Hospital

Sam’s POV
I wake up in a white room that smells like hospital with my mum holding my hand. Tears fill my eyes, cos I know if mum is here everything is going to be alright.

She squeezes my hand when she realises, I am awake ‘Hello princess, how are you doing?’ she asks me.

‘Where am I,’ I croak. ‘Where’s Rosie?’

‘You are safe honey, and so is Rosie,’ she uses a little sponge to wet my lips and mouth. ‘I am sorry I can’t give you a drink until the doctor says so.’

The moisture helps a bit, so I am in hospital, and mum has Rosie… wait do they know it was Richard? What if Richard has Rosie.

‘It was Richard, he did this to me’ I tell her urgently.

She smiles sadly at me. ‘I know, and he is never going to hurt you again…’ She nods at a man-mountain sitting in the corner… ‘Barlas wouldn’t let him.’

I look at mum confused. ‘Bar-las?’ I rasp, his head snaps round and he is staring at me, as if I am some kind of delectable morsel he wants to eat up.

‘Yes, Peter and I sent Barlas, he found you.’

So it seems like I owe the giant my life, ‘Thank you Bar-las, for saving me.’

‘S’okay,’ he mumbles. ‘I will look after you’

What an odd thing to say to someone you barely know, I think.

‘Don’t worry about it, princess,’ mum says, ‘it will all be a lot clearer once you get a bit better.’

To be honest I feel too broken to worry about anything, my eyelids sag. ‘Hush, go to sleep, you have a lot of healing to do,’ she murmurs.

I am too tired to fight it. Rosie’s safe, and mum is here, and it looks like I have a bodyguard too, I let myself drift off to sleep again.
…
Emma’s POV
I look down at my sleeping daughter, relief crashing through me. I can see Barlas is desperate to take my place at her side, so I move from the seat I am occupying, so that he can fill it. Then make my way to the door from her room into the main pack hospital.

The corridor is quiet, and could be any hospital anywhere, but it is the one in Whitewater, as Barlas had refused to bring her anywhere else, which makes me remember the events which led to my daughter and granddaughter being here.
…
Peter and I were in our rooms, welcoming my fur-babies to their new home, when I had become aware that one of my children was in trouble.

Peter, bless him, hadn’t doubted me for a second, and had taken me through to the den, where there is a landline which links to the human realm too, and a computer connected to the web… the arw or all realms web… and with proper wifi.

I had rung Jo first, she had been a bit pissed off that I was ringing her ‘in the middle of the night’. I apologised explaining I had forgotten the time zone difference, actually I hadn’t even realised there was one. When I hung up, I dialled Sam, and the call was cut off after four rings… dread had filled me, so I dialled again. Richard had answered, which he never does. He tried telling me Sam was in bed, but I could tell he was out, so what was he doing with my daughter’s phone. I apologise again for the late hour and hung up, feeling tearful and helpless.

‘Kitten,’ Peter had said. ‘Do you want me to send someone to check on her?’

‘Oh my god, could you?’ I had asked. ‘Wait, how long will it take them to get there, I have a really bad feeling’

‘The closest portal is Sarehole Mill, so from here to there, as a wolf, ninety minutes tops’ he replied.

‘What the actual fuck? We are that close to my girls? How is that even possible?’ I wanted to know.

‘Magic’ he replied with a grin, as Barlas had walked in.

‘Hey boss, what do you want?’ he asked Peter.

‘Do us a favour, would you go check up on Emma’s youngest please, take a couple of others with you. If everything is okay no one needs to know you were there.’

‘Can Jess go too?’ I had butted in. ‘I have a bad feeling, and Barlas, one moment please.’

I had run out of the room leaving Barlas grumbling about babysitting duty. Upstairs I rummaged through my bags and found my keys, and the spare key I hold for Sam’s house… just in case… and just in case was the reason I decided to hand it to Barlas.

‘Barlas this is a key to Sam’s front door, just in case you need it.’

Ten minutes later I had waved off Barlas, Jess and two wolves I didn’t recognise. I hadn’t been able to settle and had spent the next two hours pacing.

*Meet us at the hospital* Jess had linked as soon as she was back in range.

We got there before them. So, I go to watch a naked, blood covered, tear streaked Barlas run through the door, carrying my Sam. Jess was carrying Rosie, who she thrust into my arms, as she indicated for Barlas to put Sam on a trolley.

‘What blood type are you Em?’ she asked me. ‘Same as your daughter?’

‘O-plus, and I think so.’ I replied.

‘You better hope so, as I don’t have any other human blood nearby.’

Fortunately, our blood was compatible, and while Jess put out a call for blood from further afield, I was hooked up for a battlefield transfusion, while Peter took Rosie. The poor child was exhausted, and had fallen asleep in his arms.

I don’t know how much blood I gave to Sam, enough for me to feel weak and woozy, so more than the usual pint. Eventually Peter had demanded the transfusion end, terrified he was going to lose me.

They had finished patching my baby girl up while I recovered from my blood loss, and the next time I saw her she was lying like a corpse, pale and unmoving, bandages on her arms, hands and torso.

‘She was stabbed multiple times with a steak knife,’ Jess told us. ‘The wounds on her arms are defensive, but there are a couple of deep wounds in her abdomen. I have had to repair damage to her intestines, and she lost an ovary. It is still touch and go as to if she is going to make it.’

Next to her bed sat Barlas, unmoving, someone had managed to get him cleaned up and dressed, but other than the minimum no one could get him to leave her side. He had flinched at the description of her wounds, but other that he was an unmoving sentinel.

Jess had filled us in on what they had found. How the smell of blood from the house had been nearly overpowering, how Barlas had nearly barged the door down in his desperation to get inside. The sight of Sam trying to crawl away, her blood staining the hallway, still trying to protect her daughter, trying to escape the monster.

Jess had set someone to grab Rosie from upstairs, and when Sam lost consciousness Barlas had been screaming Mate, over and over. My poor granddaughter was distraught that her mummy wasn’t moving, although she had cheered up at the sight of the ‘big doggies’. Jess had done her best to stabilise Sam, and they had headed back to Whitewater. Moving her wasn’t ideal, but Barlas wasn’t leaving Sam, and a nude man with a blood-soaked woman would have raised a lot of questions with the local authorities. Plus, if Barlas got his hands on Richard, then Richard would end up has a headless Dick.

The wolves had cleaned up behind them, leaving an empty locked, blood-soaked house. I decided to wreak a little revenge and called the police to say I was worried about what my daughter’s boyfriend might have done to her. Let’s see him explain all that blood.

So, while Sam was in hospital Rosie had moved in with me and Peter, as we had prayed for my daughter’s recovery.
…
I walk over to a coffee machine, and punch myself a black coffee, running my hands through my hair as the machine works its magic. At least with Sam waking up we know she will live, although Jess had told us it was going to be a few weeks before she could leave the hospital, and months before she will be fully healed.

Still, it leaves us with some interesting quandaries, like will she accept Barlas, what about werewolves in general, and what am I going to do about the anti-human contingent in the pack, as it looks like more mates might be in the human world. Not to mention Peter is concerned that not only our pack, but the surrounding packs are actually cursed as none of them have found their fated mates either, and we still have to find all the missing children.

I can feel a headache developing, I am tired. I have been running on fumes all week.

Sam is safe, so tonight I am just going home to my mate and my granddaughter.