Losing Her Mate (Book 2 of The Red Dawn Trilogy )

Chapter THIRTEEN

Amber POV

I awake with a start.

"James!"

My breaths are coming out in heavy pants and my body is covered in perspiration. The dream I had felt so real. James was in trouble or maybe hurt. I rub my hands across my face to calm my self and try to remember the nightmare.

The details of the dream are fuzzy despite just having  awoken seconds ago. No matter how hard I try I can't remember specifics but I know that something isn't right and I can't shake the feeling something is wrong with him. I tentatively reach out to him through our link and get nothing exactly what I've been getting for almost a week now.

Of course it was wishful thinking he would reply. It's a impossible chance that he will ever speak to me again. I rub my eyes one final time and look around my surroundings, nothing has changed.

I'm still in a dreary all white clinic recuperation room. I'm sitting in an uncomfortable orange  plastic chair that is wrecking havoc on my back. I sit up and stretch attempting to remove the kinks.

I become aware of a steady high pitched beeping sounding throughout the otherwise quiet room and it draws my eyes to the lone figure resting in the center of the room attached to a heart monitor . A pang of pain seizes my heart at the sight. I sit back with a sad sigh and scrutinize his body.

Everything seems to be fine, well as fine as he can be in his condition. I start at his feet and slowly make my way up to his slowly rising and falling chest covered in a light blue hospital gown. I brace myself and look to his face and a chocked sob escapes my lips.

Dallas's once gorgeous face is now completely unrecognizable. There are various tubes jutting from his nose and mouth and his face is horribly swollen. His eyes are so puffy he won't be able to open them for a while, his lips are poking out like he had a reaction to bad lip injections the top lip a little bigger than the the bottom, and his nose is so big you can't see it's features not even nostrils. He has stark dark blue and black bruising in place of his usually lightly tanned skin and to complete his look he has a pattern of neat stitches and staples around the outline of his entire face starting from his hairine going behind his ears all the way to beneath his chin.

All in all he looks a lot better than he did 5 days ago. His face is no longer caved in, his bones are fixed and all of his attributes are now present. I guess it's a start.

We had to have a cosmetic surgeon who specializes in werewolf anatomy come in to fix Dallas's face. It was quite expensive. After the construction of the second pack house we no longer had extra money. I had to dip into our emergency funds.

It took 20 hours of surgery. The doctor had to recreate 60 percent of his skull because it was so badly crushed, eye sockets needed to be crafted, his jaw aligned, even his teeth had to be replaced but in the end it was a success. The doctor said that there will be minimal scarring around his hairline from where they had to peel back his skin to get to the bone but other than that every thing will be the same. I was also concerned about his eyesight but the doctor assured me with his werewolf genes he would make a full recover within a couple of weeks.

I've been sitting here for days now holding vigil since he got out of surgery . I'm not entirely sure why though, he doesn't need it. I was guaranteed he will be fine. I can't tell if I'm here out of guilt, love, paternal obligation, or if I'm here hiding out from the disapproving stares and rude gossiping I can hear floating through the halls. Sadly I think it's the latter.

An exhausted yawn suddenly leaves my lips. I run my hands through my tangled auburn strands. I'm a complete mess. I haven't bathed, slept. or eaten properly since coming here. My mind and heart constantly battling has drained my strength and concern to care for myself.