Wounded (Dogs of War MC Book One)

by Rossi, Monica

  “Good morning,” Sidney called to her.

  “Morning, welcome back,” the words were friendly but Fran said them in her usual ambivalent monotone.

  Fran came in to stash her purse in the office before she went out to man the front desk.

  Sidney wasn’t paying her much attention but she noticed Fran pause and do a double take when she looked at her.

  “What the fuck happened to you?”

  “What?” she wasn’t sure what Fran was talking about for a moment, “Oh that.” She raised her hand to her face where the lingering yellow green marks remained from her scuffle with the Hellhounds.

  “Yes, that.” Fran grabbed her by the chin, turning her face so she could see the mark better.

  Sidney brushed her hand away, what gave her the right to touch her and question her, “I had an accident, that’s all.”

  Fran grabbed her hands, turning them over to inspect the still discolored areas on her wrists left by the plastic zip ties. “Did that accident send you wine and cause you to miss an entire week of work trying to hide these?”

  “What? God no,” she hadn’t even thought about the bruises and marks on her and how it would look after having missed a week of work. “Red would never hurt me.”

  “Well then tell me where these marks came from and who this Red person is,” she demanded, face set with lips pinched tight.

  “Jesus, Fran, why do you even care? You barely even want to talk to me at work, so you really shouldn’t be interested in what happens to me when I’m not here.”

  “So I’m anti-social, that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand around while one of my kind gets abused.”

  My kind? Sidney thought, like people who work in a vet’s office? “What do you mean ‘my kind’?”

  Fran rolled her eyes, “Fine, pretend ignorance all you want, but tell me who Red is and tell me who did this to you.”

  “Red is my… boyfriend.” Was he? That didn’t even sound right. “And again, what happens outside of work is none of your business. So just drop it.” Sidney tried to get up and brush past Fran, there was really no good way to explain that she’d been kidnapped by a werewolf biker gang because of a feud with a different werewolf biker gang that she’d somehow gotten in the middle of, and she wasn’t about to attempt to try. But Fran stopped her, grabbing her by her arms.

  “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll find out anyway and whoever did this will pay,” Fran held on hard, hurting Sidney’s upper arm with the strength she was squeezing with. Her eyes began to roll back in her head and Sidney was pretty sure she was going to have to find an assistant that wasn’t doing meth.

  “Let go of me right now,” Sidney put her hands up to push her off of her but when her hands made contact with Fran the lights flickered and everything inside of her seemed to drain away. Panic seized her, “What is happening?” she felt like her mind was swirling, her vision narrowed and then blackened completely, she was scared.

  Walk with me, the voice in her mind instructed, but it wasn’t Fran’s voice. It was the voice of something ancient and wise, something so warm and strong that all she wanted to do was please it.

  Where? she asked, not knowing what was expected of her.

  Just walk, we’ll find our way, she immediately felt better, the anxiety was gone, the fear, the uncertainty, and she let herself wander, imagining herself walking through a field of tall grass, the wind blowing waves through the green sea. Butterflies meandered from flower to flower, letting the breeze guide their course, and the yellow sunlight gave everything a glow that seemed to make things shine from the inside. This was a good place Sidney decided, a place just to be and to not be, it would be nice to stay for a while. She came to a tree, the sunlight dappling the ground beneath the shady leaves, and sat below it and watched the light play, content.

  Thank you daughter, we will take care of you, never forget how much you are loved. The voice, deep and feminine at the same time, felt like a caress, like it was hugging her soul.

  Don’t leave me yet, I’ve needed you, and until that moment she hadn’t known that she had been missing something, but she knew now and it would seem so empty without it.

  We have always been with you, unknown though we were. We have always loved you and you will never be alone. Emotion welled up inside Sidney, this was the unconditional love she’d always wanted, the feeling of being worthy regardless of what failings she had, something she’d never felt before.

  Without warning the contact with Fran broke and Sidney was back in the real world, staring at her assistant in the harsh florescent lights of their office.

  The world had shifted beneath her feet again. She was too full of… everything to even ask Fran all the questions that were running through her mind. Still too surrounded by the all-encompassing love that the voice had planted in her. She started to try to verbalize what she was feeling, so that maybe Fran could explain it to her, but she immediately burst into tears.

  Fran grabbed her and held her close as the rocked back and forth, “I’m so sorry Sidney, I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”

  They stayed locked like that for what seemed like a long time, Sidney weeping silently, too consumed with the feelings she’d experienced and how devoid of… anything her previous life had felt, until they heard the front door chime again.

  “Stay here, I’ll take care of it,” Fran rushed out of the room, leaving Sidney to try to gather herself alone.

  What was that voice? What had Fran done to her? Why had she always felt so unloved and neglected when it was obvious how much a part of everything she really was?

  “It was that stupid chihuahua lady again. I told her that the dogs are going to bark no matter what she does and if she hadn’t wanted dogs that bark she shouldn’t have gotten five chihuahuas. She should have gotten cats.”

  “Or fish. The world needs more fish ladies, but it’s always cats.” Sidney tried to joke, but her voice came out sounding dead.

  “Are you ok now?”

  “No, what happened?”

  Fran looked at her hands, “I was just going to look and see who hurt you, I’m pretty good at peeking into other people, and… you were awakened.”

  “Awakened?”

  “You really have no idea at all about what’s going on? Your family never explained this stuff?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Sidney, you just spoke with the Mother and had your magick awakened.”

  “The mother? My magic? That doesn’t make any sense at all. Please just explain it to me simply,” Sidney put her hand to her forehead, there was only so much a person could handle and having to drag an explanation out of Fran wasn’t going to help anything.

  Fran shrugged and held her hands up as if to say she was doing her best, “You’re a witch.”

  Sidney closed her eyes and laid her head on the desk. This was not how she had wanted her day to go.

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