The Alpha Twins and their Runaway Witch

42

It had been strange to have the phone again when Binh handed it back to Ariel. There had been messages from each of her coworkers, wishing her a quick recovery, and promises that they were there if she needed anything said in different ways. An entire community at her back to help her when she was injured. She had needed to put the phone down. It was too much to feel all at once.

Binh told her it had been three days since the accident when he gave her the phone. The pain all over her body had dulled to a manageable state of being. Though once the catheter had been removed and she had been required to get assistance to the washroom every time it was needed, the nurses always used the time alone to ask if she was alright, if she was in an abusive relationship with the man who never left her side.

"I've seen the scars on your back Jennifer." One nurse had said to her. Assuming Jenny was a Jennifer on her birth certificate. Assuming so many things. Acting as though Binh had been the one to put the marks on her skin. Ariel had not had a means to express her anger and frustration in a way that satisfied her fire. The nurse who dared acknowledge the whipping scars on her back, took Ariel's rage head on.

Ariel had seen red. Her hands had felt hot as she balled her hands into tight fists. Telling the nurse as politely as she could to fuck off and to never question Binh again. Ariel finished with demanding to speak to the head nurse for the ward to demand a reassignment as the chastised nurse quickly helped Ariel back to her bed, and fled the room. Never to return.

Binh had been smiling. Taking her hand, cooling her down instantly. "They don't understand anything." Ariel had grumbled. Taking a moment to wallow in her self pity now that she had released a portion of her anger and frustration at the intrusive nurse.

Binh released her hand, nudging the phone with access to the internet and a plethora of steaming options for entertainment towards her. "You contain multitudes they can not understand. All the nurses are human and unaware a creature such as myself walks among them." His voice always so calm and soothing. Binh was always in control.

Ariel reached for the phone, just as another message from one of the wolves popped up. The one who used to have long hair, she felt bad every time she saw his picture flash up. He had very nice hair before she had burned it all away. She sighed, and Binh smiled, taking out a business magazine to read while he sat with Ariel.

As Binh expected, Ariel had quickly grown morose while trapped in the hospital bed. Separated from her familiar, in pain and unable to practice any of her magic safely. That was why Binh had arranged to have her home as soon as was safe. The light had returned to her eyes when she was back in the penthouse, when she could hold her raven and feed him snacks once again from her hand. Was free to summon her Grimoire and try some spells that were safe to attempt from a bed. Read more of her history, her story.

Her joy at being reunited with her familiar, having better food and her magic did not last long. The limitations to her mobility were causing her constant distress. She felt trapped and helpless. She needed a distraction and sunshine. Marisol had been kind enough to have a message delivered to Binh, informing him that the Greenrivers brothers would be living as wolves in the city zoo for a period of two weeks as punishment for the destruction they had caused and to explain away some of the supernatural events of that evening.

A delightful and fitting punishment in Binh's estimation. They had behaved as animals and were now made to suffer as animals. Binh helped Ariel get dressed, as much as she would allow him to help. Before offering her his arm so she could transfer herself from the bed to her rented wheelchair.

After two full days at home, Binh felt that Ariel needed to get out of the apartment and see more than the walls of his penthouse. She needed to get out of her head and worries before she fell into a depressive episode that would change her forever. There was a passage on the first page of her grimoire that she consistently went back to read again and again. Her Sadness palaple every single time she went through the ritual.