Returned (ATHENS WOLVES NOVELLA)

2

I felt tapping on my shoulder and I jumped awake and turned to push the person away when the white walls, white coat, and smell of her just stopped me in my tracks. "Didn't mean to scare you, but I need access to this arm." She told me and then moved around a machine for blood pressure and I cleared my throat and backed off.

"What time is it?" I asked and cracked my neck before my knuckles.

"8 am." She told me sharply and then gave me a look when my stomach growled loudly. "There is some food in the room to the right, just next to the bathroom." She told me and then walked to the other side and started drawing blood again.

"Are the tests back?" I asked her and she shook her head.

"It said inconclusive so I going to run them again. It's weird, it's like the blood is fighting itself." She told me and then sighed. "I am going to send this to Valentino Clarke... see what he can make of it." She mumbled out while focusing more on the needle taking Rene's blood pressure. "Your sisters a fighter." She told me with a small smile and then undid the Velcro and then grabbed her chart near the top of the bed.

"Thank you for taking care of her." I basically whispered out looking over my sisters face that did look more healed than when I first saw her.

"She's pack, plus she is the best intern we've had apply here." She told me and then sighed and looked over her face. "I'll be back in a couple minutes to give her some anti bacterial shots. You never know what you can catch from a rogue attack." She said and I noticed her pause and her eyes dart to me but she seemed to brush it off like she didn't care what I would say back to that, and then turned on her heel and then left the curtain open.

I stood up again when my stomach growled and went looking for that food she said was here. I walked in and saw donuts and groaned happily and sat down and took 4 before eating one quickly. I got back up and started shoving the other one in my mouth when I heard Greyson's voice asking about me.

"I'm in here." I called out with my mouth still slightly full walking towards him. He didn't have Aaron with him, then again it was Monday morning, but he did have a little boy with him. Well at least a 13 year old.

"This is my son Lukas." He told me and I remembered the little kids they saved when Aaron was taken as well.

"Are you thee Sean?" He asked me with a wide smile and I looked towards Greyson who smiled and nodded at me.

"I guess so." I said and crouched down and he looked at my donuts and I offered the one with chocolate to him and I saw Greyson think before nodding at me again. By then it was too late. Lukas took it and was already eating a huge bite and getting it on his cheeks.

"I wanted to come by, see if there is anything I could do." He told me and I knew what he was offering and I just blinked.

"You'll have to ask Sam if that's okay. I would be so thankful if it worked." I told him and he nodded and looked down to Lukas.

"Will you go find Dr. Sam for me?" He asked him and he nodded happily and took off down the hall.

"You don't have to be thankful Sean, you're like another little brother to me. Rene has babysat Lina and Lukas enough times I would do it for her as much as I would for you." He told me and then looked towards her curtain and sighed. "How is she?"

"Sam doesn't know what was wrong with her blood, so she sent it to Valentino." I said and walked towards the open curtain with him beside me. "I should have been here." I told him. I had been thinking it since I saw her in the bed.

"Don't blame yourself. You are strong, you are capable but with enough will power this still would have happened." He told me and clapped my shoulder and I lifted my chin so I was almost as tall as him.

"A little boy says you have a question for little ole me." I heard Sam and turned as she walked in with a smile on her face and Lukas holding both her hands and she giggled as she turned him as if they were dancing and he walked to Greyson and laughed about the look he was giving him.

"Do you know what my blood would do to help her?" Greyson asked and I moved closer to the bed ignoring how my wolf rose a bit inside of me when she had smiled and giggled with another man, not even a man, a little boy that didn't even have his own wolf yet.

"That would help her more than vampire blood since she does have wolf in her." Sam nodded thinking about it just a bit before nodding. "Let me just give her this shot before getting you hooked up." She said and went right to Rene's shoulder and stuck her slowly making her wince, and this time groan.

"She's getting better." I whispered more to myself and she nodded and rubbed a cotton ball on where she had stuck Rene.

"Let's get you hooked up." She told Greyson and they both left and Lukas stayed behind with me.

"Is she your sister?" He asked me and I refocused on him.

"Yeah. My baby sister. You have an older one right?" I asked and he nodded happily.

"I also have three cousins from my uncle Tino." He told me and I smiled at him.

"Yeah? Are they boys or girls?"

"The oldest one is a girl and then two boys, twins. I want a twin." He kept telling me about his whole family and I nodded when he asked me obvious questions and then laughed when he told a funny joke.

"Okay... so didn't expect to see you smiling and laughing bro."

"Are you his other sister Courtney?" He asked and she giggled again and nodded to him.

"What are you doing here little one?" She asked him and she came closer giving me a plate with a wrapped sandwich and some chips.

"Daddy is donating blood to Rene." He told her and she looked at me and I nodded.

"You're daddy is so nice." She told him and then looked at me. "Go home, get some sleep, in a bed. I am sure Sam, or even Greyson didn't tell you about your dark circles, plus you stink. I think some of your old clothes are still in your room." She told me and I stood up.

"What if Greyson's blood heals her quicker and she thinks I didn't come."

"Then you get your happy ass down here as fast as you can. She won't leave this bed until you get here." She told me and I almost wanted to tell her not to cuss but then I looked over her face, makeup she never used to wear was smeared on and her hair was done and she just looked so much more grown than when I left. And so much more rested than last night.

"Fine." I said and she smiled and lifted her key for me. "I'll be back in three hours." I said knowing I could never nap for that long.

"Just get some more rest. And eat before you go." She told me and I started stuffing my face with the tuna sandwich. "How hungry are you?" She asked me with a small laugh and I winked at her.

"As hungry as I always was." I told her and she huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Now go... get some rest, and a shower." She told me and waved me away and I kissed the top of her head leaving some crumbs in her hair and then brushing them away also messing up her hair.

"I'll be back." I called out taking my jacket from behind her and then pulling it on while I opened the curtain running right into Sam. She tripped on her heels that weren't even that big and I let my jacket drop to the floor as I grabbed her arms and pulled her back up and into me before letting her step back. "I'll be back." I told her and she just looked into my eyes for the first time since I have been back and I saw a bit of hope that was then smothered out and indifference took over her expression and she shrugged.

"Have fun." She told me and then moved around me and suppressed my growl and snatched my jacket from the floor and then stalked towards the front of the clinic before going through my pockets to find my keys for my bike.

I got on, kicked out the stand and then revved the engine a couple times before using my feet to back out. I revved it again and looked back towards the entrance thinking about her indifference again before taking off with a screech of my back tire and then rode the old, familiar, streets towards my childhood house.

I would never call this my home. Not since I was 12. That was when I realized that my mom and dad fought way too much. Ignored each other all the time. In fact that was only a year before Rene was born. That just proved that Rene might not be full wolf.

I cut the engine and looked over the front of the house before walking around to the back. There was no fence, barely any grass and the bushes had been gone since I turned 17 and my dad got angry about them blocking his view of the front yard.

I had to get them out.

I walked around and kicked the brick out of place before picking up the old house key and then used it to open the back door since I knew it wasn't the front door key.

Once I was in I smelled my sisters and it was an almost relaxing scent that I walked right to the living room where our huge TV still was, the old couch had been replaced with a sectional since I was last here to visit and the carpet was new as well. The old coffee table was still there as well and I smiled at it. How many times did I get slapped because me or one of my friends had their feet up on it?

My mom was amazing. My dad was always sort of the problem.

But I knew my mother was dying slowly being 'mated' to my father. She got worse when he was finally gone. People in this pack had treated her differently. The older women who were her mentors when she first came here turned away when she walked through the halls, except the old Luna.

Everyone younger than her, but still older than me just had pity and tried to help her anyway that they could. And I knew my mother well. She hated being pitied. Many people pitied her when she first mated my dad because, as I hear it, he was a bitter angry man. And that is still true, he just learned how to hide it for a couple decades before I was born and then all the way until he became a traitor.

When he made my whole family traitors. He ruined any chance I had of taking Sam as my mate. Her father, the beta, the former beta, the current beta's younger cousin, she was high up on the important scale, and her father was the worst to deal with when my father was sent to werewolf prison.

I knew then, when I found out she was my mate, that she would never have me. She might have her wolf pinning after me, but then they last couple days, well hours, she was fighting it, she wanted to be indifferent.

She wanted that so bad.

She wanted it back then too. I know she did. She was so stunned when I basically made her reject me. I couldn't utter the words to her, so I had to accept them from her.

I could never force myself on her. No matter how much that meant that I could never have her, or anyone else as a mate.

I laid back on the long part of the sectional and put my arms behind my head and relaxed thinking about all the other things that I will no longer have now that I will never have a mate. I would never have children, or a home. I would be king of the rogues and have people depend on me but that doesn't really count.

A home is being happy when you walk through the door, feeling the stress of the day melt away because you were now in your happy place. So happy that it seemed like nothing else existed outside the compass of the house you were sleeping, loving, eating, relaxing, and then just being so content in not doing anything but looking at your mate.

That is what I really fantasied about when I was younger. Having a good home for my future pups, for them to get the happy family I never got when I was growing up.

I wouldn't put them through what I did because I want children. I wouldn't just take a willing female and let our relationship die out and make us eventually hate each other when my children were still growing up. I would never take that chance.

I fell sleep letting myself fantasied about what it would be like to have Sam as my mate, and our children, and you happy home.