CHAPTER 2

Vivian’s POV

It was just another night in Crescent Gold Hospital. Vivian was doing her rounds, checking the patient logs to ensure that everybody was getting the right treatments and medications, making sure everybody in her ward who was in critical condition remained stable. It was her job as a junior doctor. She had been working here for the last two years, and it was beginning to feel like a second home to her. She had basically grown up here; every nurse and doctor above the age of fifty had known her since she was a child. This was because the hospital served as a front of sorts for a good number of werewolf packs. While werewolves had quick regeneration for many injuries, some were harder and took longer to heal, and in some situations, some werewolves simply needed to heal faster to return to the frontline of any battle they were in.

The pack with the closest ties to the hospital? The Shadow Rock pack, which happened to be the pack her father was currently leading as the Alpha wolf. Hence why she had almost always been in and around the hospital since she was young. She suspected that this might even be what had triggered her love for the medicinal arts. Despite it being a hospital for werewolves if you entered through the hidden side doors, it still remained a normal hospital that admitted and treated normal humans as fronts tend to do.

The day was going on peacefully and normally. Vivian was on the night shift, greeted by the sight of blood and gore left and right. Werewolves with entire missing limbs, others with an eye or an ear missing and covered with gauze bandages, probably applied by the first responders in each pack during battles. She caught sight of her best friend Martha heading towards the ICU right behind a patient being rolled inside on a gurney in what looked like really critical condition. Their tired eyes locked, and she gave a wave and a reassuring smile as she walked off to complete her rounds.

“Vivian!” a voice called from behind her as she was about to enter the room of her final patient. She turned around to see who it might be.

“Oh, hi Ty,” she replied. It was the young champion of her pack. It was all but certain that he’d be the next Alpha of the pack due in part to the fact that her father never quite ended up getting a male heir. Ty looked a bit out of breath like he had been searching for her for a while.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I’m good, just some community stuff we need to run through before our next meeting,” he responded.

“I’m kinda busy here, Ty. The sick aren’t just going to treat themselves, you know,” she replied.

“Well, some of us can,” Ty quipped with a slight smile. “But jokes aside, it’s about your dad and it also extends into the trials for the next Alpha. That does concern you a lot, as you will probably become the next Luna for the next Alpha.”

Ah yes, Luna, the female leader of the pack, the phrase “behind every great man is a great woman” personified into a word. It was a common thing amongst all the packs, so she was no stranger to the concept and was already expecting it as the daughter of the Alpha. In all honesty, due to the fact that she had spent a better part of her life taking care of people because of her work as a doctor, she was already used to taking care of the pack, and it was a job she had grown to love. But becoming the Luna to an Alpha wolf involved getting married, and while Ty was a fine specimen of a man from his looks to his attitude to his fighting skills, she just had not quite pictured living the rest of her life with him. Talk less of someone like Luke, who was a barbarian in every sense of the word and was probably the next best fighter after Ty in the Shadow Rock Pack.

“Alright, fine,” muttered Vivian. “I have one more patient to go. Come on in.”

“How’s your dad doing?” Ty inquired coyly. This was always a sad topic to talk about around the pack. Vivian’s dad, despite having once been one of the greatest fighters in the clan and the true definition of a great leader, had a little while back fallen ill. It was theorized that it was due to an injury he got from a pack war they had before that. Some other werewolf pack had started encroaching on their territory and were nonchalantly attacking humans in that area, and as such, they had to step up and stop them. It was said that one of the werewolves laced their claws with wolfsbane, which in its concentrated form could stop a werewolf from healing from that particular injury. It was believed that some of it might have gotten into his bloodstream and was poisoning him from within. If that was the case, then it would have been a stupid move on the part of the attacking werewolf because the trace amount of wolfsbane that would have found its way into his bloodstream through the pores of his skin would make sure he died shortly afterward. Most werewolves die days after exposure to wolfsbane, but the Alpha, being a fighter through and through, had been battling it for days and its effect barely slowed down his steps, though the degradation was still visible. The doctors knew that if he stressed himself even slightly more, his body would break down and no longer be able to fight the wolfsbane in his blood, hence the search for a replacement Alpha.

“You know him, as strong as always. He is not letting the pain show, going about with his normal daily business like nothing is wrong,” she trailed off. She wished he would just quit his job now, enjoy the rest of his time in peace and quiet with his friends and family. He had done enough for the pack; no one could question that, but always the warrior, he intended to die on his feet, in battle or at least due to battle. “Maybe if we get a replacement Alpha, he will be willing to step down from his active role.”

Ty watched in silence as she picked up the data sheet of the patient and skimmed through the latest updates by the last official in the room. She dropped it down without a change in expression; everything seemed as it should be. She walked to the right side of the bed and checked the EKG, which Vivian had once explained to him was an electrocardiogram and was used to record the electrical signal from the heart to detect different heart conditions. She had gone further into details but with words that he was certain he had never and could never come across in any dictionary. As such, he had zoned out of the rest of the technical details of how it functioned. She walked to the other side of the bed and reached out to check the level of the drip and to see if it needed refilling. Satisfied with everything she had seen, she went back to the patient logs and added a new entry, probably putting an update of the patient’s condition and a timestamp so things could be tracked.

“All done!” Vivian exclaimed. “Let’s branch by the cafeteria. I need to get something to eat before I go from working here as a junior resident to becoming a permanent resident in the morgue.” She started heading for the door, and Ty followed suit. They met Sarah in the hallway as they were leaving.

"Hi, Ty,” Sarah gushed. She had always had a crush on him ever since Vivian knew her; it seemed the crush grew as she did. It was one more reason why this Luna situation gave her headaches. It would crush Sarah’s spirits to see her best friend engaged with her crush. It was all the more sad considering the kind of person Sarah was, always so happy and full of energy, one of the kindest souls that Vivian knew. It would be devastating to see the effects of Ty ending up with her instead of Sarah. Especially since she knew Ty also had feelings for Sarah. It all just ended up being a classic high school drama, just minus the high school.

“What’s up, Sarah?” Ty replied with a charming smile. “How is work going?” he inquired.

“Just another hectic night. Seems two packs had a falling out during the evening, and as such, we have a lot of work to do. They don’t pay us enough for this.” She explained. “Can’t wait for Vivian to switch to the ICU shift and rejoin me in this suffering.”

Sarah was one of the first friends Vivian made, a cute girl with red hair and adorned with glasses. They first met when Sarah’s family moved into town and needed a new pack to join; their old pack had been decimated in a battle. Sarah was a bit shy and reluctant to make friends, probably because she had lost a few when she lost her old pack. That was probably her motivation to become a doctor. She was slightly older than Vivian, just by a couple of months, and after some months of isolation, she finally broke and started hanging out with some of the kids their age in the pack, mainly Vivian and Ty. With the Shadow Rock Pack being more of a family than most other werewolf packs one might encounter, save for a few bad eggs, Sarah’s integration into the pack and the kids of the pack was basically seamless. But she always had a soft spot for Vivian, and they became best friends really quickly.

“We are heading to the cafeteria for a snack. Want to join us?” Ty invited.

“I would love to, but...” Sarah started.

“How about the patient I saw you wheel into the ICU?” Vivian interrupted.

"Hence the but, he has a wooden stake plunged in his chest. Guess someone confused werewolves for vampires and took the myth of a wooden stake a bit too seriously. I mean, a wooden stake through any creature’s heart, vampire or not, will prove fatal; it has nothing to do with any mysterious connection between vampires and wood,” she blurted. “Anyway, he is currently being prepped for surgery, and I was meant to be on my way to log it in while he gets prepped.”

“It was nice seeing you, Ty. See you around, Vivian,” she waved as she raced off.

“Always great seeing you too,” Ty called after her. “She manages to remain jolly through all the stress and work,” Ty noted to Vivian after Sarah had gone. “It’s really admirable.”

“And then there’s the rest of us,” Vivian added.

“Oh, chin up,” Ty encouraged. “A good snack and a drink, and I am sure you will cheer right back up.”

“You know me too well,” Vivian told him with a smile.

They strolled off to the reception area where they kept the logs of all active and inactive doctors currently in the hospital. It had a bunch of chairs arranged systematically to maximize space without making the place too uncomfortable for waiting patients or people waiting for the doctor to diagnose or treat patients. Today was one of the less busy days up front, seeming like a slow day for human injuries and illnesses. The room was well-lit and designed to have hallways curved at an angle leading up to the wards, to prevent any casual onlookers from simply seeing across, and no unauthorized personnel were allowed beyond that point. Even at that, the wards where werewolves were attended to were even further deeper and well-hidden so that patients admitted in and their loved ones taking care of them could not see any of the other happenings. She admired the structure of the building as she greeted the secretary up front and picked up a pen and the logbook.

She signed out, and she and Ty headed outside to the adjacent building where the cafeteria was located.