It Begins With a Rogue's Bite (11 page)

She turned her head to a more comfortable position and her voice began to slur. “I had to call the cops to kick him out of my apartment because he wouldn’t leave…”

By now, she was fast asleep.

“Don’t worry, Cheryl. He can’t hurt you here. He’ll never hurt you ever again, I promise,” Thomas whispered while continuing to caress her head.

The look in his brother’s eyes told Shane that his heart went out to her as did Shane’s. All that she had been through. Hell, what he went through with Marian seemed like a walk in park compared to what she had gone through.

From her words and expression, it still pained her and the vulnerability she showed was intense.

He caressed her hand one last time before getting up to follow Thomas to the door. His mind wandered to what Dr. Jonas had said. They needed to be there for her when her werewolf sexual urges rose.

Now, after hearing all Cheryl had been through and knowing how her heart still hurt, he didn’t think he could go through with it. It would be like toying with her mind. No, she’d had enough of that.

What Cheryl needed now was someone to help her forget about the past, just like Thomas helped him. She needed someone to comfort her emotionally and show her just how special and beautiful she really was and that she deserved so much more than the monster of a boyfriend she’d had.

Chapter Twelve

They had an unexpected guest. The moment they stepped through the door, they found Dr. Jonas in there observing Cheryl through the mirror and taking notes on her blasted chart. When did she get there? They hadn’t been with Cheryl for more than twenty minutes. Didn’t the good doctor say she’d be coming to see them much later?

A funny feeling crawled up Thomas’s spine that it wasn’t a coincidence the doctor was there. The idea that maybe they had a hidden camera in Cheryl’s room and spied on hers and their every move without them knowing about it settled in the center of his mind, and he contemplated asking Dr. Jonas if his hunch were right.

But after further thought, he figured he’d leave that for a later time. He didn’t want to open a can of worms and show their lack of trust in her or The Haven. Not that there was any lack of trust really, not yet at least.

Closing the door behind him, Shane said, “Hi, Dr. Jonas. Why are you back so early and how did you know Cheryl woke up?”

So much for waiting for a later time to ask the question. Shane never could maintain patience. Now that the questions lay on the table, Thomas stood, curious, waiting for her reply.

She smiled and apparently having finished what she needed to write, put her pen in the breast pocket of her lab coat. “That’s a good question.” She paused, then continued. “Instead of using standard wired heart monitors, we use wireless monitors that are put around the patient’s wrist. It continually takes an EKG. When her heart rate increased to high numbers, I came up to check on her fearing the electrolytes in her body had become imbalanced again and may have gone to dangerous levels, which would have affected her heart.

“But when I peeked through the door window, I saw she was awake and all right and that you both were with her.”

Marvel spread over Shane’s face. “Hmm, a wrist monitor.”

She nodded. “Yes, only it doesn’t monitor the wrist’s pulse, but sends a signal to monitor the heart, like an electrocardiogram would.”

Who cared about the wrist monitor? Thomas needed more important questions answered.

“Why did she wake up, Doctor? Didn’t you say the sedative you gave her was strong and she’d be out for at least eight hours?”

“Yes, I did say that.” She stared blankly at him.

“Well, then why did she wake up?” Thomas hated it when people didn’t answer the question right and just toyed with time and his patience.

Dr. Jonas gazed at her patient through the mirror while replying, “She’s beginning to remember. Her shock and fear pulled her out of sleep temporarily.”

He squinted. “You heard our conversation?”

“Yes, I did. You left the monitor on.” She pointed with her chin toward the monitor on the table.

Thomas didn’t like the fact the doctor heard their discussion. He was sure what Cheryl told him and his brother in confidence wasn’t something she wanted the doctor hearing. To her, Cheryl was a patient like any other. Her patient’s suffering probably slid off her toughened exterior.

He understood doctors needed to keep a distance, be detached from their patients for professional reasons, and the fact she heard such bone-deep personal confessions of Cheryl’s bothered Thomas. The doctor then continued, “I believe it’s a good sign her memories of what happened to her are slowly surfacing in her subconscious.” Avoiding further eye contact with Thomas, she tapped her finger against the chart she held in her hand.

Shane frowned. “Why, Doctor?”

“Because that means she’ll soon be ready to face all her memories of the attack in her conscious state. Then she can accept she was bitten by a werewolf and that there is no turning back now. She must accept her fate so the process of the transition will be easier on her.”

She glanced at Cheryl again through the one-way mirror. “The fact that she confided in you about her other traumatic experience with such ease is an extremely good sign.”

“Now how could her painful experience and confession be a good sign?” The doctor’s assessment of her patient began to bother Thomas.

She squinted, obviously sensing his hostile tone. “The ease with which she confided it to you both, with no hesitation, shows she trusts you implicitly.”

She gazed out the window at the descending sun. “When the full moon rises this evening and she awakens, she’ll turn to you with no delay. That’s when she’ll need you the most.”

Before Thomas could ask her to clarify her statement, she continued. “She’ll awaken sexually hungry, full of lust. And the ones she’ll turn to right away to release her wanton urges on will be you two. There’ll be no hesitation, only the insatiable need for a desperate release.”

Chapter Thirteen

What? She couldn’t be serious? The shock whipped Shane right in the face.

He didn’t believe what the doctor just said. After she heard Cheryl’s confession, that her emotional scars obviously hadn’t healed but were ripe and painful, how could she expect them to have sex with her?

“What? No way,” he blurted in rage.

“I don’t understand?” She frowned. “Doctor Whitmore informed me that you’d assist the patient in any way possible. I assumed you had also agreed to be her partners when she was ready for sexual release.”

“Yes, we agreed,” Thomas replied with a stern expression.

Holy shit! Who was this person standing beside him? Certainly not his brother. Was he the only one who’d actually heard the pain in Cheryl’s voice?

“Thomas, that was before. How can you still want to participate in this after what you heard her say?” Shane questioned.

Thomas frowned. “I heard her, Shane. And it pained me to see her hurting.”

“So then why do you still want to be a part of this,” sneering, he briefly glanced at the doctor while continuing, “this experiment?”

Before Thomas could reply, the doctor answered in a raised voice. “This is not an experiment, Mr. Bicks. The end results are always the same. If the patient doesn’t have sexual release during a full moon numerous times until her sexual desires subside, she will turn into a werewolf and will want to feast on human flesh. And once that happens, eating humans will become an addiction.”

“‘The patient has a name, Dr. Jonas,” Thomas stated.

“Very well. If Cheryl Brete doesn’t have sexual release until her urges subside, she will transform into the beast and will kill to sate her animalistic hunger.” The doctor huffed.

“We have no choice, Shane,” Thomas added.

“She is still hurting from a painful experience in her past, Thomas. If we have sex with her—and believe me there’s nothing I want more—it’ll hurt her. When she is in that lustful state, where she has no control over her thoughts and emotions, she won’t know what she’s doing. After it’s over and she realizes what happened, she’ll regret it.”

“And if we don’t, she’ll turn and will kill. I think she’d regret that more, no?”

The doctor piped into their argument, “Your assumption is wrong, Mr. Bicks. She won’t be inebriated as with the effects of alcohol. She will have complete rein over her emotions and thoughts.”

“Yeah, but she won’t have control over her body. And, in my eyes, it’s the same thing as if she’s drunk.”

“You are free to believe what you wish, Mr. Bicks. But your opinion doesn’t change her situation. If you weigh the pros and cons, sexual release is the best solution.”

Shane paced, thinking. The doctor’s words had him clutching at straws. “You say it’s the best solution, but there must be another one, other than allowing her to transform and kill.”

Dr. Jonas stated. “Well, we could sedate her heavily until the full moon passes and the sexual urge subsides. But it won’t solve the problem. It may worsen it.”

“How so?” Thomas asked, sitting on the edge of his bed.

“In patients who chose not to mate but be sedated on their first full moon, their urge to transform into the beast did subside, but only temporarily. For some, the urge become more uncontrollable with each full moon until the strongest sedatives had no effect anymore. They turned into the beast and were unable to transform back.”

She walked to the mirror, staring at her dim reflection in the glass. Turning to face them, she continued. “Out of two hundred patients who decided to follow this treatment, thirty turned into the beast, never to transform to their human states again.”

Shane mumbled, “Thirty out of two hundred.”

She sighed. “Yes. With such a high ratio, we decided not to give the patients the option unless…”

His heart skipped a beat with hope. “Unless what, Doctor?” he urged her.

“Unless they showed characteristics of non-aggressive, passive behavior and physically, the stress of intense and repetitive sexual release would put too much of a strain on their bodies.”

She took a deep breath and pointed her pen in the air. “In Miss Brete’s case, that is not the situation.”

“She doesn’t display aggressive behavior, but passive,” Shane argued.

“Yes, but that doesn’t guarantee she won’t turn.”

Suddenly, her beeper buzzed. “Excuse me.” She checked it and walked to the door. “This is an emergency, and I must go. As for Miss Brete, I am her physician, and in our werewolf haven, I have the final word. The risk is too high to contain her urges with sedatives, especially considering she awoke just now after being heavily sedated. If you and your brother don’t want to be her sexual partners when the time comes, then we’ll find other males who will.
At least two males are needed, otherwise it won’t be effective.

“You have a few more hours to make your decision.” She closed the door behind her without even waiting for their response.

Shane looked at his brother, and for the first time in his life, he was at a loss for words.

Chapter Fourteen

Silence enshrouded Thomas while his mind screamed for guidance. He sat at the table next to the one-way mirror in his room staring at Cheryl sleep while he finished swallowing the last morsel of his turkey sandwich.

He and Shane had gone down to the cafeteria to get something to eat half an hour ago. His brother didn’t talk much when they were down there, but he could see the tension in Shane’s clenched jaw as he ground his teeth. Whenever his brother was that wound up, Thomas knew to give him space and let him cool off. That’s why he left him there and came up to eat his sandwich and salad alone.