Desired by Wolves [Call of the Wolf 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (7 page)

It was like he only ever felt really calm these days with Otis. The little guy looked up and licked his face. Alex found himself smiling and blinking back the tears. He set Otis down on the floor while he braced one hand on the seat and bent to pick up the towel. No matter what Lena said, he wasn’t going to lie completely naked on her couch.

“Come on, boy. Come on over to the couch.” Carefully he made his way over to the living room, pausing momentarily in the hallway. He could open the door and shift and be on his way home before she knew it. He was so tempted, but then he realized he really had no place to go but his brothers’ house, and Lena would just head over there, blazingly angry with him, and he couldn’t bear that. He couldn’t deal with negative emotions any more. He used to love nothing more than a blazingly good argument which would then lead to blazingly good sex, and Lena could give as good as she got. Now when he heard a voice raised in anger, he could feel the fear coursing through his body and the need to placate the speaker would overwhelm him. The bastards had well and truly broken him, and he didn’t know how to heal.

He had tried talking to the VA shrinks, but they were overwhelmed with all the men who had come home with body parts missing or who could really not cope with life back stateside. He was relatively together and in more or less one piece, so he was low on the priority list. He got an assessment session but was on a waitlist for anything more, so that was that. He had come home to lick his wounds. He’d known that she moved back, but he figured he could avoid her. That was why he went to Lupo’s on the night of the full moon. Will and Joe assured him that she avoided them during full moons. He wasn’t sure he could deal with the crowds at Lupo’s, but he knew he couldn’t hide forever and thought that having a drink at his brothers’ bar was as good a way as any to announce his return.

And then he’d seen her and had practically run from the place. He looked again at the door and then sighed.

“Come on, boy. Lena wants me on the couch.” He limped over and carefully spread the towel so that half of it was on the middle cushion where his butt would be and half lay across the back of the couch. Once he eased himself down facing the back of the couch, he pulled the towel off and covered himself, even if only temporarily.

He heard Otis whining and rolled onto his back. Reaching down, he scooped the little dog up and then rolled back, adjusting his body so there was room for Otis between his chest and the couch. Otis licked his face, washing away his tears of humiliation and fear as he admitted to himself for the first time that he’d always held out a faint hope that someday he’d get back with Lena, but after today, he knew that he’d lost his chance with her forever. She’d seen him for what he was now, not just crippled physically but emotionally.

He hugged Otis close and waited.

* * * *

Lena paused on the top of the stairs. She saw Alex move his hand as if to wipe away tears. She gave him a moment to compose himself, and then she started walking heavily down the stairs. She saw him tilt his body toward the back of the couch and bury his face in the cushions. He body position was slightly curved to give Otis some room.

By the time she was over at the couch, she had her best professional expression pasted to her face. She repositioned her two floor lamps so that they shone directly on Alex’s hip. She could see Otis sitting up, his two front paws on Alex’s side, watching her. She leaned down and gave Otis a rub on the head. He licked her hand and then curled up beside Alex again.

Then she sat down on the coffee table and placed her bag beside her.

“Try to relax, Alex. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He didn’t answer. He just shrugged his shoulders and tensed up.

She ran her hand down from his shoulder down his back until she reached his hip, and then she repeated the motion like he was a terrified puppy she was trying to examine. She repeated the gesture a few more times and felt him start to relax. She had to stop herself from leaning down and kissing the nape of his neck and pressing her body against his back as if she could absorb some of his pain. It broke her heart to see him like this.

She figured the best thing she could do for him was to work quickly. She flipped the towel back, and he tensed again. She sighed impatiently and barked out, “Alex,” and he started to shake. She got off the coffee table and knelt beside the couch, pressing her face against his neck and her torso against his back.

“Shhhhh, Alex. Relax. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

“I should go.”

His words surprised her, and so she was caught off guard when he tried to rise. She reacted instinctively, rising and wrapping her arms around him, moving to sit beside him on the couch while she cradled his body in her arms.

Holding him tight, she found herself rocking him as she kissed his shoulders and tried to sooth him. Otis yelped and hopped off the couch, taking up a position beside it, watching the humans intently.

“Please, let me go. I can’t stand you seeing me like this.” His voice had an edge of desperation, almost hysteria, and he tried to pull from her arms, but she just held him tighter as he turned his body and tried to swing his legs off the couch. “Please.” He’d started to cry again, and her heart broke for him.

She pulled back and looked at him. In a flash, she knew what he was going to do.

“If you shift now, I’m locking that fucking door and you are not getting out, do you hear me.”

“But I’m in less pain in wolf form.” His voice was quiet, tentative.

“And I’m trying to figure out how to ensure you have less pain in human form, but you have to let me look at your wounds.”

“The doctors at the VA couldn’t help me.” His voice wasn’t bitter, just resigned and accepting. He’d clearly given up.

“And just how much experience do they have with shifters?”

He didn’t answer.

“How much?” She let her voice have a demanding edge that she knew now he would respond to.

“None,” he admitted.

“Then why won’t you let me help you?”

“Because if you say that there’s no hope, then it’s all over. I’ll be nothing but a physical and emotional cripple who’s a drain on everyone. Everyone would have been better off if I’d never come back.” He buried his hands in his face again, his shoulders heaving with dry sobs.

If he’d been angry or bitter, she might have reacted differently, but his tone was so defeated that she reacted without thinking.

“Alex, Alex. Look at me!” she demanded.

When he looked up, she pulled back her right hand and slapped him hard across the face.

“You selfish son of a bitch.” She moved to slap him again, but he grabbed her hand this time before it landed. She hadn’t seen him move that fast in the last hour, and looking at his face, it was clear that he was now blazingly angry as he gripped her wrist.

“That’s it. Get mad,” she encouraged. “Fight, god damn it. No more pity party.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he tugged her wrist and pulled her up against him, his mouth coming down hard on hers. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and before long, their mouths were open and tongues were dueling and it was like the years had fallen away.

It was Otis who brought her to her senses as he started running and yapping. She pulled back and wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed when Alex let her go without a fight. She stood up and backed away from the couch.

“Now lie back down on your side and let me examine you. It’s already later afternoon. You need to be gone before the sun sets.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on attacking you in a sexual frenzy. It's not like it is a full moon or anything.”

“Excuse me if I prefer not to take chances. Now assume the position.”

She could see the effect her words had on him. It couldn’t have been the banter. His face had actually lightened, and he’d almost been teasing her, but there was something about her last few words, “assume the position,” that had caused a change in him that broke her heart.

His shoulder had hunched again, and he’d shrunk back from her almost in fear. She watched him take a couple of deep breaths and then move to lie back down on the couch, his back to her. She had to stop herself from gasping as she got a better look at those white marks on his back. He’d clearly been whipped, probably more than once to have so many scars. She was almost afraid to find out what else had happened to him.

Carefully, she peeled back the towel. She had to stop for a second when she realized that her hand was shaking with fear as to what she would see.

In some ways it wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined. The VA doctors had done a good job. It was clear that some of the scars were from the IED explosion, but there was more than that. She could see a surgery scar on his thigh. She ran her hand lightly over it and felt him tense, so she moved quickly, feeling the muscles in his leg and hip.

As far as she could tell, she wasn’t hurting him, so the problem had to be under the skin and muscle.

“Did you have any broken bones?”

“Yes, one of my thigh bones.” He voice was muffled like he had a pillow pressed against his face. “The doctors put in some screws. They said if that didn’t take, they might have to go back in and use a plate. Worst case would be amputation.”

“When did they do this? The scar seems to have healed well.”

“Maybe five or six weeks ago. I’ve spent a lot of time shifted since then so it would heal faster.”

“When is your next check-up?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she knew the answer.

“You aren’t planning on going back, are you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They are not cutting off my leg.”

“Don’t you think there’d be less chance of that happening if you let them treat you?”

“It’s healing. You’ve seen me walk on it.”

“Barely.”

“I move pretty good when I’m shifted.”

“Good is relative. You limp just as much as Otis here.”

“You’ve seen me?”

“You don’t think I just came home by accident. I knew something was up, and I installed a few nanny cams.”

He lay there silently, processing what she’d said.

When she realized he wasn’t going to answer, she ploughed on. “You need to see a specialist.”

“How can I go back to the VA now? Whatever’s going on inside my leg, the outside has healed too much to go back to those doctors without them getting suspicious. No human would have healed that quickly.”

She looked down at his leg and had to agree. A human would still have an angry red incision. His scar looked to be at least a year old.

“So you thought your shifter abilities would help you heal.”

“And they did. You see the scar.” Alex’s voice was defensive.

“But not on the inside.”

“No.” Her heart broke at the pain in that simple word. She moved the towel to cover up his hip and ass again.

“You can sit up now.”

Carefully he maneuvered himself back up into sitting position, and then he scooped up Otis, who had been hovering anxiously beside his friend.

“I want to check a few things out and do some X-rays, but there’s nothing I can do for you.” She watched him slump. “But I have a friend who I think can help you.”

Alex looked up at her. She could see hope warring with distrust in his eyes.

“Oliver McKay, he’s an orthopaedic surgeon whose sister is married to a wolf-shifter in Oregon. He’s the go-to guy for shifters on the West Coast with bone problems. Come by my office early tomorrow before my office hours. My first appointment is at ten, but my staff and volunteers will be in by nine. You need to get there by seven so we get you in and out before anyone gets there and wonders why I’m X-raying a human. I’ll also need to X-ray you in shifted form, and then I’ll send both sets of films to Oliver. I’ll also pull together a release that we can send the VA so they can also send Oliver your records.”

“You really think he can help me?”

“He’s the best.”

Alex looked at her and nodded before looking away.

“Promise me, Alex. Promise me you’ll be at my office by seven, and don’t try to lie to me or I will hunt you down and drag you in on a leash like Samantha did with Gabe.”

Alex held up his hands in mock protest. “Please, no leashes. I’ll be there. I promise.” He solemnly held out his hand, and she shook it.

It took her a moment to realize that he wasn’t moving because he had no clothes with him. He’d come over in wolf form and had to leave that way.

“Do you need a drive home?” she offered.

“No, I’ll be fine. A good run loosens out the hip after being human for so long. I’m not used to it anymore.”

“Fine.” She walked toward the stairs, pausing at the first step. “I mean it Alex. Don’t even think of running away. I’ll be really angry if I have to come after you, and I will, you know. And I’ll round up Gabe and his brothers, and I’ll get my brothers involved, and they’ll all come after you. Just give in gracefully on this, Alex.”

“I already promised.”