Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I reach out and I wrap her in my arms, I hold her close and I smell the pain, the fear, and the death on her. Some of it will wash away. Some of it will remain longer than either of us want it to.
“I missed you,” I murmur into her hair.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpers.
I soften for her in that tremulous moment. I hold her tight and I wish nobody else was here, and I wish I could give her a fucking bath because my god. The stench.
My team have cleared a place for the helicopter to land. These old mine sites had to have access points so there’s a clearing that had been overgrown until they ranged through it.
I don’t ever want to let her go again. I want to keep a physical hold on her from now until the end of time.
The helicopter lands on the roof of my building. I carry her out and down into the adjusted quarters. Straight to the bathroom we go. I run a bath, strip her down, and put her in it.
There are no words between us for most of this time. She instantly turns the bath water a deep brown color. I rinse her off with the showerhead while I refill the tub. In the meantime, she sits with her knees drawn up and her head bowed. I think she is just barely conscious. Exhaustion is her main problem right now.
Finally, after days in the wild, properly shifted for the first time, and alone and hunted, she is safe. She is with me. Finally.
“Stay awake for me,” I say. “Just until I can get you cleaned up enough for bed, okay?”
She lifts her head, but drops it pretty much immediately. Every bit of energy she had has been sapped by the fight for survival. Maybe I should have left her in the pre-shift bliss. She was happier then. She’d left the old man behind, started a new pack. I understand the reason for the Runaways now. She wanted to fix what had been broken for a lifetime.
And I came in, all bluster and money and tried to buy her efforts out from under her, and then I mated her and I set in motion a chain of events that could only ever end the way they did.
I lift her out of the water, set her on the wide edge of the tub, and pat her dry with several large, warm towels. Then I carry her to the bed and I put her in it. She is soft against me, almost asleep already.
I hold her through the night and long into the next morning. She does not wake until the afternoon. I hear her stomach growling before she stirs. I think, without the hunger, she might have slept even longer. Perhaps a full day.
There is food prepared for when she wakes. I’ve instructed the chef to stay away from anything meat related. There’s a lot of baked goods, custards, sweets, pancakes, juices. Carbs and sugars. She needs the energy. Scrambled eggs provide protein, but I notice she picks at them.
“Are you going to stare at me forever?” she eventually asks.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m very glad you have returned.”
“You dragged me back here in a helicopter. I didn’t have much choice,” she reminds me. The sass is back. And with it is the urge to spank her ass. I welcome both things. One is definitely going to lead to the other. As much as I know I have made mistakes, she has made the mistake of disobedience, and that will have to be corrected, lest it repeat again. We cannot spend every week chasing my mate about the countryside wondering who she has eaten.
* * *
I let her rest another day. She needs to regain her strength. She stays in bed and we talk a little. We keep things light. She tells me her favorite color is yellow.
“What happened to my boys?”
“They’re still in the cells,” I tell her. “Helping you run is not something I plan on easily forgiving them for.”
“I’m not going to make any more small talk until they’re out,” she says. “It wasn’t their fault. They did what I asked them to do. They can’t be held responsible for their actions. Only I can be held responsible for their actions.”
I smile at her, and I see her blanch slightly because the smile is not entirely nice, though it is completely loving.
“Do not worry, sweet mate. You will pay for all your sins soon enough.”
“Okay, well, I’m not asking about my sins. I’m asking for clemency for them. They didn’t do anything your people wouldn’t have done, and you know it. I won’t see them punished. If I have to go let them out myself, I will.”
She pushes back the blankets by way of demonstration and starts getting out of bed, forcing me to once more put her back down into her place.