by Eva Harper
Suddenly, I was moving. My body that seemed to be paralyzed in the face of the wolf was now running at full speed, trying to protect them or distract the wolf until help could arrive. Theo snapped out of his mind-link daze after a few seconds, and a ground-shaking growl erupted from him.
The wolf’s head turned to see me, stalling it for a moment and slowing its speed. I don’t know what I expected to happen when I faced the wolf, but seeing Tansy’s large brown eyes filled with fearful tears propelled me into action. I stopped short of a few feet in front of the wolf and my arms stilled by my chest long enough to watch Theo barrel into the side of the wolf, knocking it off its feet.
As Theo’s gray wolf and the tawny wolf fought, I tried to find the common sense to move. I knew I should have. I could hear Cam’s voice calling to me, and after a few seconds, I finally found it in myself to turn my head. He held his arm up, gesturing for me to come closer to him. I took one step before Cam’s eyes grew wider, and he opened his mouth to tell me something, but it fell on deaf ears.
Sharp, hot teeth sunk into my thigh, tearing straight through the muscles and bone. I don’t remember the pain as it happened, but I remember the noise my bones made as they snapped. The wolf didn’t remain on me long. Theo killed it instantly by tearing its throat out.
I don’t know how long I was on the ground for or how long Theo dismembered my attacker. At some point, Theo came back in his human form, frantically yelling at me, but it sounded like I was underwater. I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the two birds that sat in the tree above us.
Cam appeared over me soon with three other males I didn’t recognize. Theo gripped my thigh where the wolf bit, and I yelped as my body attempted to sit up and protect itself. Cam held my arms down, soothing me, and telling me it was going to be okay.
Theo tied a shirt around my leg, and I could feel my heartbeat echoing from the limb. I was lifted off the ground; Theo held my body close to him as Cam held my leg out steadily, putting pressure on the wound.
“Margo, just hold on, okay, love?” Theo told me as they rushed me as quickly as they could back to the house. “We’re going to get you help. You’re going to be just fine.”
I moaned in response, my eyes rolling to the back of my head and then back around again.
“Margo, I need you to stay awake. Don’t close your eyes, alright? I know it hurts, but I need you to be strong,” I heard Cam order more assertively. “Bite Theo if it hurts.”
“What happened?” Caddy’s voice asked quickly as we arrived at the house. He ran over to us with shaking hands.
Dishes and placemats were thrown off the dining table, and Theo laid me gently on top. The shifters went to work immediately, handing Theo and Cam towels, a bowl of water, gauze, and bandage wraps. Theo brushed my hair away from my sweaty forehead. He leaned over me, trying to hold eye contact with me, although mine were wandering around the room feverishly.
“I promise you’re going to be okay, Margo.” He kissed my forehead, where his hand just was. “The doctors are going to be here at any moment, and they’re going to fix you up. I’m so sorry, little one.”
My hand shot up and touched him, trying to give him some sort of response. He grabbed it firmly and squeezed before placing hip lips on my knuckles. The warmth of his breath was the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital eighteen hours later.
Remedies
I was awake before I could open my eyes. I tried to make a noise-ask someone for help-but it came out weak.
“Margo?” Theo’s voice asked worriedly from next to me. I tried to speak again, and my voice cracked, its airy tone frustrating me. “Shh, shh, just relax.”
I didn’t listen to him and kept trying to speak. My eyes struggled to open, but eventually, they did, and I moved my body frantically. Theo grabbed my wounded leg near my ankle and held it to the bed and reached up to push my chest down.
“Margo, you’re okay. Just relax, okay, love? I’m right here.” He looked into my eyes; his were worried and serious.
I calmed my breathing and looked around. I was in a hospital room hooked up to machines and covered in a soft, cotton gown.
“How do you feel?” he asked while letting go of my leg and settling back into the chair he next to me.
“My leg hurts,” I whimpered, my voice still cracking from dryness.
“Okay, little one, I’ll call the doctors, and we’ll get you some more pain meds,” he said. His voice was thick with remorse as well as his face. He mind-linked someone, and a man ran inside my room.
“She’s awake,” he noted, coming over to check all the machines I was connected to.
“She’s in pain,” Theo said angrily. “She needs more pain medication.”
“I’ll call the doctor. She’ll have to see if it’s time for that,” the man said softly, bowing his head before leaving the room.
Theo ran his thumb over my hand, not making eye contact with me.
“Theo?” He didn’t look up. “Theo,” I said louder.
“Margo, I am so sorry I didn’t protect you,” he cried out. “I wasn’t there when you needed me; I let you down.”
I opened my mouth slowly, wanting to comfort him, but the doctor entered.
“Luna Regina, I’m Doctor Dernon, how are you feeling?” The woman was tall, skinny, her long limbs looked agile, and her face was kind. She had darker brown hair that was pulled up; she looked intelligent.
“Hurts,” I said, not able to say anything more before I groaned in pain. My pulse throbbed in my leg hard.
“You had a lot of damage to your leg,” she said, looking down at the chart. “Your femur was fractured by the force of the bite. We’ve placed a plate and four screws to secure the bone. The muscle was also torn around your upper thigh; we’ve repaired the blood vessels, but unfortunately, a portion of your skin on your thigh was torn off in the incident. We had to do a skin graft from your other leg. You may feel some discomfort, but that should be acute.”
I tried to understand what she said to me. Theo saw my confusion and touched my head affectionately.
“Thank you, Doctor Dernon. I’m afraid my mate is in a lot of pain right now, I’m not sure how much of this she’ll be able to understand or remember. Can we give her more medication?”
She pursed her lips and closed her chart. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any pain medication for humans in this facility. The last of it was used when the doctors arrived at your home. I’ve sent someone to retrieve some from the closest pack, but until he gets back, there’s not much I can do in terms of pain medication.”
“She can’t use the pain medication we use?” Theo asked. His voice rose louder and louder.
“The way our bodies metabolize medication is different from humans. If I were to give her even the lowest possible dosage, her body could reject it, she could slip into a comatose state, or her heart could slow down. None of these possibilities are worth trying that method right now.”
“She’s in pain!” Theo bellowed, leaning over me to yell at the doctor. I squeezed his hand and tried to tug it to tell him to sit down.
“I’m very sorry for your pain; I’m doing everything I can right now. The medicine should be here within the next two hours. There are other things you can do in terms of pain relief, though,” she said cautiously. Theo looked at her, expectantly. “Many mated pairs use each other’s blood as a natural pain reliever. The cells in mate’s bodies are used to comfort each other so long as a marking bite is in place. A small cut on the wrist would suffice enough blood for her to ingest.”
I shuddered visibly. The thought of drinking Theo’s blood made me sick, and I vomited in the container Theo handed me when he saw me lurch. He grabbed my hair away from my face and whispered for me to relax.
When I sat back in the bed, I noticed the doctor left the room. Theo was already reaching for the small scalpel she had left on the bedside table.
“Theo, no,” I panted, reaching for his arm. I
had tasted his blood before when I marked him, but that was only a few drops, and even that was enough to make me wretch upon remembering it.
“You’re in pain, Margo. This is all I can do for you, and I’m going to do it.” He made a small incision on the side of his wrist near his thumb and brought it closer to my face. I turned away but couldn’t do much to stop him since the pain immobilized me. He held my head forward on his wrist and kissed the top of my head.
“That’s it, good girl,” he muttered. “Just a little more.”
When I swallowed the metallic, warm liquid, he sat back and let his wrist heal almost instantly. The taste of his blood lingered, and it made my stomach lurch again. Theo grabbed my shoulders and held me back.
“No, Margo, you’ve got to keep it down. I promise it’ll help. Just give it a minute.”
I groaned and shoved his arm away. He slumped back in his seat and just watched as I writhed in pain. I let out a small scream, and he grabbed my hand again, running his fingers over it, kissing my palm. After a few moments, the pain started to subside. My mind became foggy, and I found it hard to keep my eyes open.
“It’s okay,” Theo said as he smiled sadly at me. “You can sleep, love, and I’ll be right here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere.”
My eyes closed, and I slumped into a sleep I didn’t wake from for two days.
✽✽✽
“I swear, only you could get a chunk of your leg taken out and still be worrying about other people,” Caddy chuckled. He had come to visit me at the hospital and give Theo a break so he could go home and shower.
“I’m just worried about him,” I admitted. “This is messing with his head, I can tell.”
“Theo will be fine, he’s a big boy,” he laughed, taking a sip of his drink. He brought us food from a shop down the street. I rolled my eyes and bit into my sandwich.
“I know he’ll be okay eventually, but you should’ve seen his face, Caddy. He looked like someone ripped his heart out.”
“Well, they kind of did,” he said, looking at me sympathetically. “You’re his whole world now. That wolf almost took you away from him.”
“I guess.”
“But it’ll work out,” he said optimistically. “And in the meantime, I’ll be here to provide you with plenty of entertainment until your prince returns.”
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to the pack?” He groaned and took a large bite of food. “They need you, Caddy. You’re the Alpha now.”
“I don’t want to be the Alpha,” he pouted. I giggled and threw a pickle towards him. “That was rude.”
“You need to go back,” I smiled sadly, not really wanting him to leave.
“Don’t you want me here?” he asked, confused. I knew Caddy didn’t have a lot of friends back in his pack. He was probably lonely.
“Of course, I do.” I rested my hand on his arm. “But the pack deserves to have an Alpha like you. Theirs was just murdered, and their new one is MIA.”
“I know, you’re right,” he grumbled, setting his sandwich down. “I’ll go back soon."
“Good.”
Theo came back from showering and in a new change of clothes. He didn’t speak much. Caddy held most of the conversation until he left to go back to the packhouse and sleep.
“You know you can talk to me, right? If something’s bothering you,” I offered Theo. He sat in the corner of the small room, slumped against a cabinet. He didn’t even move when I spoke. “Because I’m getting tired of this, Theo. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, and you’ve barely said five words to me in the past week.”
He moved around and stared down at his hands. I reached back and grabbed a pillow from my bed and threw it at him. He looked up, shocked. It was the first time his expression had changed in days.
“Will you just say something!” I yelled loudly. His eyes remained wide and unmoving.
A nurse came into the room. “Is everything okay?” she asked softly, looking between Theo and me rapidly.
“It’s fine,” Theo said softly.
“No, it’s not fine,” I called out, trying to hold back tears.
“Oh,” the nurse said awkwardly.
“Just go if you want to go,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest. “But don’t stay here and stare at me because you’re upset.”
“No,” he said, too quietly for me to hear, but I saw his mouth move.
“Well then, get up out of that chair and talk to me! Do you think it makes me feel any better having you sit and sulk while I lay here? Because it doesn’t.” I didn’t mean to be cruel, but if it got Theo to open up, it was worth it. Even if he was angry at me, that was better than this unimaginable silence.
The nurse left the room. Theo stayed where he was, and I pushed the button to adjust the bed so I was sitting up further.
“Theo, I'm serious.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You might as well. This isn’t helping me at all.”
“I’m the reason you have a broken leg!” he screamed back at me. I tucked myself inward. “If I had been more careful, you wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s not true,” I denied.
“You know it is, Margo. My job is to protect you, and I couldn’t even do that. You needed me, and I wasn’t careful enough. I’m trying to find a way to get over that and be the man you need me to be. And I don’t know how to do that yet, so I’m going to sit here. And sulk. And not talk until I can do that.”
I didn’t have a response to him immediately. He settled back in his seat and his constant, unwavering gaze.
“You didn’t let me down,” I told him softly. “You could never let me down.”
“Go to sleep, Margo.”
“No,” I shook my head. “We’re going to have a conversation about this.”
“I don’t have anything else to say,” he growled.
“Well, then listen to me. What happened last week was no one’s fault. Did we say some mean things before that? Yes. Should that conversation have waited? Probably. But that wasn’t even the reason that all of this happened. Tansy was the one who ran out the door, and we’re not going to sit here and blame a child for something that wasn’t her fault. You would’ve done the same thing as I did, we all would have.”
“That wolf shouldn’t have been there.” He shook his head.
“No,” I sighed. “It shouldn’t have.”
“And where the hell were the guards? Why didn’t the border catch them? There have got to be holes in our security, and I can’t figure out who they are, and I don’t know what to do.”
“We can figure it out together,” I suggested.
“Where the hell were the guards?” he asked, not paying attention to me.
“Theo.”
“Was it a planned attack, or was it random?” he thought aloud.
“Theo!” His head snapped up. “Stop!”
“I can’t!” he shouted, standing up. “I can’t stop thinking about. I can’t stop seeing it in my head over and over again like it’s a rerun! All I see is that wolf’s teeth sinking into your leg, and it’s like I’m back there. Every time I close my eyes!”
“Will you just come and sit with me?” I asked.
He paused and dropped his shoulders.
“If that’s what you want,” he mumbled, walking over to me. He moved to take the chair next to the bed, but I grabbed his hand and tugged him towards me. He hesitantly moved onto the bed, one leg hanging off slightly. “You have to tell me,” he began to say, but paused and swallowed the lump in his throat. “You have to tell me if you ever begin to resent me for not being there for you.”
I opened my mouth to protest, the intention clearly on my face.
“No, Margo. Promise me.” His eyes were serious.
“I promise,” I said to soothe him. “I promise to tell you if I’m ever angry with you, even if it’s just because you put mustard on my sandwich. I’m going to tell you so often that you�
�re going to get sick of me and glue my mouth shut."
He cracked a smile.
“There he is,” I greeted, grinning up at him.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said sweetly, bending down to place a kiss on my forehead. I closed my eyes and reveled in the touch. It had been too long since I’d felt his warmth on my skin. He remained close to me, breathing in the smell of my hair.
“I probably don’t smell too good,” I told him, laughing. “The nurse helped me shower yesterday, but it was all of that scentless stuff.”
“You smell like you.” He smiled, ignoring my awkward comment.
“I can’t wait to get out of this bed. I swear I’m going to lay in a bath for days.”
Theo chuckled at me, sitting in the seat Caddy had previously inhabited.
“I can’t wait to take you home,” he said. I breathed in deeply, feeling like our bond was swelling with affection.
“Are you going to carry me over the threshold?” I joked, wiggling my eyebrows.
“Calm down, sweetheart.” He smiled cheekily. “We’ve got to get you better first.”
“I know,” I pouted, sinking further into my nest of pillows and blankets.
“It shouldn’t be long now.” He shook his head. “Maybe a few days.”
“A few days seems like a lifetime. I’ve been here for twelve days already.”
“I know, but I’ll make it up to you, little one,” Theo said, smiling, a glint of mischief sparkled in his blue eyes. I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering what he was thinking about.
“How are you going to do that?”
Theo moved closer to me and set his hand on my hip, rubbing lightly with his fingers. A shiver ran up my back and settled in the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes at the feeling.
“I’m going to take care of you.”
“That could mean so many different things,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath. He smirked and rubbed my hip a little harder, dipping his finger into the soft flesh at the apex of my hip bone and stomach and what was below.