Chapter 98

Hey guys, I decided to open a sort of mini challenge. This is completely free to enter, and is limited on a per site basis. Rules are simple, you are limited to one entry, and you MUST DM me the answer. Comments on chapters will not be accepted. This is to let three people per site put in a name for the story. These have to be normal names, nothing like usernames will be allowed. They will be worked into the story naturally, when it feels natural to me to put in new characters with names. The objective is simple though, in my mind. Natalie's journey has taken her about a quarter of the way across the province. To be able to win the prize of naming a character that is coming up, all you have to do is DM me what day it currently is at this chapter release. For SH, RR, and my $1 patrons, this means what day is it in Chap 98, $5 patrons have chapter 103, and $10 patrons have 108. I have been keeping track of the day this entire time, and figured it works good for a small contest. Best of luck, and may the lucky win!

The sun woke up Natalie once more. This time, getting out of bed proved to be far easier than night prior, but she still had to wrench her arms free of Maia and Kali's grasp. Either their bodies subconsciously learned their lesson from the puppy assault, or they just did not end up cuddling with her as aggressively. Regardless, it meant she was able to get up and head out of the tent when she woke up. While she had enjoyed the past two weeks of just cuddling with the two in the morning, Natalie had something she needed to do today before they headed out. Leaving the tent, she was surprised by what she saw. While there were no signs otherwise in their camp, the three coyotes who kept the vigil throughout the night had spots of their bodies that were covered with dried black goo. With worry on her face, she rushed over to the three, and began checking them all over for any injuries. While they raised some minor protests, none of them actively tried to stop her from searching them. When no injuries were apparent, Nat finally sat down with a large sigh of relief. Once she composed herself, she looked up to the three coyotes in front of her, "So, please explain to me what happened while we all slept."

Lucille took a few minutes to Fill Nat in. Apparently, there were goblin stragglers that were walking around in the area all throughout the night. So as to not exhaust themselves, they each took turns heading out and picking one off before returning. Doing this, while leaving minimal tracks behind, had apparently let them pick off close to a dozen goblins in eight hours while being completely undetected. Hearing that they were being properly careful so that the pack did not fall into danger, Natalie could not help but praise the group this time. They had prioritised their well-being, while also dealing with potential threats. As thanks, she offered to take over for them and give them a light massage for their efforts. Copper was fine without the massage though, and immediately rushed inside to the Soulscape to be with his mate. Edwin and Lucille both took her up on her offer though, and got their heads scratched for five minutes before disappearing themselves to get ready to oversee the pups as they did their hunt for breakfast.

Now that she was free of worry for her lookouts, Natalie now turned to what she had to do this morning. One by one, starting with Tin, she got the new mothers to come out of the Soulscape with their newborn pups. While this would not necessarily be an issue with how the Soulscape now worked, she still wanted to maintain what she knew from veterinary school. The pups were now hitting the four-week-old mark, going by the time acceleration of the Soulscape. At this point was the usual time that brand new puppies were brought to veterinarians for their first exams. While she suspected that they should be fine, she did not want to take chances with her now tremendously large family. For the next two hours, Natalie individually checked on every single pup that was now starting to be weaned off their mother's milk. The whole process consisted of two things, checking for any sign of worms or infection, and making sure that all of them were developing properly, such as starting to grow their teeth in and developing a healthy coat.

True enough, as she got to the last pup, no issues were found health wise for any of the young. While this was strange, as many canines were usually born with some sort of worms present, none were found. While Natalie suspected that was due to the nature of the Soulscape that boosted the health of the bonded within, there was no solid evidence as of yet. Therefore, she felt the need to treat this as she normally did before the hole change. That meant that there would be weekly checkups for each and every pup, where they would get dewormed. Starting next week would be the first round of vaccines as well. Thankfully, she knew that she had a good stock of both the 4-in-1 vaccine as well as the rabies shot. This was going to be a busy next few weeks for her, but to her there was no better way to spend her time.

Getting up as Luna took the last of her pups inside, she noticed that everyone else was already moving around camp, starting to clean up and get organized. Noticing that her lover had finished what she had been up to, Shannon brought over a plate full of food and passed it over to Natalie. She had apparently made up breakfast burritos today, and the smell coming off of them was divine. Not waiting for a moment, she started scoffing down the offering of food. She only paused when she heard Shannon giggle, to which she just looked up at her for a second, before winking and continuing to eat. She returned to the food so fast that she did not even notice the blush that covered Shannon's face due to her actions, nor the smile that crept up her cheeks.

Once she was done eating, she realized that everyone was good to go, other than one. After Shadow quickly shifted to the more humanoid form, they set back out on the road once more. However, it seems that the coyotes work had indeed not gone unnoticed. As they came up to the overpass that went off Highway 2 and into High river, they saw a sight that chilled their bones. Coming both from the town as well as the highway from the north, was a large horde of monsters. There had to be over a hundred, and while it was mostly goblins, there were still numerous hobs and even a few orcs leading the groups. Making a split-second decision, Natalie directed everyone to head west across the field beside them, and hope that they would not be spotted as they made a break for the hotel on the other side. After all, this was far more monsters than there were in Claresholm, and they did not feel that their luck would hold a second time.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Selvaria, Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Eric, Lachlan, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Erudual, Hades, Krimson, Neal, Juuso, Sebastian, Sir Hellington, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

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