Saving Briar

The phone vibrated in Torin’s pocket and he moved quickly to pick it up, using the call as an excuse to put distance between himself and the beautiful wolf shifter that the beast inside him kept demanding he touch. Fuck. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. Or worse, he could. He just didn’t want to. Because if he remembered he would have to admit to himself how very fucked he actually was.

It was Ted on the other end of the line, which was actually kind of perfect. He needed to talk to the good Doctor anyways. He had plenty of questions for him, although he wasn’t sure how many answers Ted would have. Pointing to his phone he saw the small She-Wolf nod and turn her gaze towards the meal in front of her. She’d been picking at her food steadily but she really hadn’t managed to eat much at all. He guessed it was because she was so malnourished. Her stomach was hardly accustomed to having more than tiny amounts of food in it. He sure as Hell wanted to make sure that changed in the coming days.

“Ted? Did you make it to Oaklyn’s?” He walked across the room, relieved to put some distance between himself and the distracting little wolf. When he was near her the Beast within him was becoming more and more on edge, a fact that he was trying hard not to look too deeply into.

With the cold weather and the lack of threats, or really any sort of business to attend to other than the monotony of day to day life, the enormous Kodiak that was very much a part of him had been quieter than usual of late. But now he was wide awake, alternating between being fiercely protective and wanting to hold the small dark haired creature in his arms all the time.

It would have bothered Torin a great deal less if he believed that his bear’s motivation mainly revolved around keeping Briar safe. But he could feel a confusing array of emotions coming through from the great behemoth, and some of them he didn’t want to admit to, because his human side was struggling with the exact same emotions.

“Yeah, I’ve been here for a while now. She’s made me feel right at home.” Torin heard feminine laughter in the background, and couldn’t help but shake his head. He was sure that Oaklyn was doing just that.

Her own mate had been killed some years earlier, during a robbery and in the aftermath she’d reacted in the opposite way that Torin had. While he’d lived almost like a monk, alone far from civilization, only emerging to perform his duties as a leader, and only then, doing the bare minimum that was required of him, she had thrown herself into the arms of whoever was there to hold her, taking solace in the man, or sometimes woman, of the moment. She did whatever was necessary to block out the painful memory of her lost mate, as much as that was even possible.

The only real rule that Torin knew that she had was that she didn’t get attached to anyone and she didn’t let anyone get attached to her. If she thought that her playmate of the moment was beginning to fall for her they would be shuffled out the door with a warm lunch packed to take along with them on their way, while Oaklyn waved goodbye from the front door of the diner.

“I’m sure she has.” Torin glanced over at Briar, half worried that she might suddenly faint again. “I have a few favors to ask. In addition to what I’m already asking you, by asking you to come out here.”

“Go for it, man. I owe you my life and you’ve never asked for anything until now. So, I’m all ears.”

Torin took a deep breath, as he turned back towards the window, lowering his voice. He wasn’t sure exactly how good her hearing actually was.

“I was wondering if you could bring some clothes up from Oaklyn’s place. I don’t know if her store would have anything appropriate or if she could pick some stuff out that she can spare, to send up? Whatever Oaklyn thinks is fine. Tell her I’ll be happy to pay generously for whatever she sends. She didn’t have a stitch of clothes left by the time she made it here and the t-shirt of mine she’s wearing is enormous on her.It’s like a tent. I’d like her to have some outfits here that fit. She’s a little smaller than Oaklyn I think, but anything Oaklyn sends will fit a Hell of a lot better than anything that I have. And anything that you can bring out here would be great.”

“I’m sure Oaklyn would love to help with that. She’ll love the excuse to go shopping on your dime, Torin.” He could hear more feminine laughter in the background after the doctor’s comment. He was certain they were laying in bed together, letting the storm pass by outside until Ted could continue to make his way towards the cabin.

“As long as you bring a wardrobe out here for Briar, she can buy a new wardrobe for the both of them for all I care.” When he realized what he’d said he stood, frozen, staring out at the snow that had begun to stack up on the railing of the porch, every bit as surprised with himself as he knew Ted must be on the other end of the line.

“Hell Torin. I can’t wait to meet this little She-Wolf. She must be fucking amazing.”

“I just want to help her get on her feet. She’s been through a lot. Maybe this time I can finally save someone from one of these packs out here.”

“Torin-” Ted obviously wanted to say something to let his friend know that what had happened before wasn’t his fault, without bringing up the incident that he knew they were both thinking about.

“Do you remember what we’d talked about yesterday, Ted?” Torin abruptly changed the subject before Ted could say anything else, making it clear that he didn’t want to talk, or even think about that morning when his entire life had been destroyed.

“About how she keeps passing out, and about your suspicions on what the possible cause might be based on your time working at the other wolf pack?”

“Does she have a mate who’s fucking someone else?” Ted’s voice became lower, and held a clear note of disbelief. In any shifter community that included mates, betrayal was rare and looked upon with contempt.

“That does seem to be the case.” Torin pushed down the rage that he immediately felt rising up in his chest as he looked back over at the delicate beauty. No, she wasn’t physically strong, but everything about her was attractive, from her physical appearance to what he’d seen of her personality. And he wasn’t even her mate. He couldn’t imagine how the man who she had been intended for could have thrown her away like that and intentionally hurt her, or at least, let her be hurt before his eyes.

“Fuck. And obviously he didn’t reject her?

“No. The bastard didn’t. He’s an Alpha and she barely got out of the pack alive. He’s still fucking other women. She’s afraid he’ll send people after her or come after her himself to finish the job. There’s no way in Hell I’m going to let that happen.”

“Did you ask her the name of her pack, Torin?”

“It hasn’t come up.”

“She came from the west?” Ted sounded nervous now and Torin knew exactly why. But he didn’t want to think about any of that now. It was pointless bringing up maybes when he had real problems to deal with and one of them was sitting at his kitchen counter. He needed to focus on the fact that there was a real possibility that she might just pass out at any moment if her so called mate got it in his head that he felt like fucking the next woman he came across.

“Yeah. It looked like it. We haven’t talked about it, okay? I just need answers if you have them. Is there anything we can do if it happens again? That fucker apparently can’t keep it in his pants. She said it had been several times a day before, but before she recognized him as her mate it wasn’t as painful. Now that the bond has been recognized it’s much worse for her. Is there anything we can do so she isn’t in danger of passing out, so that she isn’t in excruciating pain every day? Tylenol doesn’t seem like it’s going to cut it.”

“Fuck Torin.” Torin thought for a moment that he heard his friend cover the phone, to muffle laughter before he came back on again. “You’re either going to love me for this or hate me for this. I don’t know if this works or not. I would assume it does because a few of the older women in the pack I was in swore that it did. They tried to convince the woman under my care to take this route, but she wouldn’t do it. Even when her bastard of a mate betrayed her and she knew that she was going to reject him, she still wouldn’t do it. But this case is different. Your girl has never been with her Alpha. And I’ve heard the ladies all think you’re pretty easy on the eyes, Torin, although I can’t judge that too well myself.”

"If a She-Wolf is the one to finally get him back in bed, half the lady Bear-shifters in the state are going to riot. Oh this is going to make the papers.” Torin could hear Oaklyn in the background laughing as she spoke.

“Tell Oaklyn not to spread this around. Nothing tabloid worthy is happening here. Just tell me what I need to do.”

“That’s exactly it, Torin. The older women all swore when she was going through it, that if a man gave her pleasure, if you know what I mean, it could cancel out the pain. My theory was that maybe it would make the bastard on the other end of the bond stop what he was doing when he got a dose of his own medicine. I don’t know. But they promised that it worked. I can’t say for sure. I never saw it with my own eyes. But I can say that I tried pain meds and just about everything else, and as long as that bond is in place and he’s screwing other women, she’s going to be in excruciating pain.”

Torin turned his eyes towards Briar again. She’d stopped eating and was sipping her water now, her legs swinging back and forth since they didn’t quite reach the footrest on the bar stool that she was sitting on. Passing a hand across his forehead he turned away, back towards the window and the falling snow.

“Just get here as soon as you can, Doctor. We need to figure something out to help this girl. Because that isn’t going to fucking happen.”