“I’ll call the doctor. She’ll have to see if it’s time for that,” the man said softly, bowing his head before leaving the room.
Theo ran his thumb over my hand, not making eye contact with me.
“Theo?” He didn’t look up. “Theo,” I said louder.
“Margo, I am so sorry I didn’t protect you,” he cried out. “I wasn’t there when you needed me; I let you down.”
I opened my mouth slowly, wanting to comfort him, but the doctor entered.
“Luna Regina, I’m Doctor Dernon, how are you feeling?” The woman was tall, skinny, her long limbs looked agile, and her face was kind. She had darker brown hair that was pulled up; she looked intelligent.
“Hurts,” I said, not able to say anything more before I groaned in pain. My pulse throbbed in my leg hard.
“You had a lot of damage to your leg,” she said, looking down at the chart. “Your femur was fractured by the force of the bite. We’ve placed a plate and four screws to secure the bone. The muscle was also torn around your upper thigh; we’ve repaired the blood vessels, but unfortunately, a portion of your skin on your thigh was torn off in the incident. We had to do a skin graft from your other leg. You may feel some discomfort, but that should be acute.”
I tried to understand what she said to me. Theo saw my confusion and touched my head affectionately.
“Thank you, Doctor Dernon. I’m afraid my mate is in a lot of pain right now, I’m not sure how much of this she’ll be able to understand or remember. Can we give her more medication?”
She pursed her lips and closed her chart. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any pain medication for humans in this facility. The last of it was used when the doctors arrived at your home. I’ve sent someone to retrieve some from the closest pack, but until he gets back, there’s not much I can do in terms of pain medication.”
“She can’t use the pain medication we use?” Theo asked. His voice rose louder and louder.
“The way our bodies metabolize medication is different from humans. If I were to give her even the lowest possible dosage, her body could reject it, she could slip into a comatose state, or her heart could slow down. None of these possibilities are worth trying that method right now.”
“She’s in pain!” Theo bellowed, leaning over me to yell at the doctor. I squeezed his hand and tried to tug it to tell him to sit down.
“I’m very sorry for your pain; I’m doing everything I can right now. The medicine should be here within the next two hours. There are other things you can do in terms of pain relief, though,” she said cautiously. Theo looked at her, expectantly. “Many mated pairs use each other’s blood as a natural pain reliever. The cells in mate’s bodies are used to comfort each other so long as a marking bite is in place. A small cut on the wrist would suffice enough blood for her to ingest.”
I shuddered visibly. The thought of drinking Theo’s blood made me sick, and I vomited in the container Theo handed me when he saw me lurch. He grabbed my hair away from my face and whispered for me to relax.
When I sat back in the bed, I noticed the doctor left the room. Theo was already reaching for the small scalpel she had left on the bedside table.
“Theo, no,” I panted, reaching for his arm. I had tasted his blood before when I marked him, but that was only a few drops, and even that was enough to make me wretch upon remembering it.
“You’re in pain, Margo. This is all I can do for you, and I’m going to do it.” He made a small incision on the side of his wrist near his thumb and brought it closer to my face. I turned away but couldn’t do much to stop him since the pain immobilized me. He held my head forward on his wrist and kissed the top of my head.
“That’s it, good girl,” he muttered. “Just a little more.”
When I swallowed the metallic, warm liquid, he sat back and let his wrist heal almost instantly. The taste of his blood lingered, and it made my stomach lurch again. Theo grabbed my shoulders and held me back.
“No, Margo, you’ve got to keep it down. I promise it’ll help. Just give it a minute.”
I groaned and shoved his arm away. He slumped back in his seat and just watched as I writhed in pain. I let out a small scream, and he grabbed my hand again, running his fingers over it, kissing my palm. After a few moments, the pain started to subside. My mind became foggy, and I found it hard to keep my eyes open.
“It’s okay,” Theo said as he smiled sadly at me. “You can sleep, love, and I’ll be right here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere.”
My eyes closed, and I slumped into a sleep I didn’t wake from for two days.
✽✽✽
“I swear, only you could get a chunk of your leg taken out and still be worrying about other people,” Caddy chuckled. He had come to visit me at the hospital and give Theo a break so he could go home and shower.
“I’m just worried about him,” I admitted. “This is messing with his head, I can tell.”
“Theo will be fine, he’s a big boy,” he laughed, taking a sip of his drink. He brought us food from a shop down the street. I rolled my eyes and bit into my sandwich.
“I know he’ll be okay eventually, but you should’ve seen his face, Caddy. He looked like someone ripped his heart out.”
“Well, they kind of did,” he said, looking at me sympathetically. “You’re his whole world now. That wolf almost took you away from him.”
“I guess.”
“But it’ll work out,” he said optimistically. “And in the
