Page 4 of Unforgivable

"Her catheter is causing more damage than it's doing good," I think I hear Thjis mutter.

"Should we pull it out?"

"Let me adjust it, fuck."

"You're not hurting me," I slur out.

All three males pause. Ezra smoothes down my hair from my forehead. "What do you mean, sweetheart?"

"Down there. You aren't hurting me this time." I inhale, pulling a deep breath to try and fight the woozy feeling. Exhaustion swamps me like a tidal wave. "Will it hurt later?"

"No one is hurting you, female," Thjis snarls darkly. He is still positioned between my splayed-open thighs.

"May I close my legs?" I mumble sleepily.

"Maybe you should've kept them closed," Thjis snaps in a voice of skin scraping over gravel.

I should have. I should have. Why did I open my legs to him? Daan didn't want what was there, anyway. He took it, just like a male, but he didn't want to keep it.

I hear snarls and thuds as I drift off into unconsciousness again.

---

"She's better," his rough-as-gravel voice holds no relief or joy at the news. Thjis.

"Thank the goddess. This was a sick punishment," a gentler voice says. This one holds relief. Ezra. He is with me the most, the sunny, green-eyed male. Rhet only comes at night to sleep on the cot that rests against the wall to the door. Thjis wouldn't be here at all if he weren't their healer. Each of them takes turns checking on me during the day and sleeping on the cot at night. Ezra is the only one who talks to me (or at me) because I'm not much of a conversationalist right now. Contradictory to everything my wolf and my own caution tells me, I feel the slightest bit of trust for Ezra.

"She is a strong female. Only greed could make her pursue the alphason. She would have had a strong male of her own. She betrayed her own fated by being an alphason's whore." I would flinch at Thjis' accusations, but I'm numb to the terrible rumors. I'll never convince anyone of the truth. I think I may have forgotten the truth, myself.

"You really think she would have rejected her truemate for Daan?"

I wince at hearing his name, at the irony. I guess I should get used to it. No one will ever know how badly hearing that name hurts. I have to put him in my past where he belongs, where I should have left him.

I can hear the shuffle of feet, the swish of fabric as Thjis doesn't answer. I feel pressure, light, on my abdomen. A moment later, I hear footsteps walking to what I think is the bathroom and the sound of water. I want to open my eyes and speak. I want to defend myself. I want to tell them that I would never reject my truemate, that I had looked forward to meeting him all my life.

I don't bother. I'm too tired, too heartsore, too weak.

"How is she?" My head turns slightly toward the sound of the third voice, but I don't bother to open my eyes. If Rhet is here, it must be Sunday. He is here more on those days. I'm fairly certain, at least. It seems I've been here for about three Sundays. I'm not really sure.

"Healing, barely."

More footsteps. I can feel that presence, Rhet, coming closer. A chuckle fills the air. "She's wide awake, you two idiots." Silence, as even I hold my breath in anticipation.

"Shit. She heard you, you fucker," Ezra growls out lowly toward Thjis, I assume.

I sigh softly. "Nothing I didn't know already," I whisper. I turn my head away from them. I'm too tired today, too heartsore, to deal with males.

---

Thjis

I didn't mean for her to hear me. I just... I can't like her. Not a female like this. I wish that Rhet had listened to me for once. We should have never gotten involved.

I'm a medic, for fuck's sake. Not a doctor, true, but I believe in that shit, "first do no harm." Harm is precisely what happened to that female and we stood by; I stood by; and watched it happen. I did nothing to help her except make sure none of those males ripped out her throat or guts in that cursed glade that night.

So much guilt runs through my veins because of this shit. I'm trying my best to make up for what I didn't do by helping her now, but fuck. In the harsh light of day the damage done to that female is sickening to the core. I thought she wasn't going to survive when her fever raged and she was unresponsive.

Now it looks like she'll recover and I think that scares me more.

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