“Surgery?”
“Yeah, gotta be honest, I saw the damage, and I don’t know how they’re fixing that—”
“That’s enough, Darren,” Cole interrupted.
“Sorry, yeah, not the time, I get it,” he said sheepishly.
“Me?” I asked, resorting to one-word questions, each one feeling like swallowing razor blades.
“You’re going to be good. Give it a week or two, with most improvement in the next few days,” she answered and began moving something near me. “Darren, can you wait outside?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll be just outside the door,” he said, and I heard a chair squeak across tiled flooring and the sound of him leaving.
“I’m going to help dress you,” Cole told me. “I have a pair of my sweatpants and a dress shirt for you.”
“Yours?” I asked, unable to help the part of me that was pleased by the prospect of wearing Cole’s clothes.
“Yeah,” she said, and it was something about the way she said it that reminded me of what led me to the forest in the first place.
Cole. The marking. Her regret. My guilt.
It was fitting that I had lost my voice because no words could be right.
How did I apologise for everything I had done to her?
It wasn’t just the way I had made her mark me.
It forced her to protect me.
If she didn’t, it wasn’t so much what would happen to me but what it meant if she allowed him to kill me, to, to… It would impact her reputation, her status.
I allowed her to help me sit up and manoeuvre my stiff legs off the edge of the bed.
She took my left forearm and so gently removed the IV needle that I felt no pain.
She held me softly; every touch felt measured, careful, as she dressed me, finishing with buttoning up the dress shirt. My left arm was bandaged across my body and held in place; only my right arm was free to move. She tucked the fabric of the left arm inside so it didn’t dangle loose.
I thought she was going to help me stand; instead, she wrapped her arms under my knees and behind my back and picked me up with ease.
“I… can… walk.” I coughed, trying to angle my face against my shoulder and not splutter all over her.
Cole laughed humourlessly.
“No, you can’t,” she answered as she walked with me. “Darren, door,” she demanded, and I watched a blurry door pull open and the outline of Darren standing there.
Cole carried me all the way back to the cabin.
I heard how talking stopped as she passed crowded restaurants and all the events that were still taking place. The National Assembly did not halt or pause for an injured omega.
I curled myself tighter against her, hiding from blurry faces I couldn’t see.
I felt sick with humiliation, with the humiliation that Cole must have experienced.
At the cabin, she climbed the stairs to the loft and laid me on the bed.
“I’m just going to get your meds. Darren brought them back,” she said.
“Wait,” I whispered and thought she hadn’t heard until I saw her turn back to me. “I’m sorry,” I coughed.
