Chapter 98
“What I want you to do is allow the weight of your hand to do the work. Concentrate on what you feel on your neck as I describe what I need.”
He nods his head again but his breathing has tightened up showing me his nervousness.
“Your hand stays flat. Allow it to follow the shape of her neck.”
I allow my hand to sit there a moment, trying to give him a chance to relax. I move my hand slowly, causing him to tense and hold his breath. I use my thumb to rub gently behind his ear.
“Breath Cole. I’m not causing you pain. I’m just touching you.”
He takes a deep breath as I slowly take my hand from his neck. I stand and return to where Madilyn is, preparing to give her the saline and electrolytes she’s in need of. I watch Cole duplicate my actions, gently placing his hand upon the back of her neck. She stirs and whimpers lightly. I smile when I hear his voice softly consoling and reassuring her. I tie a band around her wrists causing her to pull away and whimper again. I can tell he’s keeping his touch light even though he’s moving a bit more.
She responds to him the way I need, giving me the mere seconds it takes to place the needle into her vein. She yelps and starts to cry but he’s on top of that too. He knows that she’s already done and nothing else is going to happen. Since this is only temporary, I place a bandage over where the needle is placed before I place a stiff board padded with foam under her palm and wrist before wrapping it with an ace bandage. I’m keeping it simple so I can remove it easily before we go to bed. She settles down quickly listening and feeling Cole’s support. I'm pleased and impressed with how well he did in a support role.
I rub her head lightly as I hook the large syringe of electrolytes to the feeder and set it for ten minutes. I look at Cole again. He’s playing with her hair with slow predictable strokes. His eyes are closed and his face is finally so peaceful that it seems he’s finally asleep. He yawns briefly before apologizing and opening his eyes. They’re glassy but calm. The slumber that comes from the Ativan is definitely calling his name.
“It’s okay to give in to the Ativan. Without the adrenaline I’m certain the effects are getting pretty strong.”
“I’m okay right now. It’s important to me to answer Madilyn’s question.”
“Madilyn’s?”
I had almost forgotten that she had asked him one.
“Yes sir. She wanted to know how I figured out how to get rid of the cramps. Just not in so many words.”
I nod with a slight smile.
“After sleeping a while in the cave I realized that I had lost track of time. Occasionally I woke up long enough to hear the voices of a search party going on. At one point I could identify everyone in my family looking for me. My two brothers and their twin sisters, my own twin sister, my mom and dad as well as his beta and delta and their families.
The delta’s daughter actually found me. She shook me awake and spoke to me through the link. Something that hasn’t been used in a positive way for as long as I could remember. I was weak but I was able to tell her that I didn’t want to be found. She had brought food with her, a large bag of shredded turkey. We both knew that she would get into trouble for taking it if they found out but she didn’t seem to care about the consequences. I simply watched her move around me inside the cave. Exhausted and afraid they’d come looking for her and find me.
I had run away before and the penalty for my father finding me is steep. She opened the bag and left it on a rock before leaving. She kept her word and they never entered the cave. Once the turkey was gone and the searches had stopped for several days, I started making my way back to the pack house. I would only come out of the woods at night.
Once I found my room on the first floor I was able to start working on my window that led to my bathroom. It’s the only window I ever left unlocked. It was too small for anyone but me to enter except a child. I was able to get the screen to move the first night but it took days to figure out how to move the window while in wolf form without getting caught and even then it was painfully slow.
One night when I came out of the woods I saw the light in my room and bathroom were turned on and my bathroom window was open. Without thinking, I leaped through the window and skidded across the bathroom floor. I sniffed around and was able to tell someone was there but it wasn’t my dad or anyone else in my family so I opened the door and went to my walk-in closet where I shifted back. When I woke up, I had a pillow under my head and a blanket thrown across my naked body. I was in a lot more pain than I was accustomed to feeling and ended up falling back asleep again.
I’m not certain how long that went on but I wasn’t able to start moving around until I woke up for the fourth time. That’s when I managed to get dressed and leave the closet. That’s when I realized that whoever I smelled in the bathroom was still there. Based on the smell I was able to determine that I was looking for a young, pre-shift girl but there were other scents that I didn’t understand as well. It was late at night and my movements were slow.
I was able to determine when I looked at the calendar on my desk and compared it to the date on my laptop that it had been three weeks since the incident that caused me to shift. It was nearly halfway through May. Even though I was curious about the stranger in my room, I wasn’t in a hurry to figure out who they were. I was okay with them being there. Based on the scent alone I knew it was a female child and delta at that so she was of no direct threat to me. Her parents coming to find her was more the concern but for some reason even the fear of that alluded me. It was when I stepped into the bathroom to use it that it dawned on me that the scent was strongest there and the shower curtain was closed, so I opened it. Inside my bathtub with blankets and pillows was the delta’s daughter, Olivia.”
“The one that fed you in the cave?”
“Yes sir. He had fraternal twin boys who were older and he had Olivia. She had just turned seven. She was in rough shape physically but was even worse mentally. She became terrified of me very quickly and begged me not to tell her dad that she was there. I was able to calm her but that wasn’t her only issue. As the night went on she would scream in pain. It wasn’t until the next night that she opened up and told me what was going on. I used my laptop to do some research, discovered some techniques that would help her with the intense cramping and pain she was in but it took another two nights before she was willing to lay in bed with me. I only had the slightest of clues as to how to use pressure to get rid of the knots that were forming in her tiny belly. It was really easy to feel the first one. I followed the directions I found on the internet and started pushing down on the cramp. She was already crying from the pain of the cramping but pressing down on it made her scream. Goddess how she screamed.”
His face contorts with the memory of the pain he caused the little girl, tears could be seen forming in the corners of his closed eyes.
“When I reduced the pressure, thinking I was giving her too much, her screaming intensified so I pushed down harder. I felt something pop causing her to scream even worse but I didn’t let up and after about thirty seconds her screams died down and I could tell the cramp was gone.
We slept together, similar to how Madilyn is resting with me now for several hours before the next big cramp came and I repeated the process. Her screams did something to my wolf alpha. Something I can’t explain. Something I could barely control.
She was with me for two weeks total and over the week it took to relieve her of the biggest cramps we worked together, and developed the least painful way to help her. At some point I managed to get some chewable Tylenol and those helped a little with her pain. When she felt better, she promised that she wouldn’t tell that she had been with me. That Delta David was used to her disappearing for a week or two and as long as she stayed in the territory he didn’t care where she was. I asked about her mom but she didn’t answer.
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