His Reluctant Luna

Ch 35 - Helpless

When I woke again, the sun was shining and Doctor Benson was standing over me, my chart in his hands. Why was he here again? Where the hell was Kara?

My mind was hazy, the day a blur but the memory of me ripping the cannula out of my arm, of Kole being held down as he snarled and his eyes shone black, wouldn't leave me.

My sedation had worn off during the night and I'd found the room dark and empty save for a nurse watching over me.

Where Kole had gone I didn't know or care. But his blood was gone too. The cannula pumping his blood into my body had been removed and as the hours passed by I felt weaker for it.

Nurses had visited me throughout the night, checking my vitals, giving me water, changing my catheter. That had been fun. But they had done it in silence. No small talk. I was grateful for that. I wasn't grateful for the restraints, the padded slings around my arms that fastened me to the bed, whether to keep me from hurting them or myself I didn't know.

My leg was a throbbing agony, I had no idea what it looked like under the blanket and right now, I didn't want to know. The needle in my arm pumped a steady stream of god knows what into my body, keeping me calm, clean of infection and every third hour or so, the throbbing agony receded to a dull ache. The longer I went without Kole's blood, the worse the pain got but I preferred it. There was comfort in the pain. Comfort in knowing that a little of him was leaving my system.

I wasn't sure if my hysteria had passed. It seemed to be laying dormant, hibernating in a dark cave in my stomach, ready to erupt should anyone disturb it.

The night had passed and now the morning shone in, bright and obnoxious. In silence, Doctor Benson undid one of the straps and handed me a glass of water. I took it, taking three long sips through the straw. I didn't want to but if I didn't, they would just set me up with another IV and I was tired of needles.

"I'm just checking your vitals. You're ready to go home later if you feel up to it?" My drug addled mind grabbed onto the word. He saw my hopeful gaze and quickly corrected himself. "I mean to the pack house." Of course. I tried to shake the drug-fog away but it wasn't working and to be honest, I wasn't so sure I wanted it to.

For the first time, I understood heroin addicts. For the first time, I wish I'd stayed in the hell hole I'd been dragged up in. For the first time, I wished I was like any of the other girls in the shelter. Some of them were addicts now, some of them dead, or in prison, or single mothers to several kids with fathers who weren't around. But none of them were here, captive, crippled and bound to a monster.

Despite my misery, I forced myself up until I was half sitting, my stomach lurching like a turbulent sea. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"It's the bond." I glanced up at the Doctor, his large dark eyes concerned and sorry. "You'll feel that way now, when you and your mate are too far apart. He left during the night."

He'd left us? Now? "What about the Gulfs?"

"He's still on pack land," he said, his attention drifting back to my chart. "He's just shifted, he wanted to be close to the moon, to ask her for help."

I didn't understand and really, I didn't care. I sat up, ignoring my roiling stomach. I didn't want to go back to the pack house, to being chained to Kole's bed, but I figured it was better than being here, visited by strangers every hour.

As of yet, the chains had yet to make an appearance. I guess they thought that crippled and strapped to a bed there wasn't far I could go. They were right. I was out of options. It was over.

Doctor Benson continued to fuss and check me, I stared into nothingness, willing my mind to anywhere but here. Wishing I could silence all the questions in my mind.