Ivan
"Fuck, that hurts…" Nefra whined as I finished removing the bandage from her stomach.
"I hate the tape humans use…" Throwing the remains to the side, I rested my body against her again. "But you needed it."
"I really didn't." I looked up, giving her a curious look. "I… did a healing spell at the hospital after I had Penelope. They took the bandages off there, but I put new ones on before I came home."
"Why?"
"Figured it would keep Ricky away from me for a while…" I liked that she'd relaxed. We'd been on the bed for almost half an hour, and most of the awkward tension was gone. We were now comfortable enough to talk without trying to fight it. "They tell you to wait six weeks before you do anything, but my teacher taught me how to do the spells to heal from giving birth in days… I was eating at the hospital, so it wasn't that complicated. But… if he thought I was recovering, he wouldn't try anything or ask me to… help him."
"You just had a pup…" I know nothing about childbirth, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to have sex right after having a child. I know my body's reacting to her arousal, but even if things were different, I wouldn't expect my mate to service me while she's taking care of our baby.
"He doesn't care. He… doesn't even like her," Nefra couldn't hide her revulsion, and I couldn't help but growl.
"How can anyone not love that pup? Did you see how the pack reacted to her? They adore her. My sister's going to bankrupt me spoiling her, and I don't care."
I didn't feel bad saying it.
If the man had taken care of Nefra and Penelope, I'd feel guilty about taking them, but he was a monster. How could you not adore Penelope? She was so tiny and yet drew you in. I hadn't known her for more than a few hours, and I already missed her. The fact I'd missed her first week and the pregnancy made me feel awful.
"Ricky… He only let me keep her because his family made him. I… he wanted me to…" Nefra couldn't finish what she was saying, biting her lip as the thought ate at her.
"I'm glad she's here," I cupped her face, kissing her nose. "She's our pup, and he can go to hell. I won't let anything happen to her."
"But… she's not yours," Nefra was afraid to hope. That was something I understood. I'd been like that until today.
"Blood doesn't mean anything to me. You're my mate, and she's my pup."
"It isn't that simple."
"It is to me…" I want to make her understand, but I also know werewolves are the only race that experiences this sort of connection. No one else can sense their mate like we can, and no one else experiences the bond like we do. So, whether I like it or not, I have to take it slow. "Are you ready to keep going?"
"I feel okay…" her face went hot, her lashes fluttering. She was torn between asking me to stop and not wanting to. "You don't…"
"I'll stop when I'm satisfied you're healed," As much as I'd like to take the time to shift and use my wolf's power, I know we don't have the time.
Now, we have a different problem.
Nefra wasn't in danger anymore. I wanted that, but it pulled me out of panic mode. Now, I could focus on her body the way I wanted to, and I couldn't hide my appreciation. Goddess, she was beautiful. She wasn't tiny, which I was grateful for. I've never gone for petite women; they terrify me.
She was curvier than I thought. Her breasts were full and incredibly distracting. They curved into her long torso, flaring at her hips, giving her an hourglass figure. Without the bruises, you could see her natural tan and the lines of old scars, marks, and something that looked like a brand on her hip but was small and very old. In other words, I was the luckiest guy in the world, and every single one of my friends was going to swallow their tongues, including Luke.
"What?" Nefra swallowed hard, not looking me in the eyes. She knew what I was doing and was embarrassed by my attention.
"Do you… have any on your back?" I wanted to tell her she was gorgeous that I'd never seen a woman as beautiful as she was, and all the things I wanted to do, but that would probably scare her. So, I switched my focus back to her injuries, hoping it was enough.
"No…" she was lying. Why didn't she want me to look at her back? I was already looking at the rest of her in underwear; it wouldn't be any worse.
"Mate," I slipped a little of my Alpha tone into my voice, even though it wouldn't do anything to her. As my mate, she was the same rank as me, meaning she had biological resistance to my powers. Still, she jumped, the tone something she wasn't used to. "Let me see your back."
"No," she started fighting me again, her face growing pale. What was she hiding?
"Nefretiri…" I slid off her, wrapping my arm around her waist as she struggled against me. "I just need to see…"
I flipped her onto her stomach and froze.
Most of her back was covered by her hair, but I didn't miss the stitches on her shoulder blade. Once I moved her hair aside, I was forced to face something far worse than bruises. At least twenty stitched knife wounds, each carefully tended to with surgical thread. Whoever was taking care of them knew what they were doing, but the marks looked older, meaning someone was keeping them open. Why would someone do that?
I can't explain what I felt.
This went beyond anger, sadness, or guilt. What had this asshole done to her? How could anyone live like this and not break? I've been to war; I've fought as a soldier, a warrior, and an Alpha, and this is something you'd see in a prisoner of war. I don't even treat the rogues we capture like this. Yet, my mate lived with this pain every day while I was out… Fuck, no. I had to fix this now.
"Ivan… please don't…" Nefra whispered, and I tensed. It was the first time she'd said my name, and it was like that?
My heart broke a little more.
Without saying anything, because I didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound condescending, I climbed on her again, resting my body against her. This time, I didn't stop myself from kissing her, focusing on her neck and hair, needing to comfort her. Things clicked in my head. Things I didn't understand until now, and my guilt grew into a monstrosity I didn't know how to control. This was my fault. I did this to her.
Maybe I didn't hold the knife and physically hurt her, but I'd felt her pain long before today, and I did things to push it away.
'She's been calling for me, and I ignored her!'
"What are you doing?" Nefra's voice trembled, but her body relaxed. "It feels... different."
She was right, but I wasn't doing anything different.
"Are you allergic to silver?" I got close to the stitches on her shoulder, catching a whiff of the metal on her skin. Was there silver in the wounds?
"No..."
I wasn't so sure.
Werewolves have allergies to pure silver. It's not lethal like in myths, and not for the reasons people might think. Our legends say the moon goddess formed the first werewolf out of the soul of a mortal and a wolf, using silver thread to tie them together because it's impossible to fuse two different creatures without something to bind them. Supernatural doctors found there might be some truth to that myth but say it's a unique mutation in our cells. Other shifters have the same mutation but don't have the allergy. They chalk the rest up to magic.
However, one side effect is that wounds don't heal as quickly when external silver is introduced.
"Who's taking care of these?" As carefully as I can, I pull at the smallest cut. I expected it to bleed, but it didn't.
"One of Ricky's mistresses..." Nefra tried moving, but I kept her still to see what was under her skin. "That.. hurts."
"I know, just give me a second."
The piece of silver was thinner than paper, implanted under her skin, keeping the wound fresh. That's a side effect werewolves can have, but I want to know if it can do the same for a sorceress. This was as pure as you could find, the metal burning my skin. Blood immediately poured from the cut, but I got to work licking it closed, ignoring the discomfort in my throat.
It was painful for both of us. The thread wasn't dissolvable, so I had to thread it through Nefra's skin to get it out, and the silver was buried deep in several spots. It was so bad I resorted to tweezers. My fingertips were raw, making it nearly impossible to grab the slivers of metal. Nefra whimpered and cried out, and it destroyed me. I hated hurting her, but we had to get it out.
"I... got it all..." Sighing in relief, I removed the last piece of silver, hurridly licking the wound before it bled too much.
I felt sick from the silver, but I didn't show it.
Nefra was in worse shape, her body covered in a film of sweat. Still, I was glad we'd done it. There was a small pile of silver beside us, enough to make a nickel. That might not seem like much, but all that was in Nefra's body.
"Thank you..." she sounded hoarse, sitting up and covering herself. At some point during all this, I'd needed to take her bra off, which left her in her panties.
"You don't have to hide from me," I want her to be comfortable being naked around me, but we've already pushed a lot of boundaries tonight. Someday, we'll be in a place where the awkwardness is nonexistent, but that's not today. "Here."
Pulling her off the bed, I scanned her body, running my hands over her ribs and some of the bruises. Her skin was less swollen, and all the dark spots were faded. That was a good sign. It meant the bones were healing, and her pain was manageable. We'd have to do this again, but not as urgently.
Nefra tried to be confident and not cover herself, but she couldn't hide the hesitation. Did she think I didn't like how she looked? Fuck, this wouldn't be easy. My mate had been abused for who knows how long, and I didn't know the extent. So, I had to be careful with how I acted. Anything could be a trigger.
"You're perfect," I whispered, picking up my shirt and sliding it over her head. "No one's as beautiful as you... but I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."
"I'm not... perfect..." she smiled, appreciating the compliment. "But... thank you. I... This is all... weird."
"Weird is underselling it," I didn't just give her the shirt to cover herself. My scent was all over it, and it could help her relax. As a werewolf, I didn't mind being naked, so walking around shirtless wasn't new. "Where's your clothes?"
"In Penelope's room," wincing, Nefra glanced around the room, taking stock of what she needed. "I... don't have anything here except for some documents."
"Wait... all of this is his?" Two dressers were in the room, and two more were in the walk-in closet. I have a lot of clothes, but not as much as this asshole.
"A quarter of the closet and that dresser are his harems... They keep some clothes here when it's their weekend."
"Their weekend?" This was disgusting. Nefra was this asshole's wife, and his mistresses got to leave their clothes here, and she didn't?
"I'm... not usually allowed on my own. Ricky... brings three of them to stay with me when he goes out of town. Even when he's here, they stay..."
"Where do you sleep?" I prayed to the goddess she wasn't forced to sleep in here with them.
"On the couch. I... don't like sharing the room with him, so I moved all my stuff into the nursery, so I didn't have to come in here except clean..." She looked ashamed, but I didn't blame her.
These people were treating her like a slave, treating her like a disgraced Omega—a practice I didn't allow in my pack—and making it impossible for my mate to escape.
Who does something like this? No female I know would tolerate their partner bringing other people into their home and forcing her to serve them. Nefra didn't look like she liked it either, so what was this asshole doing to force her to stay? Why was she scared of him? I needed to know the answers because something wasn't adding up. Everything looked normal, but it wasn't. The level of cleanliness, the mistresses who were also babysitters, and the silver. That was the strangest thing of all. Why did they put silver in those wounds?
"Nefra?" I watched her pull a lockbox out from under the bed, frowning when she realized it was locked. I reached over and popped it open with two fingers, not realizing I'd broken it until I held the lid in my hand. "Sorry... actually, no, I'm not."
"It's... fine," she tried brushing it off, but I saw the awe she was trying to tamp down. She was impressed. "I just... need this."
She held a document and several Polaroid photos.
"Can I see?"
Nodding, Nefra handed them to me.
The photos were of Penelope in the hospital. A few were of her in those plastic containers they put the baby in, but the rest were of Nefra holding her. I felt a pang in my heart for not being there. Those were my pup's first moments; she didn't have me with them. It would take me a lifetime to make up for that, and I silently swore I would. My Princess deserved more than this; she'd have it, even if I had to move heaven and earth to do it.
"You didn't put anyone down as the father?" the document was the mother's copy of the birth records, not the birth certificate itself. The father portion was blank, and Penelope's last name was Jordans.
"I didn't want to." Shrugging, Nefra closed the box as best she could before sliding it back under the bed. "He... didn't deserve to be on the birth certificate. He... doesn't know yet. He never bothered looking over it when we got home. He just told me to put it in the lockbox."
"That makes things easier." I was already thinking of what I needed to do. When we were done here, I'd talk to Scott about filing everything so I was on Penelope's birth certificate, and all her legal documents would end up in Colorado. "I still need to change her name to Treyson."
"That's... arrogant of you..." I might've worried if she wasn't trying to keep from smiling. "She's-"
"She's mine. Get over it," I cut her off, stepping aside so we could leave the room. "We can argue about that later. How about you get what you want so we can get out of here. I'm done smelling him."
Penelope's room was nothing like the rest of the house.
Where the house was reds, grays, and blacks, the nursery was almost overwhelming with color. The walls were images of wolves running in the forests, and the ceiling was painted black with planets and stars set up as galaxies. The bedding in the crib was a rich forest green with lighter shades of mint. Nefra had to have done all this herself. You could feel her love and effort in making a safe space for our pup.
"Don't look so impressed," Nefra smiled, pulling clothes out of the drawers and stuffing them into the bag. She only had a few outfits—which would change soon enough—and a few things for Penelope. "I'm good at copying things. All of this is from the internet."
"I am impressed... I can't do stick figures, let alone copy art and put them on a wall. But... why wolves?"
Did she subconsciously feel the pull toward us?
"I don't know... I've always loved wolves... I... just felt drawn to them..." She looked at me, not saying what we were both thinking.
Of course, she'd been drawn to wolves—she was mated to one.
"Want to grab the rest of your stuff?" she handed me my shirt once she'd changed into a tank top and leggings. I appreciated the look because it was comfortable, but I expected her to take more.
"Nothing else is mine," she looked sad as she set the duffle on the crib, glancing around the room. "This is all we own. Ricky... he burned all my things when we moved here."
"He what?!"
"He... said I had to let go of the past, and I couldn't do that if I was holding onto it, so he... piled everything I had outside and... set it on fire. This... is all I managed to save."
She opened the bag again, showing me two boxes. One looked like an old jewelry box, the other a larger one with her name carved onto the top. There were other runes around it, and I assumed it had something to do with her magic. My knowledge of the craft was limited to defense against it, but I know treasure when I see it in someone's hands. That box was more valuable to Nefra than gold or jewels. It was her inheritance, something I understood well.
"Nefra..." I hesitated with the question that'd plagued me, but I pushed the doubt away, needing to know. "Where's your family? They... can't have ignored you and let you go through all this..."
"I... don't have a family," setting the boxes back in the duffle, Nefra withdrew, which I feared she'd do. This was a delicate subject and made more sense. "My mom died a few months ago... I don't have anyone else. Not that I can remember."
"What do you mean?"
"I... sometimes I have trouble remembering things from when I was younger. When... Ricky started hurting me. He used to not hold back and... It did damage. When Darla started coming over, he stopped doing things like that, but... I still have trouble with it."
"He caused brain damage?" No, this guy wasn't living past tonight. I'd get Nefra into the truck and come back to the pack and come back for him.
"No... I'd be a vegetable if he'd done that... It's nothing serious... I just... have trouble remembering some names and places..."
"Nefra, that's not normal!" I wasn't trying to scare her, but her attitude toward this wasn't right. She was describing brain damage like it was nothing and treating fragments of her memory like she'd forgotten where her keys were.
"It's okay... If it was that bad, I'd go to the doctors, and I haven't needed to... not even for the— Can we go?"
"You haven't needed to go for what, Nefra?" I grabbed her arm, prioritizing my mate's health over treating her with kid gloves. What if the bruises and broken bones weren't the worst of the abuse?
'it's nothing."
"It's not. Nefra, you need to tell me."
"No, I don't..." Nefra pulled away, hurrying out of the room with the bag. Whatever she was hiding, it scared her. "It's nothing. Just... my own thing."
"I don't know what that is." I followed her, watching her sit on the couch, grabbing her pillow like a weapon, but not against me. "You can trust me. Whatever it is... I'll be here. I'll help you through it."
Nefra refused to look at me, and I didn't know what to do.
I'm not the gentle guy who can be a therapist. I'm the guy who needs it. If this were an interrogation, I'd know what to say, but this is my mate. I can give her comfort and patience, but that won't get us answers. The fact that she's reluctant to share information makes it more difficult.
"Nefra... whatever it is, I won't judge you. I'm your mate. We grow stronger together..." I was talking out of my ass. I don't know how to be a mate, but I want those things for us. "We help each other. We work together."
"Sometimes..." Nefra closed her eyes, clutching the pillow like it held her together. "Sometimes... I hear... voices that talk to me. It's like inner voices, but... they're not."
I wasn't shocked by that.
"Okay..." I didn't know what else to say. When she'd screamed in the parking lot, I got the feeling she wasn't talking to me, so I'd backed off, not wanting to agitate her anymore. "Do you think it's something magical?"
"I don't know."
"Does he know that you're a sorceress?"
"No."
"How?"
"He doesn't know." she was getting defensive again.
"Nefra?"
I was pushing again, but I felt we were close to something.
"He doesn't know," she repeated, her knees up to her chest. "He doesn't know. He can't know. If he did, we'd be dead."
"Why?"
"Because of... what he does?" she sounded so scared, her face hidden behind her hair. This wasn't an act. She was petrified, and this time, it was of me. She didn't want me to know because she was afraid I'd judge him. Or her?
"What does he do, Nefra?" This was it. Whatever was keeping my mate from opening up was in that question.
"He's a traveling nurse," she whispered, but that wasn't the whole truth. "He gets sent to hospitals to work for a while, and then he comes back."
"Nefra..." I got on my knees, pulling back her hair—still wondering why it was so damn long when it looked so uncomfortable—putting myself in the most submissive position a werewolf can do to show her I wasn't trying to dominate her. "What does he really do? You don't have to be scared... I'll protect you. He won't-"
"He's an assassin!!!" she screamed, burying her face in the pillow, her body shaking so badly I was scared she was convulsing.