Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Tempest
Bethany, one of the clinic nurses, popped her head into the break room. “Your two o’clock’s here, Temp.”
I stared longingly at my sandwich, wrapped it back up, and put it in the fridge. I hadn’t had a chance to check my schedule, not with the influx of shifters being brought in every day, but today I had several of my therapy patients scheduled as well. “How’s Mrs. Richards?”
“Her husband hasn’t come back yet,” she said, frowning. I’d finally left my post at her bedside when two more wolves from the Silver Claw pack were brought in. Mags was sitting with Sheena now, waiting for her to wake up.
“Something must’ve held him up,” I said.
Something like covering his tracks or making a run for it.
Though if he’d hurt Sheena before, and going by all the old injuries I’d seen when I was healing her and the remaining traces of dark magic, he had, she more than likely wouldn’t say anything out of fear.
He’d get away with it, and next time, he’d kill her.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “How are the Silver Claw patients doing? I’m about to head there now.”
She’d just come back from a scheduled day off, and we’d all been too run off our feet for a proper handover.
“We moved two over to intensive care an hour ago. And Harris passed away last night.” The wolf was one of their elders.
He’d been gruff but sweet. “Also, the alpha, Draven, is still calling regularly for updates. He’s locked the pack down to try to stop the spread, but he’s not liking that he has to stay away, so try not to take his growls personally. ”
“Got it,” she said and headed off.
I followed her out and hustled down the hall toward the treatment room.
This virus had hit hard, and we had several witches working around the clock to find a cure.
We’d find it, we had to, I just hoped it would be soon.
A tall male strode around the corner, colliding with me and almost knocking me over.
He grabbed my wrist, stopping me before I did, his grip so tight I hissed in pain as a cold shiver slid through me.
“Sorry,” he muttered, then carried on, heading for the exit before I could reply.
Rubbing my wrist, I watched him walk out, then shook off my stupor and rushed into the consultation room.
“Sorry I'm late,” I said as I shut the door and strode across the room. I put my cup of tea on the table and realized I’d spilled most of it when I’d had my collision.
Sighing, I turned to my eleven o’clock—and sucked in a breath.
Fender sat in the chair. Well, he was trying to sit, but his huge frame threatened to bust the chair apart, and he was watching me intently.
Embarrassingly, my cheeks heated.
The big hellhound’s head tilted to the side. “You okay, Temp?”
His pale amber eyes slid up to my face, and my belly swooped. “I didn't realize we had an appointment today.”
“We can reschedule if you’re too busy?”
“Oh...no, I didn’t mean that. I just meant...
” I took a steadying breath. “Sorry, Fender, that’s not what I meant.
It’s always good to see you. I mean…what I mean is, it’s…
um…shall we get started?” I turned to my desk, my face growing even hotter as I took out his file from the stack beside me.
Not that I needed to look at it. I knew exactly what was in there.
His gaze was heavy on me, while I flailed about, trying to summon the courage to meet his eyes.
The big male had a weird effect on me, but then I was awkward around most people.
I’d spent a good portion of my life living in the forest with Matilda the Wise, Glinda and Manfred, and no one else.
I was still working out how to…be around people, especially big, kinda scary males like Fender.
“I know with the virus, you guys are full-on, you sure you got time for this?” he said.
The husky growl in his voice set off little tingles across my scalp.
“Yes, definitely.” I opened the file and scanned my notes anyway because I needed a minute to regulate myself.
Stop being a silly goose and get on with it.
I was taking a course online, one Magnolia had recommended, that taught different physical therapy techniques, combining the old remedies, magic, and some human advancements, and we’d been trying a few of them on Fender since his situation was so unique.
“What happened to your wrist,” he said roughly.
“Hmm?” I looked down. A purple bruise had already come up where that male had grabbed me. I yanked down my sleeve, covering it. “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“I bumped it earlier. It’s fine, really.” I don’t know why I was lying, probably that scary note to his voice. I looked up at him again and found his eyes burning into me.
Oh dear. Taking a calming breath, I channeled Barbara Hogan, the tutor of the course, and cleared my throat. “So, Fender, how has your pain been since I saw you last week? Have you been using the tonic I made you?”
“Yeah. It’s helped.”
His voice always had a bit of a growl to it, and more tingles slid over me in a way I liked very much.
It was odd. I didn’t much like males and actively avoided most of them.
Often, I feared them. And, at the very least, I was wary of them, especially when I was forced to be alone with one, and recent unfortunate events with an angry wolf shifter had reminded me why.
Not that I needed a reminder. With Fender, though, when he spoke with that growl, I barely resisted letting my eyes slide shut and succumbing to a pleasurable little shiver.
Be Barbara! “Good, that’s really good. And what about the potion to help you sleep and the oil for your stump?
” There were good males though. I’d encountered several since I’d started leaving the cottage.
Before that, the only males I’d been in contact with were the worst of the worst. It came with the job.
There were, of course, females who were monsters as well, but in my experience they were the minority of offenders, and that included in my line of work.
His jaw tightened. “The potion’s helped as well.”
I noted that down and looked up again. “And the oil?”
Fender had a thick auburn beard, nicely trimmed but thick. Still, it didn’t hide the way his jaw tightened again. “Haven’t used it.”
“Have your scars settled already?” He’d been attacked by a Hell beast months ago, a river monster, to be precise. It took one of his legs, just below the knee, and since then we’d discovered the Vysan’s saliva could continue to attack long after its bite. “I wouldn’t think you’d already be—”
“They haven’t settled.”
“Okay.” I chewed my lip as I studied him.
His injury wasn’t something any of us had dealt with before.
Our treatment had been a matter of trial and error since it happened.
He was also extremely hard to figure out.
It didn’t help that I was already at a disadvantage when it came to social interactions and reading people.
“Do you want to tell me what your aversion to using the oil is?”
My job wasn’t just about physical therapy and custom-made medicinals, a lot of it was also helping patients come to terms with their injuries, especially if they were as violent and catastrophic as Fender’s had been.
I had a lot of experience with severe injuries.
I gravitated to this kind of work naturally, but before coming here, I’d mainly worked with females and children, and only directly after they’d suffered those violent injuries, not weeks or months after the fact.
I knew very little about adult males, or how their minds or bodies worked.
I’d been trying to study up on their physiology, but I was far from an expert.
“Fender?”
He said nothing.
“I’d really like to help you. Whatever you tell me in this room stays between us.
” The fact that I was able to sit in this room with a male as big as Fender, offering him help, a male with the ability to shift into a giant hellhound with jagged fangs and glowing red eyes, still stunned me.
The power of my ability—the drive to heal, to help—was stronger than the fear and distrust of males that had been instilled in me, first from my own father and his cruelty, then by Matilda W and our work.
He sat forward.
I forced myself not to jerk back.
He licked his lips, rested his forearms on his thighs and cleared his throat before his gaze slid up to mine again and gold shimmered across the amber of his irises.
A swirl of nerves spiraled from my belly and up behind my ribs, and I tried not to show any outward sign of just how much of an effect he had.
Instead, I smiled, trying to reassure him.
His gaze slid away. “Touching it, the stump…” he said roughly. “It fucks with my head.”
I nodded as my anxiety drained away and sympathy replaced it. “In what way?”
“It doesn't feel like my own fucking body. My foot…” He glared down at where his foot would have once been. “It itches sometimes, and I got a cramp in my calf last night, and before I’d fully woken up, I reached down to rub it.”
Frustration and pain flowed from him. I wished I could take it all away. What would Barbara say? “That has to be a really weird feeling…and triggering. But you need to touch your stump, Fender. You need to get used to it.”
“Why?” he said.
“Why?” I hadn’t expected him to ask that. “Well, if you can’t touch your own body, it could create future issues down the line, especially with…with intimacy.” I’d just finished the module on touch therapy. It had focused a lot on intimacy. I’d found it extremely interesting.
He frowned. “You talking about fucking, Temp?”