by Haley Nix
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Wolf’s Bliss
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Wolf’s Bliss
By Haley Nix
Copyright Information
Copyright © 2014 By Haley Nix
Wolf’s Bliss is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or portions thereof may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form whatsoever without direct permission from the author.
This book is intended Only for Mature Audiences 18+. It contains mature themes, substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers.
Wolf’s Bliss
When I started my shift at 11 PM, the ER was bustling with activity, pretty typical for a Saturday night. We had lots of people come in with injuries incurred while walking around drunk, getting in fights at bars, general recklessness, etc. Not infrequently we had something more tragic. The first hours of the shift were busy, but not unusual. It was only around 2 AM that something a little stranger happened.
A man was being admitted to the hospital: white, age in the late twenties or early thirties, height somewhere over six feet, athletic build. We couldn’t confirm any of the details because he was unconscious. His face was cut badly, and the doctors were checking for head trauma and internal bleeding. He looked to be in pretty bad shape and a decision was made to place him in the ICU. That’s when I was assigned to look after him.
I like my job as a nurse. Sure the hours are long and I’m put in some tough situations, but I can handle it. Besides, the money is good and I like helping people. It always feels good to see one of my patients walking out of the hospital on their own two feet, happy in their newly restored health.
But some of the things I see in the ER could shake any woman’s confidence: people with gunshot wounds, the survivors of car accidents, and other gruesome things. The man I was currently tending to was one of those for whom I felt a great deal of sympathy. His injuries looked to be extreme, and the saddest part was that he was so damn young. I checked his vitals and set up his IV. When everything looked to be under control, I went to go check on my other patients.
When I came back a few hours later, he was still lying there unconscious. The monitors showed that he was stable, all his vitals seemed to be in order. Still, no signs of life behind those closed eyes. I would have lingered for a while, watching over him as he lay there, maybe even saying a short, silent prayer, but I had many other patients to attend to so I had to get on with my shift.
Like most other busy nights at the hospital, my shift went by quickly and before I knew it daylight was breaking. At 9 AM, I clocked out, heading home to sleep through the day and work the night shift all over again the following day. Ten long hours at work, but it felt good. I knew I’d sleep well when I made it back to my apartment.
***
When I came in the following night, I went to check in on my mysterious patient. He was still unconscious, but his breathing was even and deep and all his vitals showed no sign of imminent threat. Upon first glance I noticed something very peculiar: his face was flawless, his skin smooth beneath a bit of dark scruff.
In and of itself, I’m sure that doesn’t seem strange, but I remembered that when he was first admitted he’d had a huge gash across his face, a deep wound that would have taken weeks to fully heal. Even then, I would have expected it to leave a very noticeable scar.
I leaned in to take a closer look at him, trying to see if I could discern where the cut had been. I saw the faintest bit of scar, incredibly light so as to be nearly imperceptible exactly where the wound had been the night before.
My heart started racing when I saw that; I’m not exactly sure why. Something was not right, and all of the sudden I felt scared, as if I was in the presence of something beyond my comprehension. I checked his vitals again and quickly left the room. I just had to get out of there and catch my breath, wait for my heart rate to gradually fall back to normal. I left to attend to my other patients in the East wing.
***
As I checked on my other patients, I found my mind continuously wandering back to the mysterious man in the ICU. Who was he? What was he?
You see, when he came into the hospital, his pockets had been emptied. No driver’s license, no credit cards, no source of identification whatsoever. Since he was unconscious, no one even knew his name, his story, how he’d found himself in such poor condition abandoned in the park. Because he’d taken a blow to the head, there was a good chance even he may not remember what had brought him into the hospital.
My nightly routine was interrupted when we had another patient enter in critical condition. She’d been hit by a drunk driver and needed immediate surgery. Another nurse and I helped prep the room for the doctors involved. When we were done, we went to do a second round of checks on our respective patients.
One of the easier things about the night shift was that patients were typically asleep. This made things rather routine. I’d simply go in and make sure things were under control, then head off to the next room to do the same. Sometimes patients were awake and had specific requests, but usually they weren’t too hard to deal with.
I did my second round of checks in reverse order. I don’t know what my problem was, but for some reason I didn’t want to face the strange man with the mysteriously healing cut. I decided to put if off a little longer by saving him for last.
Ultimately, this proved to be a stupid decision. Instead of just going in and getting it over with, I was postponing it, allowing my anxiety to build up. I was dreading the moment more and more with each subsequent patient I saw. But finally there was no putting it off anymore. I headed to Room 340 to check on him.
I walked back into the room and was very relieved to find that nothing much seemed to have changed. Machines still hummed, beeping and blinking away. The patient was stable and all was well. Soon it would be time to clock out for the day. Thank goodness. I could use the rest.
***
The next night I showed up at the hospital to be greeted with some surprising news. The patient had woken up. He was completely lucid and coherent, but not very talkative. He seemed unable to remember his name or anything related to his personal identity. When asked about the events that had landed him unconscious in a hospital bed, he had no answers.
I was told all of this second hand by a nurse who worked the shift before me. She said the man didn’t seem unfriendly, but that he seemed to be hiding something. She had a feeling that he wasn’t being completely forthright with the doctors.
When I asked her what made her think this, she told me she didn’t know, that she could just sort of sense it. I knew I’d get a chance later in the night to form my own opinion, but frankly I was in no rush to enter the room. Things had been strange enough when he’d been unconscious, who knew what it might be like to speak with him.
I made my rounds, checking on my other patients, but was soon alerted to Room 340. The heart rate monitor was setting off a red light in the nurse’s station. I went in to check on the man and found him sitting up in bed, his chest bare as he pulled off the nodes of his Holter monitor.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a stern tone. “You have to keep that on.”
“I’m leaving,” he said, pulling each node off one by one.
“No you’re not,” I said, pushing him back down on the bed. “The doctors need to keep a close eye on you.”
I saw a dangerous look enter his eyes after I’d pushed him down. He lay back in the bed, but I had the feeling he might spring up again at any second, knocking me to the floor and running out of the hospital. There was something wild in his eyes. He didn’t look like a man who’d been nearly killed; he seemed to be teeming with life, health, and vitality. He certainly no longer looked like a man who should be in a hospital.
I placed my hand on his chest as I re-attached the nodes of his heart rate monitor. I felt a little shock when I touched him, a sort of electric tingling that made my own body come alive, feeling more vibrant. I looked into his face, studying it for a second, as if unsure what to make of him.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Nurse Page,” I said, politely, still fiddling with his heart rate monitor.
“I mean your first name,” he said.
I gave him a glare.
“Alison,” I said. “People call me Ali around here.”
“Mine’s Caleb.”
I tensed up, stopping what I was doing to look at him.
“I thought you couldn’t remember your name. I thought you couldn’t remember anything.”
“It just came back to me,” he said casually.
I hesitated, but thought better about challenging him on this.
“Have you remembered anything else?”
“No, not really.”
“So you still don’t know what happened to you?”
“No,” he said.
He seemed to be speaking earnestly, but I had no way of really knowing. But there was still something I needed an explanation for.
“Why were you trying to leave?” I asked, attempting to be nonchalant.
“I don’t know. I just wanted to,” he said.
Nothing about this seemed right. Suddenly, I felt my heart beating faster again, my pulse pounding and my blood getting hot.
“I don’t believe you,” I blurted out. “You’re lying about something.”
“No, really. I don’t know why I was trying to leave. I just don’t like hospitals.”
“No, you’re lying. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Close the door,” he said.
“No,” I said sternly.
“Close it.”
He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone let me know that I had to obey him – or else. I walked over and shut the door, leaning my body up against it, wanting to stay as far away from him as possible in case he made a move at me.
“I’m not safe here,” said Caleb.
He kept his eyes steadily on me as he said this, as if trying to imbue in me some sense of urgency. He was trying to get me to let him leave, to help him even.
“This is a hospital,” I said. “It’s the best place for someone in your condition.”
“Someone in my condition? I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You have retrograde amnesia. You didn’t know your own name until ten minutes ago.”
“I don’t have amnesia,” he said flatly. “I need to get out of here.”
“No, wait a second. Why did you lie to the doctors? They’re trying to help you.”
“I said I’m fine. Besides, no one is going to believe me anyway.”
“Try me,” I said, easing up a bit and moving closer to him.
“How do I know I can trust you?” asked Caleb.
“Because I just want to understand what’s wrong so I can help you.”
“If you wanted to help me, you’d show me how to get out of here.”
“I need to know why you’re trying to leave.”
“There are men after me. If they find out I’m here, I become an easy target. I need to be on the move. Constantly on the move.”
“Who are these men? Who are you?”
“Come here,” he said.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I listened to him. I did as he said. I walked slowly over to the side of the bed, still hesitant, hovering just outside of his reach.
“Why are they after you?” I asked, my voice trembling just a bit.
I tried my best to conceal my nervousness.
“Come closer, and I’ll tell you,” said Caleb, his eyes still trained on me.
I took a step closer and immediately he pulled me into him. He grabbed my breasts, shoving his face between them and inhaling deeply. My heart beat wildly and I closed my eyes.
“It’s you,” he said softly, inhaling once again.
“It’s me? It’s me what?” I said, pushing him off of me, finally coming to my senses.
“You’re my mate,” he said. “Finally, I know I can trust you. Now help me get out of here.”
“Your mate? What the hell are you talking about? You’re freaking me out.”
I reached over attempting to press the button that would signal an emergency, the button that would send someone else running to my aid. But Caleb grabbed my hand, easily holding me back. His strength was impossible for me to surmount.
“No one is going to save you. You’re mine now, and you’re going to do what I say. Nod if you understand.”
I nodded, still silent, scared to death by the force he was showing – and the emotions that I found flowing through me, ephemeral taboo thoughts that surfaced in my mind and disappeared seconds later.
“Good, and now you’ll help me get out of here.”
“I can’t do that. I’ll lose my job.”
“You can and you will. Come on, we’re going for a walk.”
Caleb got up out of the bed. He’d torn off his hospital gown earlier and now stood naked before me. I couldn’t help but glance down below his abs, seeing his monstrous cock dangling. I blushed and looked away.
“You can’t just walk out like that. Put a gown on,” I said, my eyes still turned away.
But before he put on a gown, I snuck another quick peek.
When he was finally clothed, I led him outside of Room 340.
“Take my arm,” I said. “You need to look like a patient, not a breakout artist.”
“Right,” he said, as he gently gripped the upper part of my arm.
Once again I felt that charge of energy course through my body. We walked along briskly as I led him down the hall toward the back staircase. I bumped into another nurse on the way.
“He wanted to go for a short walk,” I said with a warm smile.
She gave me a polite nod and walked on her way without a word. When we got to the staircase, I told Caleb to wait as I walked into the stairwell ahead of him to make sure the coast was clear. Once I was sure no one was coming upstairs, I came back out and pulled him inside.
We went down a few flights to the ground floor then through a dark backend hallway that led to a little-known exit at the back of the building. As we stood beneath the red glow of the exit sign, Caleb pulled me close to him.
“I need you to give me five minutes. Then go back upstairs and do whatever you have to do, say I escaped or whatever, that I threatened you. I’ll be long gone by then, so it won’t matter.”
He pushed a bit of hair out of my eyes, and held me there for a second. I was enthralled by him, simultaneously wanting to run away, repulsed, yet somehow craving his touch. He was devilishly handsome, but that alone couldn’t explain how he made me bend to his every whim. It was something deep and special in his nature, supernatural even. I looked into those blue eyes and sighed. Then I pushed him away again.
“Wait a second. You can’t seriously mean to go outside like that,” I said, pointing to his hospital gown. “You’ll look insane, the police will pick you up in minutes.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
And before I knew it he’d pulled me in for an unexpected kiss, my lips parted and I felt my wet tongue touching his. Was this crazy? It felt a little crazy, but I didn’t want it to end.
Even as I had these thoughts,
it was over. Caleb had busted through the back door and I stood watching in the shadows as he ran away. What happened next made me rethink everything that had just passed between us. I watched in horror as his body convulsed midstride, his muscles ripping as his entire frame grew in magnitude, shredding the thin hospital gown.
Looking on, I saw the transformed shape more distinctly in the form of a gigantic wolf. It paused briefly about fifty yards away, turning to growl at me, its large blue eyes glowing in the dusk. I screamed and ran back inside and up the stairs. What the hell had I just been a part of?
***
As I ran up the stairwell and back down the hall, I tried to get my story straight: We’d gone on a walk, and he’d bolted. I chased him down the stairs, but he ran out of the hospital. I yelled for help, but because he ran out the back no one was around. I didn’t see which direction he went, since he’d gone out of eyesight before making a decisive turn.
It was simple enough, basically just tell the truth and leave out the part where I’d helped him and where he’d turned into a freaking werewolf. I was breathless when I got back to the nurse’s station, putting on hysterics that were half real and half fake. I truly was freaking out right now. I didn’t know why I’d helped him, but I also knew I couldn’t confess to it without losing my job.
Out of breath, I told the two nurses I found in the station that the patient in Room 340 had escaped from the hospital.
“What happened?” asked Ida, the older of the two.
She was the head RN tonight, the most tenured of all of us. Basically, she ran things during the night shift.
“He asked if he could go for a walk. I tried to persuade him not to, but when he wouldn’t budge, I told him I’d escort him,” I said, still nearly breathless.
“What happened next?” asked Ida.
“He said it was fine, that he just wanted to go for a quick walk to stretch. So, we went for a walk down the hall. When we got to the stairwell, he broke free of my arm and ran down the stairs. I chased after him, but he was too quick and before I knew it I was chasing after him outside. Then he turned a corner and I lost him,” I said, hoping that my speech sounded natural and not too rehearsed.