Treasure Ch. 41-45

Rori felt like she was floating under the water; her senses were deadened, and she didn't know what was going on. It wasn't the first time she'd woken from a drug-induced slumber, and she knew to relax and let herself wake slowly. Over the next few minutes, her hearing sharpened and she focused on the scents.

It smelled like oil, gas and sweat. She picked through the scents, most were stagnant, but one was stronger than the others. Doctor Nygaard, she remembered him from the hospital. She listened and heard the road noise and the sounds of cars and motorcycles. She opened her eyes, she was in a van. It was daylight out, and Doc was driving.

Doc? She tried to move, and pain shot up her back. She let out a pained cry, alerting him that she was awake. "Don't move, Rori, you're still pretty torn up. That bear did a number on you," he said.

She thought back, this time was different. She remembered it all as she sorted through what happened in her mind. The swimming, the bear, her shift and her fight with the bear. She remembered the paw ripping her open as she was slammed into the water, and the pain of crawling from the water and back upstream. Her Mom and stepfather, helping her, then carrying her until it all went black again. "Where... where am I," she asked.

"An hour from the clubhouse in Portland," he said. "Your parents called me for help. Your wounds were bad, and you nearly bled to death, but you're going to heal. I'll take care of you, Rori, I'll always be here to take care of you."

"Mom?"

"She's fine. They went with Wolfman back up to Renton. Roadkill called the Club for help after you got hurt."

"Why didn't they come with me?" She couldn't believe her Mom would leave her alone when she couldn't even move without pain.

"It was important for you to disappear, and they have to return to Florida soon. It's a long story."

"It's a long ride, isn't it?"

Chase just laughed. "I guess you're right." She felt the van start to slow, then make a right turn. She could see the sign for the gas station. "We're stopping?"

"Yeah, time to gas and go. Are you hungry?"

She was quiet for a bit. "A little. I have to go to the bathroom."

"I'll get you some food and figure something out. We had to sew your back, butt and leg back together, and you shouldn't be walking much less sitting on a gas station toilet seat." Chase parked the van and asked her to stay where she was. She listened as he opened the gas cap and started fueling, then hung the nozzle back up.

The door opened, and her eyes protested the light briefly before the smell hit her. Her wolf was instantly forward, she recognized the smell, it was the she-wolf she had fought that night when they tried to take her. The woman at the door was tall and blonde, and her senses screamed danger. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, the pain causing her to cry out as she felt scabs rip open. "Wait, it's all right, I'm not going to hurt you," the woman said.

"You bit me," Rori said.

"I'm sorry. I was trying to stop you, so we could help you. My name is Coral, Coral Nygaard."

"You're his wife?" The thought caused her stomach to flip. "Mate is OURS," her wolf roared in her mind.

She laughed. "No, I'm his sister, his twin sister," she said. Her body and wolf relaxed, that explained her being here. "Please, lay down again before you hurt yourself even more. Trust me, I'm not feeling great either, but I've got a few days of healing on you." She lifted her shirt, showing the parallel lines from where Rori had ripped open her stomach with her back claws. "You don't know how embarrassing it was to lose a fight to a wolf who didn't even know what she was," she said as she lowered it again. "I've been training to be a warrior my whole life, and you still got away."

"You were trying not to hurt me, and I was fighting for my life," she said as she sank back to the makeshift bed. "I really have to pee."

"Well, that's actually why I'm here. Can I come in?" Rori nodded, and she climbed up and closed the door. In the confined space, she could sense her smell, her clothes also having Chase and her parents on her. She relaxed as Coral opened a bag. "It isn't the most pleasant way to do this, but my brother insists you don't leave the bed." She tore open a small packed and removed an adult diaper, holding it up.

"Depends? Really?"

"It will relieve you. Just relax and don't move too much, I'll get it in place." Rori was wearing only a big T-shirt that held Chase's scent, so she moved it up out of the way and placed the diaper around her. "Just let go, these things can absorb liters of fluid."

She felt helpless, but her need won out and she let it flow. When she was done, Coral took the heavy diaper and put it back in the bag, then used some baby wipes to clean her up before covering her up again. "Thanks," Rori said.

"Anything for my new sister," she said. "I have to go, Chase is waiting outside, and I have my own Harley to ride. We'll talk later," she said with a smile. She jumped out the back, closing the door behind her. "You could have warned her," Coral scolded her brother. "She hurt herself trying to get away from me because she remembered my smell from the hillside."

"Shit, I forgot you two have history."

"You'll need to check her dressings when we get there, she may have pulled some stitches out. Don't scare my sister like that again," she said before the driver's side door opened.

"That's twice now," Rori said to him. "Twice she's called me her sister."

"She has more confidence in me than I do," he said as he started up the van. She heard the Harleys firing up around them, and they followed them back onto the road. "You're my mate, my one true love, the woman I want to call mine for the rest of my life."

"You barely know me!"

"I don't need to know you, I fell in love with you the first time I laid eyes on you. My wolf is in full agreement, I am yours and I want you to be mine." He paused for a moment as the turned. "What does your wolf say?"

"She says you're my mate, and she wants to drop down, present her sex and have you pound into her until you leave her pregnant," she said as her face turned red. "She's a shameless hussy, this wolf of mine."

"Our wolves are alike then. Mine wants to chase you down, pin you to the ground and put a pup in you too."

"Oh God, she's not going to take over and... oh God... I barely know you... I've never done, I mean, I've never even kissed a guy. The things she's telling me to do to you are obscene!"

Chase wanted to laugh, but he needed to reassure her. "Our wolves are part of us, I trust mine because we are two halves of the same coin. He won't take advantage of you because he wants you to love BOTH of our sides, for both of your sides to love us, before we mate completely. I've waited for you for over a decade, Rori. You feel innocent and inexperienced, but I do too."

She scoffed. "Really? You're gorgeous, you're a DOCTOR, and every time you passed the desk those nurses were undressing you with their eyes. You've probably had more ass than a toilet seat in Grand Central Station."

"I've never kissed a woman on the lips, and I'm a virgin too," he said. "I didn't date, I didn't fool around. I wanted my mate, no matter how long it would take to find her, and I didn't want her to wonder if some other woman had done something with me first. You are the first and last woman I'll ever kiss, ever hold, or ever make love to."

He got quiet, and Rori closed her eyes and considered what he just confessed to her. She was shocked; that kind of thing just didn't happen in the world. Her wolf was jumping about in her mind, giddy over his confession of love. She thought back to how she felt when she thought Coral was his wife, the rage and possessiveness she had over him. Her wolf was there already, but she was nervous. "Tell me about yourself," she said as she settled back into the blanket. "Why did you become a doctor?"

"I should probably tell you something about Packs first." He explained the structure of a Pack, the ranks and the basics of how they functioned. She had a lot of questions when she found out he was the third son of the Alpha. "Can anyone be an Alpha?"

"Not really, being an Alpha requires a dominant wolf. Most Packs the Alpha position is hereditary. In my old Pack, my father has been training my oldest brother, Sawyer, to replace him for over a century now and he probably won't take the spot for another century or more."

"Wait, century? How old is he?"

"Coral and I are the pups of the family, we're twenty-five. Sawyer is a hundred and thirty-three, while Carson is eighty-eight. Carson is training to be Sawyer's Beta. My Dad is only two hundred and twenty-six, still in his prime."

"Wow." She couldn't get her mind around that kind of lifespan. "So why aren't you the Alpha?"

"My wolf isn't that dominant; I'm a caretaker, not a fighter. I mean, I can fight if I need to, but Coral's wolf is more dominant than mine, and she has made a life out of fighting. She is a warrior now and was loaned to another pack at Beta rank to teach wolves how to fight."

Her wolf preened a little in her mind, proud of herself for beating her. "I bet she'd be fun to spar with," she said.

"She'd love that." He snuck a glance back at her in the mirror and smiled. "Since I was not in line for one of the major Pack positions and my interests lay elsewhere, I went into medicine. Pack Doctors are very important and respected members, and it was a good way to contribute."

"Why psychiatry? That seems to be a little specialized for someone who is working only with their own Pack." He had explained that Packs were normally between twenty and three hundred members, and how there were only eleven recognized Packs in North America.

"A little over a year ago, one of the Packs was found to be breaking our laws and harming our members. Forced matings, abuse, sexual assaults and slavery, it was a mess. The Alpha and his senior leadership were tried by the Council, most of them executed for their crimes. The abuse was so systemic, the children growing up were taught for it to be normal. The victims were a mess, too; their physical wounds would heal, but mentally it was a minefield."

"Oh God, you saw that?"

"Yes. During my summer break I had an internship with the Pack Doctor and saw just how much care was needed. We couldn't bring in humans, and this is what convinced me I needed to become a psychiatrist. I could still do the things a normal Pack doctor would do, but I'd be able to help them too."

She thought back to all the doctors who had tried to "help" her during her time. "I hope they are smarter than my doctors. Most of them just gave me drugs and convinced me everything I heard in my mind was something wrong with me. Even after I escaped from that compound and saw those wolves turn into men, I convinced myself that I was mentally ill and was having hallucinations. I never gave it another thought."

"They are doing what they can." He sighed, figuring honesty was the best policy. "The other reason was you."

"Me? You didn't know me!"

"The Council knew by then who you were, that you were a werewolf without knowledge of what she was, and how you ran from your family."

Her eyes got big. "Family?"

"Yes. Charles is your grandfather, and Martin is your uncle. They had thought you to be dead for fifteen years, but you were in hiding and they didn't know how to reveal themselves. They sent a Pack member, Ashley, in to befriend you and got you to go to their Pack lands on vacation. Your wolf shifted, ran around, she was happy there. They were shocked when you took off, and that is when the Council got directly involved."

"Oh God..."

"No one knew what to do, never had a wolf been so estranged from it's human side. We gathered as much information as we could get on you, and my boss gave it all to me. I researched anything I could find on problems like this, becoming an expert on how to help you. We all expected you would be found and brought to us within days, but that didn't happen, and then I had to go back to school."

"Ashley... oh God, she was trying to help me?"

"They were. It didn't start that way, the people in the woods and in the hospital were members of the Pack that was later dissolved. They were going to kidnap you and force you to mate their Alpha, but you got away. Their failure at the hospital is what led the Council to investigate, and eventually eliminate them. In New York and Seattle, both times we were trying to help you. Coral feels really bad about it, she was supposed to stop you from running and instead you jumped on a semi."

"I didn't know." Her head hurt, she was having to rethink almost everything she thought she knew. "Why? Why did the Alpha want ME?"

"You're special, Rori. You are the only daughter of the Arrowhead Pack Alphas, a Pack that was wiped out when you were a year old by the same Alpha that tried to capture you in Minnesota. He killed dozens of us, including your parents, because you are werewolf royalty. You are the last firstborn female descendent of the first werewolf, King Lycanos, and that comes with a blessing of fertility. Our females go into heat once a year, but the success rate is between one and two percent. My parents, even with the blessings of being fate mates, have only had the four of us in a century and a half of mated life. You could have a baby with every heat. You could singlehandedly grow a Pack from nothing to the most populous in the world, and that makes you a target, just like it made your mother a target."

She couldn't handle it all at once, her head was swimming with everything he told her. Rori's eyes rolled back as her body shut down, and she slumped down to the bed as Chase called her name.

Ch. 42

Coral backed her motorcycle up in the parking lot of the Portland chapter of the Steel Brotherhood. She felt a little nervous; she had no status here to speak of. She wasn't a Steel Lady, a girlfriend or a relative. Their status was solely based on a request from Wolfman to hide Rori for them, and Canvas' status with the club.

She put her helmet under one arm and pulled off her saddlebags, which now held all her worldly possessions. A few of the members who had ridden with her walked her towards the door, where more were waiting. "This is Coral, she's a friend of the Club," the President said to everyone. Thor's word was enough, and everyone welcomed the beautiful blonde biker as Chase backed the van up towards the door.

"She's in bad shape, we're going to need six guys to move her without tearing out her stitches," she said.

The guys stepped forward as Coral opened the back door. Rori was sleeping, she didn't move when she jumped in. "Chase, is she still out?"

"She fell asleep about twenty minutes ago. It's better to move her when she's asleep." Coral had to agree, her stomach was still sore, and it wasn't near as bad as what Rori had. They arranged the blanket around her as she lay on her stomach, then took hold of the top-most sleeping bag. "Treat it like you're carrying a coffin, the idea is to keep her as flat as we can," she told everyone. They worked together to scoot her out the back, with a prospect ahead of them opening the doors.

The moved her slowly up the stairs and to her guest room on the second floor. The boxes and suitcases that had been moved down a few days earlier were on the floor by the closet, and a small bathroom was attached. The men backed out, and the twins carefully moved her under the covers. "One of us is with her at all times," Chase said, "And I'd rather that be me."

"I'll find out where we are staying and get our stuff settled," Coral said. She went back down, bringing in Rori's bag and Chase's medical kit first. On the way out, she was stopped by Thor. "We thought we'd have Roadkill and Possum sharing the other guest room, it's all I have open right now. I can look for a hotel room or something?"

"Not needed," she said. "Chase won't leave her room. I'll take the other room, and if there's anything we can do for the Club while we are here, just let us know. We really appreciate you taking us all in while she heals."

"I didn't even know Canvas had a boyfriend."

"It's kind of fast, but he's more than just Rori's doctor. He'll take good care of her."

"Well, let him know that dinner is between six and eight, and the bar really starts hopping after that. You both are welcome to come down and get to know everyone. Especially you," he said with a grin. She looked at his left hand, no ring. Coral had been in enough of these Clubhouses to know how wild they could get, and she wasn't putting up with it for her assignment now. Like her brother, she wanted her mate and wasn't looking for play time.

"I'll be down for dinner later, then. Maybe we can play some pool or something." He smiled and let her go, and then she went back into the room. "Hey, I've got almost nothing in the way of clothes, and you're not much better. I'm going to make a run if you want anything."

"Sure, I can use some changes. Rori has her clothes here, so she should be all right." He made a list of what he wanted with sizes, and two hours later she came back with a full backpack and some extra medical supplies. The two of them were holding hands and talking, him sitting in a chair next to the bed while she lay on her side. "How's it going?"

"Better," he said. "She's had a lot to take in today."

"It is a little much to find out you are werewolf royalty and a baby factory, plus you have this old guy as your mate," she said with a grin.

"Old? I'm not the one using Depends," he said as he sat back in a huff.

"No more of that, here you go," Coral said as she pulled a plastic bedpan out of the backpack.

She looked at her like she was nuts, but Chase nodded. "It's going to be a day or two before you can sit up comfortably, and until then the toilet won't work."

"Why don't you go down and get both of you some food, and I'll keep her company," Coral offered. Chase didn't want to, but his mate needed to eat a lot to build her strength and heal, so he was out the door. She sat in the chair. "I didn't want to ask this with him around, but I need to know what you are comfortable with for sleeping arrangements." Her face blushed. "I've got the room next door, and I know that possessive lug of a mate of yours plans to stay right here with you. I also figured he hadn't asked you what you wanted or what you were comfortable with. So... you can stay in here alone, I can stay here with you at night and he can go next door, or he can stay here with you."

She thought about it for a moment. "I feel better with him around. My wolf is telling me he will help me heal faster. I want him to sleep here, but I'm not ready to, you know... sleep with him?"

"I'll make sure he understands he can't take advantage of you, not that you're in any state to do anything. I'm glad you're letting him, because he'd probably sleep outside your door if you didn't let him in here." She giggled as she thought about how much he had changed. "I'm so happy you two found each other. My brother is a good person, and he'll never hurt you. You can trust him and his wolf."

"I know he is." She got a dreamy look on her face. "It doesn't hurt that he's hot as hell. Those muscles!"

"Ewww, that's my brother," Coral laughed. "Chase, I talked to her, she wants you to stay in her room with her but don't crowd her, she isn't ready to wake up with you poking her in the back or anything."

"I wasn't going to do that! My wolf and I aren't going to do anything she isn't comfortable with. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"What were you just doing?"

"Mind link," Coral answered. "When bonded by Pack or family, we can communicate mentally with each other."