Fate Mate

Chapter 28

*** Another warning... This chapter briefly mentions violence and deals heavily with the aftermath of sexual assault. If you would like to skip over this chapter, please message me and ask for a summary of Chapter 28! I'd be happy to give you the important bits so that you can continue with the story! ***

My eyes blinked open, but I could only see dark. It was cold-- deliciously cold-- and dark.

Am I dead? I thought to myself, and felt a shocking peace settle over my body. A foreign weight of exhaustion pulled on my eyelids, and sleep threatened to snatch me into darkness once more. I nuzzled deeper into my pillow, took a deep breath, and -- Why doesn't it smell like Nolan?

I immediately sprang upright in bed, and memories of the night before came rushing back all at once-- too fast for my mind to handle. Nolan's party. A slice of cake. Dominic. The worst pain I'd ever felt. And...

Panic held my throat in a death-grip, suffocating me while I fumbled around in the cotton sheets of a strange bed. I tried to lift my hands to my neck, terrified of what I might find, but wires had been taped to the backs of both hands. My eyes immediately flashed downward, and I realized that I no longer wore my maroon dress from the party. The memory of fabric tearing nearly sent me over the edge.

Tangled in these wires and wet sheets, I couldn't escape.

I felt helpless again, trapped in darkness without the ability to move. Flashes of similar panic and phantom tears appeared in my head. Flashes of Dominic fumbling with my rag-doll body, the oppressive weight of his body over mine...

No, no! I do not want this! I wanted to scream, but the blinding pain had been too much.

I kicked and punched in this foreign bed, desperate to flee from my own helplessness, but, before I could get far, too hands emerged from the dark and clenched down on my fists. These hands were strong-- far more powerful than the punches I threw at an unknown entity.

"Shh! Shh, Charlie!" A familiar voice whispered, and the scent of pine mingling with peppermint wafted toward me. Nolan.

Nolan was here. I instantly stilled, and he released his iron grip on my wrists. As soon as my hands were free, I drew my limbs in toward my body, curling myself into a protective ball. And I cried.

I heaved into my knees, desperate to hide my face from the man in the room. I felt ashamed-- disgusted with myself-- and I didn't even know what had happened. But I felt tainted, nonetheless.

"I've called the nurse, Charlotte," Nolan comforted from where he stood beside the bed, as if he wanted to be near but did not quite want to risk touching me. I understood. He must have been disgusted, too.

I still cried when another body shuffled into the room, a female based on the sound of her light footsteps. I dared a look up, and my eyes met Dr. Trudy, the pack physician who had treated my wounds after my car accident. She had bags beneath her eyes, but her fingers worked unbelievably fast as she did a quick scan over my body.

"Shhh... you're safe, dear." Trudy murmured while her tender fingers peeled back a bandage from my neck. "It's stopped bleeding, so that is a good thing."

I knew what she meant. The mark. The mark that Dominic had given me seconds before I lost all consciousness. A fresh wave of nausea hit, and I heaved forward. Trudy grabbed a bed pan and slid it in front of my lips, just in time for my self-loathing to splatter into the tray.

The physician's hand stroked my back until I finished, and I was faintly aware of Nolan's massive body pacing back and forth beside my bed. After emptying my stomach's contents, I slowly sat up in bed again, my abdominal muscles aching from the strain of such violent sickness.