Chapter 29 It Doesn’t Change Anything
Chapter twenty-nine
It Doesn’t Change Anything
Murmured voices floated above me.
I didn’t know if I was dreaming, awake, or somewhere in between.
Steady beeping droned somewhere near me.
I tried to swallow, my mouth dry, and jolted forward, awake and coughing roughly.
A warm hand landed on my right shoulder and gently pushed me back.
“Hey, puppy,” Cole said softly, like she was speaking to a scared animal. “Let me adjust this bed for you,” she continued, and a mechanical sound followed the rising of the bed, lifting my head and back into more of a sitting position.
I couldn’t see out of my right eye, and my eyelashes distorted what I could see from my left.
But I recognised Cole, her curls pulled back in a ponytail out of her face.
“Wh—” I tried to speak and began coughing again.
Cole pressed a straw to my lips when the coughing subsided.
“Don’t try to speak yet. Here, sip some water,” she instructed.
I tried to lift my left arm to take the cup from her but couldn’t move it at all. When I tried my left arm, I saw an IV drip attached, the needle at my inner elbow.
“You’ve been hooked up to fluids and antibiotics all night; they’ve got you on some pretty heavy pain meds, too,” she told me, removing the straw from my lips and setting the cup down.
“Where am I?” I whispered, the words scraping painfully up my throat.
“The resort medical centre,” she answered.
Cole sighed deeply, and I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me or not.
“I can’t see you,” I told her.
“Yeah, they said the swelling of your eye and face will settle over the next couple of days. You can come back with me tonight. You’re stable; I’ve got your meds. You’ll be back in a day or two before we leave to remove the bandages and all the stuffing they’ve packed it with,” she explained.
“Ashford?” I asked, almost choking on the word.
Cole growled, and I flinched.
“Still alive. For now,” she answered.
“Got his face rearranged, had to airlift him out for surgery,” Darren told me, almost excitedly, from somewhere near the foot of the bed. I didn’t even know he was there.
“Surgery?”
“Yeah, gotta be honest, I saw the damage, and I don’t know how they’re fixing that—”
“That’s enough, Darren,” Cole interrupted.
“Sorry, yeah, not the time, I get it,” he said sheepishly.
“Me?” I asked, resorting to one-word questions, each one feeling like swallowing razor blades.
“You’re going to be good. Give it a week or two, with most improvement in the next few days,” she answered and began moving something near me. “Darren, can you wait outside?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll be just outside the door,” he said, and I heard a chair squeak across tiled flooring and the sound of him leaving.
“I’m going to help dress you,” Cole told me. “I have a pair of my sweatpants and a dress shirt for you.”
“Yours?” I asked, unable to help the part of me that was pleased by the prospect of wearing Cole’s clothes.
“Yeah,” she said, and it was something about the way she said it that reminded me of what led me to the forest in the first place.
Cole. The marking. Her regret. My guilt.
It was fitting that I had lost my voice because no words could be right.
How did I apologise for everything I had done to her?
It wasn’t just the way I had made her mark me.
It forced her to protect me.
If she didn’t, it wasn’t so much what would happen to me but what it meant if she allowed him to kill me, to, to… It would impact her reputation, her status.
I allowed her to help me sit up and manoeuvre my stiff legs off the edge of the bed.
She took my left forearm and so gently removed the IV needle that I felt no pain.
She held me softly; every touch felt measured, careful, as she dressed me, finishing with buttoning up the dress shirt. My left arm was bandaged across my body and held in place; only my right arm was free to move. She tucked the fabric of the left arm inside so it didn’t dangle loose.
I thought she was going to help me stand; instead, she wrapped her arms under my knees and behind my back and picked me up with ease.
“I… can… walk.” I coughed, trying to angle my face against my shoulder and not splutter all over her.
Cole laughed humourlessly.
“No, you can’t,” she answered as she walked with me. “Darren, door,” she demanded, and I watched a blurry door pull open and the outline of Darren standing there.
Cole carried me all the way back to the cabin.
I heard how talking stopped as she passed crowded restaurants and all the events that were still taking place. The National Assembly did not halt or pause for an injured omega.
I curled myself tighter against her, hiding from blurry faces I couldn’t see.
I felt sick with humiliation, with the humiliation that Cole must have experienced.
At the cabin, she climbed the stairs to the loft and laid me on the bed.
“I’m just going to get your meds. Darren brought them back,” she said.
“Wait,” I whispered and thought she hadn’t heard until I saw her turn back to me. “I’m sorry,” I coughed.
“You really shouldn’t be speaking right now,” Cole admonished.
“I need to,” I answered, fighting the urge to cough. “I’m sorry, for, for—” Tears stung my eyes, creating a particularly painful burn behind my right eyelid.
“I’ll be back with her meds,” Cole said and left me before I could find words again.
My chest ached, and I didn’t know if it was from physical or emotional injury.
What situation had I put Cole in?
She needed to know that she wasn’t obligated to follow through with the marking. It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean to trap her. I didn’t.
But when she returned, I swallowed down the pills she gave me with minimal coughing and couldn’t bring myself to say what needed to be said.
Selfishly, I wanted her, needed her.
I didn’t want her to go.
Not yet.
When she lay down beside me and opened her arms, I crawled brokenly into them and allowed sleep to take me.
***
When I next awoke to voices, I heard them clearly.
“What were you thinking?” Alpha Sara hissed from the ground floor beneath the loft.
“Keep your voice down,” Cole replied.
“Oh, please. Darren said you gave her enough pain medication to knock out a horse,” Alpha Sara said dismissively. “Did you think at all about the consequences of your actions? Marking her! Seriously! And then parading her around for the entire National Assembly to see.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” Cole argued.
“Have you lost your mind? It doesn’t change anything? What are you saying? It changes everything. Adrian has asked for a meeting!” Sara said, her voice rising.
“What does he want to discuss?” Cole asked, and I heard the sarcasm in her voice.
Sara growled loudly.
“This is not something you can sweep under the rug, Cole. You might have killed the heir of Pack Blizzard over an omega that you marked,” Sara warned.
“If he lives, I’ll kill him yet,” Cole threatened.
“I need you to start acting rationally. You need to do whatever it takes to fix this, Cole. The future of Pack Sandstorm, the future of your family, rests on your engagement to Andrew and securing our line of succession.”
Cole growled.
“I know what’s expected of me,” she answered.
“Then start acting like it,” Sara demanded.
I heard the door to the cabin open and close, and the door to the back porch soon after.
I got up slowly, assessing myself. I could see clearly from my left eye, and my right eye wasn’t as swollen. My legs weren’t as stiff when I pushed myself slowly out of bed and to a stand.
I made my way down the stairs and saw Cole sitting on the porch facing the forest, the setting sun dancing just above the treeline.
She turned as she sensed me.
I opened the porch door.
“You should be in bed,” she said.
“I needed to stretch my legs,” I replied, noticing how much easier it was to speak.
I walked over, lowering myself slowly to sit beside her.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Better,” I answered.
“Why did you do it?” she asked me.
Words caught in my throat.
I didn’t really have an answer. Not one that was good enough. I wanted her to mark me. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her and not having any part of her with me.
“Because I’m selfish,” I answered.
I felt Cole turn and look at me.
“You should have waited for me to return,” she said, and I looked to her, realising I was answering the wrong question. “We shift together from now on. No running off on your own. You’re safer with me,” she instructed.
I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Okay.”