Chapter 65

“Dad, you said earlier that those of us that have seen the injuries on Cole haven’t seen the full picture. I saw his chest and abdomen when we interrupted a dream of his this morning. His injuries looked painful and raw.”
“Your mom saw the same thing Damian. The only thing Pat saw was the burn on his leg.”
“He’s been burned?” Lilly whispers in shock.
“He is in a lot worse shape than anyone knows. I’ll tell all of you what I told Xavier, I’m not certain that we’ve even found everything that’s going on with him but I can say this is one of the worst cases of abuse that I’ve seen in the ten years that I’ve been working with the warrior program.”
“What have you found Demetri? Like you said, I only saw a nasty burn on his leg.”
I sigh as I pull out the picture I printed off of his chest.
“The cuts and bruises that are crossing his chest we have also found on his back, bottom, the backs of both thighs, his abdomen, across the front of his left thigh and his groin.”
Everyone stops eating shortly after I finish this first list of injuries.
“What the hell did he do?” Dominic finally asks his first question.
“Haven’t you been listening?”
Damian and Pat exclaim at the same time as Damian hits Dominic in the head with a roll. Ordinarily I would find such action comical but I’m dealing with too much tonight to do much more than scowl.
“The physical injuries that we’ve found so far today all stem from a single beating that happened three days ago. In regards to what he did, this is the physical punishment he received when Luna Sasha accused him of assaulting her.”
“I’m sorry, Demetri. I guess I didn’t put the two together.”
Dominic rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.
“Wait. Patrick said all he saw was a burn on his leg but Damian and Lilly saw these cuts and bruises. How many injuries does he have?”
“Quite a few. We found a large black bruise on his back. If you look closely you can see the outline of a belt buckle with some of the hits that strayed outside of the concentration along his ribs. X-ray revealed that he has two cracked ribs beneath that bruise.”
I float the picture of his back towards the middle of the table.
“He doesn’t know what caused the burn on his leg but Angela was able to pull fluid from the burn before we put him in a twilight sleep to do a debridement surgery. She believes that the burn came from silver based on the level of infection she immediately saw. Further tests done on the tissue we removed confirmed that it was indeed a severe second degree chemical burn caused by silver. Based on the look of it, we believe some sort of silver band or belt about an inch wide was tied tightly around the middle of his thigh.”
I float the before and after surgery pictures onto the table. At this point everyone is engaged in the pictures, passing them around the table while hearing about Cole instead of eating.
“According to Dallas, Cole’s punishment started with his father grabbing him in a submission hold. I’ve never left, let alone seen such a bruise.”
I keep getting stuck on the picture of his neck. It takes me a moment to let the picture go, causing everyone to look at me, trying to understand where I’m at mentally with Cole. I place the picture of his neck gently in the center of the table where I put the others.
“Cole attempted to get away but ended up caught by his dad which resulted in his dad kicking him over a dozen times in his abdomen. When we discovered his abdomen we did an ultrasound and while he has no internal bleeding his liver is enlarged and inflamed which Dr. Pierce has diagnosed as a bruised liver. He has bruises surrounded by cuts around both wrists where he became so desperate to protect himself during the beating he broke the chain that was holding him and he has similar cuts and bruises as his back and chest to his forearms and shins.”
I place the last of the pictures on the table. The only ones I left out were the ones of his privates and bottom. I couldn’t bring myself to disgrace him in that manner.
“Keep in mind that this is just his physical condition from a single beating that happened three days ago.”
“Why does that sound like there’s more going on with him?”
“Because there is, Pat. I also have to deal with the long term effects of both medical and nutritional neglect. Combine that with his mental health which is undoubtedly due to the severity of the abuse he’s suffered and it’s looking like four to six weeks before I can get him into any formal testing let alone training.”
“I told you this morning……”
“No, Patrick!” Everyone jumps back as my fist lands hard on the top of the table. “I will not abandon him simply because he’s Alpha Redmen’s son.”
Everyone has frozen in place staring at me silently, everyone except Patrick that is.
“What the hell was the purpose of this meeting if you’ve already made the decision to help him?” My beta shouts at me.
“This meeting was never a debate about me helping him. It was to inform all of you involved in the testing and training of the prospects that I’m getting involved. I’m already involved. I have already started talking to Xavier. Provided him with the same pictures that you see before you. Told him everything that I know so far while leaving Cole’s name and pack anonymous. I know what I can do for him if he talks. The problem is, unlike the others I have worked with, he won’t talk.”
“He seems to have talked enough to get you wrapped up in feeling sorry for him. You just met him. How can you possibly believe that he’s not deserving of the treatment he’s receiving?”
“So you want me to believe that this twenty-three year old man has been a rapist and pedophile for two decades?”
“Two decades? What the hell are you talking about Demetri? That would make him three when all this started. Of course I wouldn’t expect a three year old to be those things.”
We are both standing at this point with only my sons continuing to slowly eat while we argue. Though there’s something about his acknowledgment of what I’ve said that has calmed both of us down. Lilly has taken my hand in hers and is delicately running her fingertips up and down the inside of my forearm. Further reducing the defensiveness I have developed for Cole.
“Of all the wolves at this table Patrick, you should know how damaging judging a wolf by the pack’s reputation can be. How long did it take for Alpha Mathias to see you for who you really were compared to the rumors he had heard about my father’s pack? You wrote to me, called and talked with me on the phone about how happy you were that you had Mandy but how lost you were at the same time because Alpha Mathias treated you differently from the others. I could tell by the way you talked about being here with me how much you wanted to come back. And it will always escape me as to why you didn’t try.”
His eyes change from anger and frustration to sorrow as I bring up the tough memories of his fated mate.
“You don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle to be able to recognize how long Cole’s abuse has gone on. A wolf doesn’t get to where Cole is without the abuse starting in early childhood.”
“What makes you believe it started early?”
He’s calmed down his tone of voice significantly as he sits down again.
“His eyes Patrick. Have you ever met an adult with the navy blue eyes that all pups are born with?”
He shakes his head as he speaks. “The oldest I’ve ever seen was a twelve year old girl that was being sexually abused by her father as a form of punishment. It was what changed Alpha Mathias’s view of me. I noticed how her behavior changed dramatically when she thought she was in trouble in the presence of men and I brought it to his attention that I thought something was wrong. Mandy was only a few months pregnant with Parker at the time and we lived in the pack house since she was the beta’s daughter so we ended up taking her in until after Parker was born. It was only after she moved in that I noticed she had the same eye color as pups less than six years old.”
He pauses a moment as if he’s realizing the reason for my question.
“Are you saying his eyes never changed?”
I nod my head slowly as I finish chewing the bite I have in my mouth.
“I noticed it when I was with Jamie earlier. He had opened his eyes but they were so dark I thought he had gone into a partial shift. It made him quite uncomfortable for me to look into his eyes like I did but he has pup blue eyes.”

The Son of Red Fang
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