His eyes are wide with my exnation but he slowly removes his shirt as I’ve requested,

    “Put it on my desk.” I keep my calm helping him along when he appears lost.

    “Please.” He pleads helplessly.

    “It’s okay.” I try tofort him.

    “No sir. It’s not okay. I’m not okay.”

    “I know. That’s why I’m doing this. Don’t step away.”

    I instruct as I close the distance between us. He epts my embrace as I pull him into me

    again. There’s one test that I’ve never done with him as I’ve respected his sensitivity towards his back being touched but today I’m using that sensitivity to break him down in the hopes that he’ll be better able to handle leaving. It could also lead him into aplete breakdown requiring me to ce him on a mental health hold but I’m taking my chances.

    “What are you going to do to me?” He asks as he struggles toy his head on my shoulder.

    “I’m going to touch your back.” I exin as I guide his head down and pet the back of his

    head.

    “Please, sir. You don’t know how it feels to me.” He whimpers as he squeezes my shirt in reaction to my first touch on his left shoulder.

    “My touch will be light and gentle but you are right, you will need to let me know if it hurts you as I don’t know what you feel.”

    I speak as I slowly run my fingertips from his shoulder to his waist on the outermost edge of his back. He shifts ufortably but doesn’t make another sound. I take a step backwards, pulling him closer to the bedroom before moving my fingers about an inch towards his spine. This second spot is harder but still tolerated without much of a whimper. I keep up the pattern until we’re standing next to the bed and I’m within an inch of my fingers running directly along his spine. I ce my fingers on his neck preparing to go straight down along the bone but for the first time in ten minutes he can’t hold his tongue..

    “No alpha, this does hurt me. It’s been done enough for me to know without you doing it too.

    No. I can’t let you. No!”

    He’s shouting and fighting by the end of his statement. I let him push and hit meb; /bbarkb, /bscream

    b1/2 /b

    and yelp as he struggles to get away but my grip remains firm. I guide him to the bed as his fight tires and this time, wey chest to chest.

    I’m highly contemting putting him on a mental health hold bas /bchoosing to return to your home pack should never be this devastating. I allow him to calm in my hold for several minutes before I dare speak again.

    “I don’t want you to leave. Please Cole. Stay with me where it’s safe. Where you don’t have to go through the torture of knowing the pain of being beatenb, /bhungry and unjustly hated. What happened to your back? What happened to you when you were fifteen? So many times you have mentioned fifteen that it’s obvious to me that something major happened.”

    “I can’t talk about it.” He’s starting toe around quicker than I anticipated.

    “Why not?”

    “The day I tell you about my fifteenth birthday is the day I will need a true 72.”

    I can’t help but remain silent with his confession. He confirmed my suspicion that something bad happened but now I know it was beyond devastating. I know we have part of the story, he was hospitalized with septicemia but he’s never said how he contracted it making me think deeper into what he has said.

    His first shift was extremely painful. Based on his description it had to be traumatically painful for it to take a day or longer for him to recover from shifting from wolf to human. Combine that with his immediate fear of septicemia when Ang discovered infection in the burn around his leg and I’m starting to believe that the scar on his back happened around that time, his fifteenth birthday.

    I sit up next to him on the bed, petting his head, patiently waiting for him to start moving as well. He pushes himself gingerly from the mattress to a sitting position but he’s still tense and fearful.

    bChapter /bbComments /b

    01

    bPOST /bCOMMENT NOW