by DD Prince
She punches a button on the phone, lets out a big breath and then she lifts the phone again and looks at it before she puts it down on the bed beside her and closes her eyes. She swallows.
There were no pauses among all those words. She waited for no replies so unlike her first call, that second one wasn’t a two-way conversation. The amount of ‘um’ uses says a lot about the conversation and her relationship with her mother. She said ‘um’ to me when she lied about the boyfriend when we first met. I stare at her, waiting for an explanation. I don’t get one. She’s making an effort to avoid my face right now. It’s pissing me off and I don’t need to be angrier than I already am.
Cat returns and uses medical instruments to check Ivy’s forehead, her wrist, and wraps something around her bicep and it tightens and registers numbers on a machine.
Cat writes down some things and then pulls a wheeled stool over beside the bed and begins to ask questions. I learn Ivy’s twenty-seven, learn her date of birth, her blood type, that she has no known allergies, and that she’s had her appendix and tonsils removed. Cat asks about her last tetanus shot and then tells her she’ll need to administer one. I don’t know what a tetanus shot is, but I know what an appendix is, and I know what tonsils are.
When Ivy answers what medications she’s taking, she says just one name under her breath and I don’t quite catch it, so I have no idea, still, what those pills I fetched from her car are for, but Cat’s eyes move to me just briefly before she writes something down on the paper and purses her lips. “How long have you been mated?”
“It’s a couple days since he… caught me and bit me.” She says this with ambivalence in her voice and it angers me to hear the tone she uses as well as the words that make it clear to Catrina Savage that she’s with me against her will. I know this is the truth, but it won’t change a thing. She’s mine. And as soon as she’s out of this clinic, well enough, she’s getting mounted, knotted, and again taught who she belongs to. Maybe the lessons will stick this time.
My chest hurts as I have this thought, because I don’t know if my lessons will make her submit in a way that I lose the Ivy I’ve been growing to love, the one who forgets she wants to go away and does sweet things and looks at me with smiles in her eyes.
I don’t want to put bruises on her. I wanna make her smile with her mouth and with her eyes. I want excitement like when she was anxious for me to taste that sandy fruit sauce she made for me. I want her to look at me like she did this morning and then climb onto me and wrap her arms around me. I don’t want her crying in a ball on the bathroom floor and punching me when I try to hold her.
I clamp my teeth together and level her with a dark gaze. She looks away from me. Again.
“Right. I’ll talk to Tyson for a minute. Try to rest. How’s your pain?” Catrina asks.
“It’s not too bad,” she says. “It’s there but better than it was, for sure.”
“I gave you some pain medication and I gave you a small dose since you’re such a small girl but if the pain gets worse, you let me know and I’ll get you some more.”
A greying bearded man, not a shifter, not even half shifter, pokes his head in, then he looks at me with a startled expression. “Catrina. A minute, please?”
There are more people in that other room now and I don’t like it.
Lincoln sits there and catches my eyes. I gaze at his feet, seeing Ivy’s two bags there. He didn’t have them when he ran as wolf. He must have gone back to the site and retrieved them. He signals Catrina also, and hands her a dead snake. He fetched that, too.
“Good. Now we know precisely what we are dealing with,” she says, looking over at me.
I nod at Lincoln. He thumps his chest.
I don’t like the feeling I have right now, which is similar to when I had to go to the bar to meet women and there were people everywhere. I’m even more uneasy now because these people are the people Uncle warned me about. They are closing in and I have to wonder if they do have any ill intentions. These people seem more than aware of who I am, almost as aware as I am of them. It’s as if there’s static in the air, the way it feels when there’s a pending storm.
I sense none are threats, but I don’t trust that feeling because it’s contradicting everything I’ve been taught. I’m at war with what to feel because of all the lies.
I wait for Cat’s return. Ivy’s eyes are closed and she’s either trying to sleep or pretending to sleep. Despite her eyes being closed, I know she’s awake. I know by the pace of her breathing, of her heart, that she’s warring with emotions and filled with stress.
As for me, I’m staying alert because if any of those people make a move toward us that gives me any feelings of threat, I’ll be ready to either rip them to shreds or bolt with my woman.
I now know for certain Cornelius hurt Catrina Savage at least once, likely a lot more than once if he’s the source of her spending these years without her son, without her husband. I know that was her scent. I knew it earlier when she had that woman beside her with a similar scent but not close enough that I could be mistaken about who Cornelius was with.
I know little to nothing else but what I’ve pieced together and barely given myself an opportunity to process, as Riley would say, because of Ivy and because of me. The way I process now might be different from how I’d process if I hadn’t neglected to shift for so long. I hate this feeling I have, the no-control feeling, over protecting my mate, over the people around me; I hate the way my mind keeps shuffling through all I know, or all I thought I knew.
Cat slips back in and shuts the door behind her. This time she locks it.
“Tyson, can I take your vitals please? And do a blood test?”
“Why? Nothing bit me, I’m not injured.”
“For my own peace of mind. I have some concerns about the hormone levels I’m sensing from you, and…”
“Not now.” I rise and pace the floor some more.
“Maybe soon?” she tries.
“Maybe. What’s with all of them?” I gesture to the door that leads to that waiting area. “Why do they wait here?”
“They’re merely concerned. They’re here to show you that they’re here for you and your mate. There was a lot of buzz today after your visit so now that you’re here again and your mate was in jeopardy, they just… well, it’s very normal pack behavior, Tyson. Can I get you anything? I’m going to get Ivy some water. Would you like anything?”
I shake my head.
She leaves.
My eyes move to Ivy who was watching the exchange.
“Your mom,” she says, “is awesome.”
I make a non-committal sound and approach to look at her ankle. Definitely better. Even better than earlier. That swelling is coming down quickly but not quickly enough to put my mind at ease. Ivy’s scent is still wrong. And I hate the sight of the small bruises on her leg from my grip as I tried to get the poison out.
When I think about what could have happened… I could’ve found her dead. If I hadn’t stopped to piss on Cornelius’s bones and had that episode of rage, I could’ve stopped her from walking where she did. I could’ve had her in my arms, carrying her back home before this even happened.
That angry haze that came over me wants to come over me now.
It crackles at the base of my spine and I shove it back. I roar out my anger and she jerks in fear. I get directly in front of her face so that she can’t look away from me. I can’t say any words. I just breathe in and out and in and out. Her eyes are filled with fear. I don’t want fear, but I have no words to show her how my emotions war right now. If she weren’t in a bed hooked up to medicine to save her life, I’d have her on the floor under me, rutting her for as long as it took to get her to understand.
25
Ivy
His eyes are wild with fury. I watch, unable to tear my gaze away, as a blood vessel pops directly in front of me. It just bursts in the white of his right eye and he bares his teeth. He’s so angry.
Tears stream down my face and at the vision of his eye, a sob bursts from my throat. His face is only inches from mine. He leans over me, a fist on either side of my hips and his chest is rapidly filling with air and then depressing as he glares. This goes on for probably less than a minute, but it feels eternal before he snaps away and roars out another snarl, fists clenched, veins bulging in his muscled arms, and then Cat is in the room with us with two bottles of water.
She looks at him and then me and hands him the water, her brows knitting together only a bit. “Drink. Calm yourself, Tyson. You’re frightening your little mate. She doesn’t know much about you yet, about our kind, does she?” She says this with so much authority in her voice, I’m sure he’s going to listen. She doesn’t know him and yet seems unaffected by the scary way he’s acting. This is baffling for a minute until it dawns that she likely knows many others like him. Other werewolves. I can’t imagine this behavior being typical in my life. Then again, I wasn’t born around this, so I have no comparison.
My dad and brother get grouchy sometimes and I’ve had occasion to accuse them of being alpha males, but it’s glaringly obvious that I knew nothing of the term until now. They were nothing like this. If I dated a guy remotely acting like this, it’d be game over for us.
Date. Ha. This guy thinks we’re the equivalent of married.
He yanks the bottle from her hand and twists the cap off before tipping it back and drinking it so fast that it vanishes in four or five swallows.
He doesn’t answer her, so she looks to me.
“Is his eye okay?” I ask.
“He’ll be fine. I’ll give him some eyedrops when you go. Remind him to put them in. He’ll probably be stubborn about it but try.” She shrugs. “If he shifts, it might correct on its own. I’m not sure. Do you heal when you shift?”
“Yeah,” he tells her. “Usually. She’s ripped my face open twice with her nails and it’s healed after a shift.”
I blink. He’s right. I didn’t even realize.
“I’m not a violent person,’ I defend. “We just met two days ago. I know next to nothing about your kind. He… he’s been alone a long time, so I don’t know how much he even knows about his own nature. He wasn’t in person-form for a long time, until he … uh… smelled me. Things got physical when he…”
“Took you?” Cat fills in.
I nod. “He said things are foggy because he hasn’t been a man for a long time but they’re coming back to him. He knew how to drive a car and do laundry but not how to peel a banana.”
Tyson stares at her, ignoring the fact that I’m talking. He’s so angry right now, yet shows no change in reaction after I share that information.
“What can I do for you right now to put you at ease?” she asks him.
“Tell me my Ivy’s gonna be fine,” he barks, then adds, ”If it’s the truth.”
The way he says my Ivy even though we’re obviously in a fight… it does something to me. My belly flip-flops.
“She’s gonna be just fine. I will only ever tell you the truth, Tyson. About anything you ask me. Do you have other things to ask me?” She gives him a look loaded with longing.
“Are those pain medicines working, or is she in pain?”
“The pain medicine is helping, Ty,” I throw in.
His eyes dart to me briefly and burn into me for a second before they go back to Cat.
“I didn’t mean about Ivy,” Cat says. “I’m sure you can ask her those questions.”
Yeah…if he were speaking to me.
He shakes his head. “The other thing you can do is make all of them go.” He gestures toward the door.
“Done,” she says and then she slips out and shuts the door behind herself.
I drink half my bottle of water and close my eyes. I’m feeling really drowsy.
Cat comes back in.
“I’ll have things to say to you, my son, things I need to know, but not right now,” she says and her voice cracks on the word son.
I pull my lips tight, feeling emotional for her, for them both.
“You and I have a lot of catching up to do and I hope you’ll be open to that when Ivy is feeling better,” Cat adds.
He says nothing in reply, but his eyes lose a fraction of their anger.
She turns away to check on my IV bag and I catch a swallow move down his throat as he stares at her back with a softer expression. She misses this and tells me it won’t be much longer until she’s ready to check my vitals again and then do some bloodwork. She suggests I rest and then she leaves, telling Tyson, “I’ll either be outside the door or you can find me upstairs. My apartment door is beside the back exit. I’ll be back in twenty or thirty minutes. Feel free to lock the door if it makes you more comfortable. You can also reach me upstairs on the intercom with the phone. She needs rest,” Cat says, giving him a stern look.
“Thank you for everything, Cat,” I say.
Her eyes warm. “I’m very glad to meet you, Ivy. I hope to get the opportunity to get to know you.”
I smile in a non-committal way and Tyson scoffs. Both of us look at him. Animosity rolls off him. And it’s aimed at me. Because I was leaving when I got bit.
She slips out and Tyson looks out after her and then shuts the door and locks it. He turns to look at me and his eyes narrow.
I stare directly into his eyes. I don’t know what he’s about to do right now. I brace for more roaring.
It doesn’t happen.
He moves in and examines my ankle. His hand traces the mark and then runs up my calf briefly.
“More than one set of bitemarks on me now, huh? At least the snake won’t try to claim ownership, I guess.”
He glares at me with shock.
“I’m joking. It’s a joke.”
“The snake is dead. The one called Lincoln fetched it to show Catrina, so she’d know which type of snake bit you.”
“Oh,” I whisper.
“You could have died, and you talk with jokes?” he asks, his voice laced with accusation, as if I’ve committed a crime.
“That’s just me. Um… thanks for getting me to your mom. She seems very nice. I wish the snake didn’t have to die, though. It’s not his fault I tripped over him and likely scared him. My sister is terrified of snakes, but my brother just calls them licky noodles. It makes them less scary; I think. That is… until you scare one and it bites you. ”
His eyes glitter with anger and his jaw clenches and unclenches. He sits down on the couch and lets out a long breath.
“The building of the boutique I work for caught fire last night,” I say quietly. “I called Becks to tell her why I’d miss the grand opening but there won’t be one, not yet. I don’t have to be at work tomorrow. My boos thinks the fire was bad enough that it could be a while before we get to open. I’m gonna call her back in a couple days and she should know more then about how much damage there is, and… uh… all that. At least no one got hurt.”
His eyes are pointed at his feet now, but his jaw keeps flexing.
I don’t continue talking, because he’s not being very receptive. And I find that it’s making me angry.
I mean, I was the one bit by a venomous snake, not him. Why is he so angry? Yeah, I guess it’s because I tried to leave.
My bladder nudges at me, but the IV bag is nearly empty, so I decide to sit tight and wait for Cat to come back in.
We sit in silence for… forever before she does. First, I inspect my nails. Then, I count the tiles on the drop ceiling. And then, I decide to look at him. No, I decide to watch him. I decide to stare at him with my best evil eye possible so that when he looks at me, he’ll see that I’m angry, too.
He sits a while, staring at his feet. Then, his eyes are trained at the ceiling. I’m on the precipice of feeling invisible when our eyes meet and his lips twitch, as if he’s about to finally speak to me when there’s a knock at the door.
He unlocks and opens it, letting Cat in.
“Is that ba
g empty? We can go then, yes?”
“Not so fast.”
“We need to go.”
“I think she should stay overnight so I can keep an eye on things.”
“You said she’s gonna be fine.” He steps forward and is about to lift me.
She puts her hand on his arm and his eyes go strange. She steps back as if she didn’t mean to do it.
“Tyson, listen, please. I need to keep an eye on her blood pressure, the wound site, her temperature. I’ll get her a blanket and you can sleep on the sofa. Ivy can stay in that bed so I can check on her a few times and make sure there’s no complications. If all goes well overnight, take her home in the morning, but I’ll then need to see her the following day so will want you to either bring her here or have me to your place.”
Ty glares at her for a minute with his lip slightly curled. She stares directly into his eyes and her no-nonsense attitude is not only impressive, but evidently effective.
“We need food,” he says.
“That was going to be my next offer. I’ll get something sent over. I’ll wheel in the television from the waiting room and you two can watch. I’ll be back with food in a bit and then I’ll be in every two hours to check on Ivy.”
He grunts at her in acknowledgement and then sits back down.
“Um,” I start.
Both sets of green eyes swing to me.
I close my mouth and straighten up.
“I have to pee. Where can I do that? And my ankle really hurts like it’ll kill if I step on it, so I don’t know if that’s because I twisted it when I fell after the bite or if it’s because of the bite.”
“It’s best you don’t walk on that foot. Let me get you a wheelchair. I have one in the storage room. I’ve got rails in the bathroom, and ---”
“I’ll carry her.” Tyson erases the space between us and is lifting me before she gets a chance to finish.
“Oh. Okay,” she says belatedly and wheels the IV along beside him, gesturing to the waiting room, which has a big reception desk, several chairs and sofas, a television, and two doors, one marked as the restroom.