5)

I rush to answer the knock at the door.

“Hey Faye. I just want to apologise for earlier. I didn’t… oh fuck! What happened?” Chiara reaches out.

Before Chiara can touch me I reach out and wipe the blood oozing from the wound on my cheek. My left eye waters at the contact. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You’re bleeding. It looks like…”

“FREYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” The voice booms from inside.

“Who is…”

“FUCKING WENCH!” Glass shatters inside and I wince.

“Chiara, I need you to never come back here unannounced again. Okay?”

“O-o-okay.” She looks shell shocked.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I promise.” I close the door as she walks away.

I head upstairs to my mothers room.

“Fucking whore.” She spits at me. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy with other people you could get me MY FUCKING WINE!”

She throws another vase at me. This one sends glass shooting into my side.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, hard enough to draw blood.

“Here.” I slam the bottle on the table. “I hope you choke on it.”

I whirl and leave her room, her wing.

Looking in the mirror, the fresh glass cuts on my side are superficial. But I can’t quite grab the pieces with my tweezers. And the gash on my cheek is oozing and might need stitches.

I walk back through the massive house to make sure the wench is asleep before climbing in my car and heading to the hospital. I walk over to the front desk.

“Hi.” I smile at the nurse behind the desk. She looks young and when she looks up at me she’s shocked.

“Hi.” She says wearily and a little shell shocked.

“I need to see the plastic surgeon on call please.”

She just nods still looking up at me.

“I also need an intern to take glass out of my side. And the paper work.” I smile sweetly at her before grabbing a clip board from in front of her. I’ve been to enough hospitals to know what happens.

“Do I need to call the police?” She asks, her hand shaking on the landline.

“No. Just page the intern and the plastic surgeon.” I lean against the desk and fill out all of the paper work quickly before handing it back to her. The ER is dead this evening so I get an eager intern quickly.

“Good evening Miss Hanning.” A tall and very handsome man in his 30’s arrives while looking at my chart. “I’m Dr Grieves. You requested the plastic surgeon on call.”

“Yes. I just wanted to make sure it’s not infected. And since I’m here I might as well make sure it doesn’t leave a scar.”

“That is nasty.” He comes closer and inspects the scar before sending the intern for supplies. “What’s it from?”

“Glass being thrown at me. Lucky for me, it didn’t achieve its goal of taking my head off.”

“Boyfriend?” He injects anaesthetic and leans back to look at me.

“Mother.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“No. Not the first. Definitely won’t be the last. And certainly not the worst. I would’ve stitched myself but like I said, I was worried about it being infected.”

“It’s not infected. And you shouldn’t be stitching yourself up.” He leans forward to inspect it again.

“Oh why not? I’ve gotten so good at it.” I say with a smirk.

“Have you?” He looks at me with consent and amusement.

“Oh yes.” I pull up my sleeve to show my wrist. The small faint scar is barley visible. “This I did…” I think. “Two years ago? My mother stabbed me with her heroine needle and instead of pulling it out, she dragged it. I couldn’t go to a hospital because they would’ve called the police on me because I had an injury from a heroine needle. It wasn’t an awe full cut, it was just deep.” He inspects the faint scar with admiration. “This one isn’t even the most spectacular.”

I lift my shirt to my show my ribs. The scar was neat and still fading.

“This one was from a couple months ago. I was stabbed with a knife. And all knife woulda have to be reported. I was about to leave the country so I didn’t want a whole case. So…” I shrugged. “I stitched it up.”

“It’s outstanding.” I ran his finger across the scar. “It takes medical professionals years to get it this perfect.”

“I’ve had years of practice. Mending clothes. Stitching prostitutes up after nasty incidents. Stitching my mothers slit wrists. More recently, stitching myself up. I’ve had 5 years of practice.”

“Maybe I should call the police.” He says to himself while he stitches my cheek up.

“And tell them what exactly?” A say, barley moving my lips.

“I don’t know.”

“So then it’s best you don’t.”

_______________________________

Jared:

“Jared.” Chiara sprints down the hall to me. “I need to talk to you.”

“What’s wrong?” I hold her arms. She looks so panicked. Aidan hurries out from his office.

“It’s about Faye.”

“What about her?” I can’t help the panic in my voice.

“Maybe we should go into Aidan’s office.”

“Chiara!” I growl at her.

“Well, she phoned me earlier because she had a date.”

Flint growls at her words. ‘I told you!’ He snaps at me. ‘You should’ve made a move sooner.’

‘Shut up.’ I growl back.

“Then she told me it was Hadley so I rushed over to try and talk her out of it. While I was there she got a phone call. She canceled the date because she had to go to the hospital to fetch her mother. She was so mean when I tried to go with her. So later I went to check on her and…” she hesitates.

“What?”

“She didn’t look so great. She had a massive cut down her cheek. It looked like one even a wolf would need stitches for.”

“Let’s go.” Aidan said from behind me. “Chiara please will you find Danika and let her know.”

“I’m coming with.” She says defiantly.

“No. You’re not.” Aidan says in his Alpha voice. “Do as you’re told, Chiara.”

Chiara snarls at him but can’t defy his Alpha command.

We head downstairs to jump into Aidan’s SUV and head the hospital. She was probably at the one out Pack runs because that’s the central one for town.

Aidan parks the car and we start to head inside.

“Thank you for coming with.” I say to Aidan.

“Of course. She’s gonna be my beta female. I need to look out for her.” He says with a smile.

Just as we reach the door Aidan calls my name. I turn to face him and he throws a punch. I don’t have time to react as his fist connects with my jaw.

“Fuck.” I grab my dislocated jaw.

“Sorry dude. But love hurts.” Aidan wraps his arm over my shoulder with a smirk and leads me inside. “I need some help here.”

Nurses hurry towards us and doctors get paged quickly. There are a couple of people already waiting in the ER but the future Alpha and Beta of the strongest pack take priority.

Aidan’s bleeding hand gets taken care of by the head nurse while the plastic surgeon and orthopaedic surgeon are called. While I get taken care of by a flirty, young nurse.

“What was that for?” I ask Aidan once my jaw is reset.

“We had to have a reason for coming to the ER. We couldn’t just rock up here and ask for Faye.”

“How come I couldn’t hit you then?”

“Firstly because she’s your mate, you get the most pain. Secondly, I’m already in the dog box with Danika. Do you think a dislocated jaw would’ve gone down well?”

“No.” I admit. For everyone’s sake it’s better I got the fucked up jaw.

“Everything looks good.” The very handsy orthopaedic surgeon flutters her eyes at me. “I’ll send for your discharge papers.”

“Thank you.” I say with a small smile. I have no interest in her but I’m still polite.

That’s when I smell her. Her gorgeous strawberry and cream scent. Then I see her sexy legs standing at the main desk. Even if shorts, t-shirt and flip flops she looks sexy. Her hair is up in a messy bun. Fuck she’s pretty.

“Hey Faye.” Aidan shouts. She turns and smiles at us with confused eyes.

“Hey guys.” She hands the nurse her forms and walks over. “What brings you here?”

“Fight.” Aidan says. I can’t take my eyes off of her.

“Fight?” She looks at me worried.

“We were walking back from getting dinner for Danika and some guys jumped up. We had to fight them off but we’re okay. They gave a good fight. Jared took the worst of it from the two of us but the other guys are worse off.”

“Oh darling.” She walks over and runs her hands through my hair. “Can I get you something from the cafe? Maybe a milkshake? Or something warm?”

“No. I’m fine.” I lean into her hand. She smiles down at me and keeps playing with my hair. “Why are you here?” I can’t help my anticipation. Whoever hurt her is going to suffer.

“A little oopsie in the bathroom. I slipped and hit my cheek on the corner of the counter.” She absentmindedly lifts her hand up to gently touch her cheek. Her eyes look dead though.

“Shit.” Aidan says but I don’t believe her story.

“It happens a lot. I’m rather clumsy.” Her voice is flat.

“Well.” Her demeanour lightens. “I should be heading home.” She looks down at me with a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning for the trip.”

And then, she walks away.