Shatter Pieces

Chapter 32: Holding Her

Mateo

This sight was becoming all too familiar to me and I really didn't like that. Holding my passed out mate in my arms for the second time in only a couple of days was not how I had envisioned my first week with my mate going. It worried me that she spent so much of her time away from the world passed out and trapped in a mind that seemed intent on destroying any semblance of relief she felt being here with me.

"Alpha I can feel your worry through the bond. This isn't abnormal for not only abuse victims but also people who have been forced not to sleep. From what I was able to gather from her time in the hospital Elvira trained her body to simply relax while her eyes were closed and true sleep wasn't a part of her normal schedule. Obviously it had to shut down occasionally but considering the way we found her it probably happened against her will.

But her body needs the rest, badly enough I probably would have given her a sedative after I checked her anyways. Without the help of a wolf to heal her she is stuck with human healing speeds and even then with her conditions this will take longer than any of us are really prepared for. We are all so used to wolf healing speeds that it will seem to take her far too long to get better when in reality it's what the humans in the pack deal with every time something happens." Karthan reassured me, placing his medical kit on a side table close to where I held my mate in my arms.

There weren't many humans in my pack but a few people had human mates and their children while mostly wolves could be human. It was never something we judged on or prosecuted anyone for after all it's not like they could control it. Besides that there was nothing wrong with being a human they could train and be strong just like any wolf. They would never have the heightened senses or quite the same strength, but they were still valuable to the pack. Human wolf children made especially good spys because they could inherit the senses of one parent while still retaining the human looks and smell from the other, essentially making them undetectable.

In other packs they were seen as abominations and a few had even outlawed human wolf matings but most of those who believed in those kinds of things lived in third world countries or far out in the forests where they were unlikely to run into any humans anyway. The belief that humans were inferior to wolves had mostly been eradicated about a hundred and fifty years ago and was really only taught in classes to make sure that children didn't get the wrong ideas and knew that wolves weren't perfect. While packs tended to be more efficient and run smoother than most human societies we had our flaws just like everyone else did.

"Logically I know that, my dad warned me this was proably going to happen but I just wasn't ready to see it like this you know. I was ready for her to go to stand up and collapse from exhaustion or be reading a book and pass out on the bed or something. I hadn't thought she was going to be having panic attacks at what seem to be random times and pass out from exertion after she used all her strength trying to escape some perceived threat. Especially when she thinks I am the threat or that I let the threat in." I gently laid her head on my shoulder and shifted her body so it was stradling mine.

"I just...I never thought that my mate would be afraid of me. I thought she was going to come running into my arms and we would laugh and kiss and the world would just pause around us. And it does it pauses sometimes but it's when I see her eating pudding with this look of such joy that I know it comes because she hasn't eaten in who knows how long and even longer since she's had something that tastes good. It all stops when I walk in and find her struggling to read a children's book with that cute stutter of hers and she struggles on the word beneath because she hadn't learned it before she was taken. And every time she stutters, that adorable stutter that is only there because everyone she can ever remember beat her to oblivion if she so much as made a sound they didn't give her permission for." I slowly got to my feet her body wrapping tightly around mine because her unconscious mind recognized me for who I was to her. That I was her protector and wouldn't let her be harmed, I would take care of her when no one else had attempted to do so for years.