Chapter 31
Spence settled onto the bed beside Emmy, remote for the smart television in hand. He didn’t know how much longer she’d be awake, but she needed something to occupy her mind besides being sick.
She was in clothes now, shorts and a sleeveless tee, since her fever was still around six degrees higher than it should be, and the ice packs on her head — now held on with an ace bandage — made her look even more fragile than her horrible coloring and nearly black eyes.
“What do you want to watch?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Emmy’s eyes were half-closed, exhaustion pulling at her even though she’d just woken from a nearly hour-long nap, her record for staying asleep so far. “Something we’ve both seen, so it’s okay if I fall asleep, and it won’t matter if I need to spend ten minutes in the bathroom.”
“Human? Supernatural? Adventure? Romance? Explosions?”
“Let’s go for supernatural adventure, bonus if it gets most of it wrong.”
Spence smiled, searched for Buffy, and Emmy said, “Oh, that’s perfect. I can use some Spike. I’m pretty sure I’d have to kill him myself if he was real, but on television he’s kind of deliciously evil, and even when he’s good, he’s still bad enough to love.”
“You like bad boys?” Spence asked.
“Mmmm. I like them on television, not so much in real life. I mean, they’re fun to fuck, but too much of a pain in the ass to keep around more than a few hours.”
“You want to start with season one, or the Spike season?”
“Let’s start at the beginning, I think.”
Emmy immediately relaxed against the pillows, and Spence checked her temperature again, which hadn’t changed, and noted it in the spreadsheet he’d set up at the beginning.
Zander had access to it, so he could check it whenever he wanted, but he’d be pretty busy, handling whatever last-minute stuff for the hunt came up while making sure nothing about the planned searches leaked out.
She’d asked Spence to help her with another enema about two hours earlier, and she could hold down three half-spoonfuls of chicken broth at a time.
She hadn’t puked since the second enema, but she’d been back in the bathroom frequently for diarrhea.
The nurse they’d brought in said Kaopectate isn’t metabolized, it works by coating the stomach and intestines, so it would likely help with diarrhea, but not until after at least the first forty-eight hours, once all the poison was out of their digestive systems.
It was just a matter of getting her through it, at this point.
She fell asleep about twenty minutes into the show, so he let his mind wander, wishing he knew what was going on in the rest of the silo.
But his job was Emmy, so he’d find out what happened later.
He worried what the next step would be if this didn’t tell them anything, though. Zander didn’t have a Plan B, and that was disturbing.
Zander always had backup plans — and then other plans in case those went to shit.
A soft whimper pulled his attention back to Emmy. Her face had tightened with pain, and Spence rubbed the parts of her back he could get to, with her lying on her side.
“Shh,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Emmy didn’t fully wake, and her breathing steadied under his touch. He rubbed until she was calm, and then kept a hand touching her. Contact seemed to help.
And he thought about the last few days, and the way Zander had looked at her after he’d carried her downstairs. Really looked at her, seeing the entire person.
Something was shifting. Spence could feel it in the way Zander lingered in the doorway before leaving.
In the way he’d called her brave little dragon.
In all the years Spence had belonged to Zander, he’d never seen his Master this protective and tender of anyone, but Spence also sensed something else.
Not fear, exactly, but maybe not terribly far from it.
Spence had a feeling that had something to do with the thousands of years he’d been friends with Aaron Drake. Spence was convinced that was why Zander had avoided her.
And now? What would he do when she was well again? Spence had no idea.
But when he’d called her ours, earlier, Zander had agreed. Or at least he hadn’t argued.
Ours.
The word settled into Spence’s psyche like a key turning in a lock.
He’d grown to care for Emmy during their breakfast conversations.
He isn’t supposed to have favorite flock members, but he always does.
He tries not to show it, but Emmy is by far his favorite, and it’s more than just him knowing her when she was little.
It’s who she is now that attracts him.
And he isn’t generally attracted to women. No, he’s attracted to dominance these days, the people who can hurt him in all the best ways.
Zander often let others play with him — dominate him, hurt him, order him around. Would he extend that same permission to Emmy? Would Zander allow her to top him, to make him submit to her needs?
Spence didn’t know, but if Zander pulled away from her again, he was of a mind to ask.
On screen, Buffy was arguing she can’t be the chosen one, and Spence left his hand on Emmy while focusing on the show.
Twenty minutes later, Emmy stirred, her face going pale.
“Bathroom,” she gasped, sitting up and leaning to stand from the bed.
Spence leapt from the bed, lifted her into his arms, and was careful not to bash her head in the bathroom door frame on the way in.
He stood her in front of it, waited until she had her shorts down and was sitting, and then stepped just outside the bathroom once he saw she had her balance.
He wasn’t as worried about her passing out now, but he stayed just out of her sight, as close as he could be and still give her some semblance of privacy.
The sounds were less violent now — still bad, but not the explosive horror of those first hours. Her body was purging less frequently, but she still wasn’t holding onto the liquids she managed to keep down.
He heard the baby wipes container open, then close. When he heard her moving, he went in and helped her back to bed.
“You seem better,” he noted, settling the sheet on her legs. She couldn’t handle covers with her fever most of the time.
“Better than nearly dead isn’t a lot.” There was a ghost of humor in her voice, so Spence just kissed her forehead.
And that reminded him he should check her temperature, so he aimed the sensor at her forehead and saw it was a half-degree higher than before. He noted it on his spreadsheet and then texted the last several hours to their traveling nurse.
While he waited for a response, he arranged fresh gel packs around her head, put the old ones in the freezer, and then asked her if she wanted ice chips or broth.
“Ice chips, please.”
The nurse texted back to thank him for the update, and said to just keep making her as comfortable as possible.
When Emmy was finished with her ice chips and Spence was settled back beside her, she said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“I know you were a slave before Abbott … before Zander killed the old Master of Maryland. I’d like to know more about you, and it seems that’s a big part of understanding who you are now, if you’re comfortable talking about it.”
“Oh, it was absolutely Abbott who killed him, and I hated him for it, at first. Eventually, I figured out he’d done me a huge favor, but it took a while.”
He blew out a breath. “When we moved here, it took me a while to get used to the new version of him, but it’s still the same person, just with different packaging, you know?
Less formal, with the appearance of being easier to talk to, but underneath it all, he’s the same perfectionist control-freak I came to love. ”
But that wasn’t what she was asking. Emmy was too smart, too observant, not to wonder about the scars he carried under his skin.
“How much do you want to know?”
“As much as you’re comfortable telling me.”
Spence was quiet for a long moment, organizing his thoughts, deciding where to start.
“I was eleven when I was abducted,” he said finally. “Finishing sixth grade. I was in foster care, had threatened to run away more than once, so when I disappeared…” He shrugged. “No one looked very hard.”
Emmy’s eyes were open now, focused on his face with that fierce intelligence that never quite dimmed even through illness.
“The man who bought me, my former Master, he trained me to be a sex slave. Specifically. Methodically.” Spence’s voice stayed level, matter-of-fact.
He’d long since processed the trauma, but saying it out loud still required careful control.
“At first, I was trained in how to please both genders sexually, but without penetration, except for the enema nozzles, I guess.” A shrug.
“He waited until my twelfth birthday before he fucked me. In his mind, that made him not a pedophile, because he’d lived in a time when twelve was considered marriageable age. ”
Emmy’s hand found his, her grip surprisingly strong despite her weakness. “Spence—”
“I’m okay,” he assured her. “It was a long time ago, and Abbott freed me from that. But the training…” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “The training became part of who I am. How I’m wired.”
“The masochism?” Emmy asked quietly.
“Some of it, yes. But it’s more than that.
” Spence shifted on the bed, angling so he could see her better.
“I was bitten when I was twelve, turned into a werewolf specifically so I could withstand more abuse. My former Master controlled my wolf through the blood bond. I never learned to shift on my own, never even met my wolf properly until Zander freed me.”
He watched her process that, saw the moment understanding clicked into place.
“The relationship with your wolf was damaged from the start.”
“Yes. My wolf is still a little feral, but I can keep from changing. We’re careful about where I am when I let him out, but I’m in control when I’m in this form, and as long as I’m with friends when I’m the wolf, we’re good.”