Caleb's P.O.V:
I raced through the forest, with Aurora on my back, holding on for dear life. She face was buried in my fur and I could feel her entire body trembling, but I was unable to tell if it was from fear or pain.
I took the path that led to the pack grounds. It was a longer path than the streets, but I wasn’t going to use the front entry as it was going to be surrounded by guests who were already told to leave by my father himself. I don’t know what happened to Shane, but I was sure that father would take care of him too. He was a fair and just Alpha and he didn’t differentiate in punishment, even if it was his own son.
‘Tell the doctors to prepare a bed and be ready to receive a human patient,’ I telepathed Jade, as he was the only one I could trust right now, apart from Caroline. ‘Inform Caroline too. I’m nearly there.’
I hadn’t trusted myself to take Aurora to a human hospital. I needed her to be near me, around people I could trust to treat her well and people who wouldn’t disobey my orders. That wouldn’t have been possible at a human hospital. And with the wounds that she had, there was no doubt that it would get the police involved. I could protect her better. My pack could protect her better than her own people.
Aurora was unconscious by the time I reached the emergency room in less than ten minutes, and Jade was already waiting there for me, with a team of nurses and a stretcher.
‘Careful! She has glass embedded on her body.’ I warned Jade as I came to a stop in front of the medical team and the nurses came rushing to my aid.
I could already see the horrified expression on their faces as they pried Aurora away from me and laid her down on the stretcher on her front to avoid the shards getting any deeper into her skin. And then they were whisking her away into the operating room.
A whine left my mouth as I tried to follow them, but Jade stood in my way, my clothes held in his hand as he told me to stop.
‘Go to your room and freshen up first.’He told me mentally. ‘You can’t be of any use to her as you are now. And the blood on your body will make everyone else worried.’
Knowing that Jade was right, and distancing myself from Aurora at the moment was the right thing to do, least I cause hindrance to her healing process, I grit my teeth and headed to my room.
I used the back door to enter the main pack house and the private elevators took me directly to my floor. Checking to see that the hallways were empty, I phased back into my human form as I entered my room and headed straight for the shower. I had Aurora’s blood on my fur that was now sticking to my back.
It hurt. Even when I felt the dried blood getting washed away by the shower…it still hurt. But I knew that I couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain Aurora must be in from what had just happened to her.
Aurora was in such an awful condition, fighting for her life. Her father had been cruel enough to do the unimaginable…to throw her to the dogs and run for his life while saving his own ass. There was glass sticking out of her arm for fuck’s sake!
I slammed my hand against the bathroom wall, watching it shatter under the force.
I wished it wasn’t the tiles but the face of the person who did this to Aurora! That Mr. Hemming! Fucker had the life span of a bloody cat! And her father! How could anyone do this to their own child?
They clearly weren’t human! Because humans were supposed to show compassion…but these people had acted worse than wild, rabid animals!
‘How’s it going?’I asked Jade, who was now looking after the team of doctors in charge of Aurora’s recovery. ‘How is she holding up?’
‘The doctors have put her under the sedatives used for wolves.’ Jade reported. ‘But she’s in bad shape. They found old burses, a fracture in her ribs that hadn’t healed right. Whatever happened to her today…it wasn’t a one-time thing. She’s been going through these for a while now…years probably.’
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
Years?
Aurora had been getting hurt for years…
Jade’s words reverberated inside my head until it was all I could hear.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I just couldn’t comprehend it. Here I was, living my best life; enjoying all the luxuries in the world that so many people couldn’t even dream about…and my mate had been suffering all this time, with no one by her side to lend a helping hand.
Everything came rushing back to me, right from the first day of high school. The first time I had tripped her in the cafeteria and blamed her for not looking at where she was going. When she had spilled water on my jacket, I had reminded her that she had to sell her kidneys to pay for it. When Mia and the others had made fun of her for wearing the same clothes over and over, or for wearing clothes from the Goodwill donation. When Shane had grabbed her collar and put his hand inside her shirt to leave a tip…
Everything came back to haunt me now. All the hurt, all the humiliation…all the misery that me and my friends had inflicted on her.
I fucked up. Big time.
These past two weeks, when I had realized that Aurora was my mate…all I had been thinking about was how I was going to accept someone who wasn’t an equal to me in any way or form…
Now, I realized my stupidity. I was a wolf. And once my wolf had chosen a mate, it was a permanent deal.
But Aurora wasn’t a wolf. She was human and she wouldn’t feel the impact of the imprint no matter what. So all my worries about myself not being able to accept her had been nothing but selfish and egotistic. Caroline was right; I never had to worry about any of that.
What I have to worry about now, was getting Aurora’s acceptance. And the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like an impossible task. She was never going to forgive me…not after everything I put her through.
Getting dressed in a simple T-shirt and jeans, I headed to the room where the doctors had shifted Aurora to after operating on her to get the glass shards out of her body. It was inside the main pack house, just two floors below the residential floor. Jade was already waiting for me there, along with the pack doctor, Damien Moore.
“How is she?” I asked past the guilt constricting my throat.
“For now she’s stable,” Damien gave me a sympathetic look. “But we have had to stitch the wounds inflicted by the glass. It seemed like they were from a bottle of alcohol. Aside from those, her left wrist was broken and we did find a few faded bruises on her body, possibly from previous assaults. A scan showed a tiny fracture on her third rib, but it can be all healed with medication.”
“So she’ll be alright?” I asked hopefully. “She’s going to get better, right?”
“Of course!” Damien assured me, trying his best to smile even thought it didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re going to monitor her for the next few days and she should be completely healed within a month at most. But I would advise you to make sure she doesn’t get back to the environment where she had been till now. It seems like she’s living with someone abusive; possibly a family member if she hasn’t reported that person yet.”
To even think about a family member being abusive sounded impossible to me. Pack was family and family looked out for each other. It was the motto of our pack, one that every wolf in the DarkWater pack believed in and followed till their last breath.
But Aurora’s father was a well know gambler and addict, so we had no idea what he was like to his own family…until now. Aurora had been getting hate for her father’s wrongdoings, but none of us had actually stopped to think what kind of life she had been living herself, and the fact that her father was a grown ass man who was responsible for his own behaviour, and his misconducts shouldn’t have been blamed on a minor.
“Thank you, Damien.” My voice was hoarse, filled with emotions that I couldn’t express. “For taking care of her.”
“Have strength, my boy. She will pull through.” Damien patted my shoulder before leaving me alone with Jade.
Only when the hallways were once again deserted and there wasn’t another person in sight that Jade finally turned to face me, his expression bleak.
“So…you shifted in front of her?” Jade asked, raising his eyebrows when I nodded. “That’s going to be tough to explain.”
“Tell me about it.” I sighed, rubbing at my temples as I felt a pounding headache. “But thanks man, for looking after her.”
“You looked like a delightful mess, so I took pity on you.” He shrugged.
“You should go home.” I told him finally, not in the mood for humor, but I did appreciate his effort to make the atmosphere lighter. “It’s getting late and I’m here now.”
“You sure you’ll be fine all alone?”
“Yeah.” I forced a smile. “I will.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.” Jade left without further complains, although he didn’t look all that convinced.
But it was fine this way. Aurora was my mate, my responsibility. It was time I owned up to all my mistakes.
‘Son.’My father’s voice rang inside my head, full of authority. ‘We need to have a discussion.’
Fuck! I think I spoke too soon.