Chapter 13 #4
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.
“Stay,” I say firmly, watching her cheeks heat as she both enjoys my intervention and rails against it. “I’m not letting you up, and I’m not letting them out until I know that you are not going to make another one of your escape attempts.”
She scowls at me. “Obviously not,” she says.
“You don’t think I’ve learned my lesson?
I had to kill someone, Rex. You think I want to go back into the wild knowing what it costs and what it takes?
There’s no way. I’m never going anywhere that’s not an air-conditioned building ever again.
I’m sticking to the city and to this place, and the forest can go fuck itself and I don’t even really like the roads anymore. ”
She’s being a little hyperbolic, but I can see how much her experiences shook her.
That is not a bad thing as far as I am concerned.
I am not pleased she had to defend herself, or that she had to experience killing, or that she was kidnapped, or any of the unpleasant experiences she endured, including an unplanned family reunion.
“You’re going to recover from the experience sooner or later, and when you do, you’ll start to think you know everything again. I’m going to deal with you enough to teach you that you don’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am going to spank your ass long and hard and more than once for this,” I promise her. “You’re going to be disciplined. It’s what you need, and it’s what you’re going to get.”
She pouts at me. “Wasn’t it bad enough to go through all of that? You think you need to punish me again? And again?”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
“You’re mean.”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But you need a firm hand.”
She scowls at me, but once again, she snuggles back into the blankets and her eyes start to close. My stern promises might seem unfair, but they’re also part of what makes her feel safe. She needs to know that she is going to be properly kept.