's a warning then at least." She sounded cold and bitter. I knew she cared about Katarina as well. They hadn't exactly seen eye to eye, but she cared for her safety.

"Have you spoken of this to Katarina yet?"

"I haven't. I wanted to make sure you were the first to know. It's up to you whether or not she's told. On one hand, it will just add more stress to her, but on the other hand, I believe she has a right to know what may happen."

"What options do we have when it comes to delivery. If it starts to go wrong, if we start to lose her, what are the options."

"If that happens we will have two options, sir."

"And they are?" I prompted her. I felt unease in my stomach and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what our options would be, but I needed to know. I needed to know what possibilities lay in our future because this was something I'd have to think about. I knew without a doubt this was something I needed to talk to Katarina about. I couldn't keep something like this from her.

My worst fears came true with the next sentence from Mrs. Greene.

"To save the child or to save Katarina."