Say My Name--Sample (Book 3 of The Claimed Series)

3. Trauma

Liam took Evelyn’s information in with a few rapid blinks. It was difficult for him to fathom that any damage done to such a hearty species would cause this psychological and physical trauma in one so young.

“I will get her to speak,” he said firmly. “Where is she?”

“Alpha, the girl is not only traumatized, but her throat was nearly torn from her neck,” Evelyn warned him. “It is not just that she is unwilling through some sort of psychiatric cause, but her throat needs time to heal as well. It would be unwise for her to strain it until she is completely recovered. It may also traumatize her further. If you need to question her, at any rate, please be gentle.”

Liam slowly closed his eyes and thought for a moment, thinking of a way to get the information he needed without breaking the girl. If anything, at least get her to tell him which pack she hailed from.

“Evelyn,” Liam finally said. “Do you have a spare notepad and a pen? I will ask her questions that way.”

“Of course, Alpha,” she said. “Give me a moment to fetch them.”

The doctor went to the reception desk and pulled out a thick yellow pad and a ballpoint pen. Walking back to him, she bowed her head in respect, and gave the items to him.

“Now bring me to the girl.”

Evelyn took him back to the last room on the right and again warned him of the frailties of the girl, emphasizing her fragile mental state which seemed teetering and unwieldy at best.

Opening the door, Evelyn went in first before Liam followed. The room was blindingly bright, and he looked over to the bed, watching as the girl sat up straighter, pulling the thin sheets up farther, as if to hide herself from the unwanted visitors.

“Miss, this man is Liam Stark, Alpha of the Plumbrook Pack,” Evelyn told the girl gently. “No harm will come to you in his presence.”

The girl gazed over at Liam, looking even more frightened and seeming to tremble slightly in her bed.

Unfazed by her trepidation, he walked over a few steps towards her and watched as she flinched backward, a high-pitched whimper the only sound in the room.

Liam took the girl in. She did not look dangerous, but danger could sometimes come in a pretty, pint-sized packages. He knew that all too well.

Large blue doe-eyes, made even wider by fear, looked back at him while her hair tumbled in gentle waves down past her shoulders. It was jet black and looked fine as silk, though it might have been ages since it had been properly cared for.

“Little wolf,” Liam said in a calm manner. “Your beaten body was found on the edge of my lands near a highway. I need to know what you were doing there and where you come from. But first, please, tell me your name.”

He pushed the pad of paper and pen towards her, and watched as she stared blankly back at it before blinking and taking it from him.

He watched as in slow, methodical cursive, she penned her response.

My name is Giselle. No surname. I cannot tell you where I come from and why I’m here.

Reading the words, Liam’s bright blue eyes seemed to grow cold as he looked back at her after he finished reading her response.

“Why can you not tell me? Do you not know, or do you refuse to answer an Alpha’s question?”

Though he tried not to, the words came out sounding cruel and blunt, and Giselle jerked back at his tone. Her eyes immediately became glassy and a tear spilled down her cheek, though she made no other sound but for a loud sniff.

Fuck.

“Alpha,” Evelyn murmured softly, so that only he could hear.

Liam closed his eyes again, trying to remember that this was no rogue, no interloper. At least not of her own free will. She could not have made it from the nearest pack in the condition she had been found.

“My apologies,” Liam told her, his voice a bit softer, bordering on contrite. “We are mistrustful of strangers here at Plumbrook, and I need to know you are not a threat to us. If you could, please, answer my question.”

He gave her the pen and pad back and watched as she reluctantly put pen to paper and wrote her response.

I know where I come from, but I do not belong there anymore. I am afraid that if I tell you, you will send me back, and I only just escaped with my life. I did not know where I would be left. I passed out before being dropped at the side of the road.

Liam read again and understood. He nodded at her.

“Is there a reason you had to flee, or were you being punished and escaped from your pack’s cells?”

I am no fugitive. I am merely someone who wishes to start fresh. The only way to do that was to flee.

“And what or who do you flee from?”

That - I cannot tell you. You would surely send me back. If you make me tell you, you must promise to kill me before sending me back there, because I am as good as dead if I return.

Liam read it through twice. Then a third time. He didn’t understand fully, but he was certain she did not, and would not, tell him the truth if he pressed her for an answer now.

Liam caught a movement in his peripheral vision and saw that Giselle was motioning to take the notepad back. Perhaps she had more to say after all.

Why can I not speak?

Liam deferred to Dr. D’Amato for this information, and Evelyn explained the physical trauma first.

“You may regain your voice back in time, though it is up to you and your mental state on how quickly you learn to speak again,” she told the younger woman. “It will take time and hard work, but I am sure that if you put your mind to it, you will regain the ability to speak eventually.”

Evelyn smiled at her and Giselle’s face seemed to break into a soft, demure smile as well, her cheeks becoming pink at the kind words. She’d had so very few of them spoken to her in the past six months.

Giselle motioned for the pad with a small, slender hand. Evelyn gave it back, and motioned for her to write what she wished.

Am I still in New York State? When may I leave the hospital?

“As you are awake and stable, you may leave any time you like,” Evelyn told her, looking back at the Alpha who was watching their exchange with rapt attention. Like he was trying to solve a riddle.

“You should not move around much for a while, but there is no need for you to stay here,” Evelyn continued. “Alpha, is there a place in the Packhouse where Giselle may stay?”

At that, Giselle froze and her face paled. She was not good around strange people – or wolves.

“The Packhouse is full at the moment,” Liam said after blinking.

Evelyn looked back at him and tilted her head. The last time she knew, there were at least four unoccupied rooms in the Packhouse, and she hadn’t heard of anyone moving in these past several months.

“If you would like, you can stay in my home,” Liam said, continuing smoothly. “I have several unoccupied rooms and some spare clothing my sister left before finding her mate. She was about your size, but has gained some since having given birth to her son.”

Giselle took in the man with her own scrutinizing look before nodding her head in assent. Whether she was too scared to decline his offer or just wanted to leave the hospital was anyone’s guess. It was not like she had anywhere to go.

“I will have my Beta get some things from my home for you to wear and we can leave,” Liam said before turning to walk out the door.

Before walking out into the hall, Liam turned back, his eyes downcast, staring at the floor.

“You may take your respite on my lands for the meantime,” he told Giselle. “If you wish to join our community, we may talk about that in the future. Just... something for you to think about.”

He walked out the door, his heavy boots making a hard, clomping sound on the linoleum as he moved past the other rooms in the hospital.

***

“You what?" Blake hissed out, irritated he had been woken from his sound sleep to play fetch-the-foreigner’s-clothing. He was not some lady-in-waiting or maid.

“It just came out,” Liam said, cutting his eyes at Blake. He didn’t regret offering Giselle home and hearth. She seemed like a gentle soul, and he found he couldn’t toss her aside after only just recovering from her horrific wounds. The girl had been broken both physically and mentally, and something in him was convinced she was no danger. When he had offered her a place to stay and possibly more, it was on a whim, an instinct. He trusted his instincts implicitly, and knew better than to ignore them.

“You were the one who brought her here,” Liam reminded his Beta. “You wouldn’t have brought her if you felt she was a threat, so don’t turn this around on me now.”

“Yeah, I offered her a place to recover, not to stay forever!” Blake frowned at the Alpha’s rash, in-the-moment decisions, especially the one where she lived in his home with him. For the longest time, no one had lived with the Alpha. Not since her.

“Let me worry about where she sleeps,” Liam told him. “You just worry about getting to my house, picking up something for her to wear, and getting back here. You’re not the only one that wants to go back to sleep.”

Blake cut a glance at his friend and Alpha, and loped off toward the clinic door before turning back.

“Hey, Liam?”

“Yes?”

“Uhm... underwear?”

Liam thought about that. He didn’t know if she would be averse to wearing another female’s panties, but he realized that that may be too intimate of apparel to share with someone else. Even if they were clean.

“No bra. Just grab a pair of my boxers, some sweatpants, and a t-shirt. She’s not going to be modeling in Milan any time soon,” Liam finally told him and watched as Blake’s wide body left the building.

Once Giselle was dressed in clothing that was even larger on her small frame than he had originally thought, Liam walked her toward his house, which was the largest and most extravagant building in the community. It was also the brightest, as he had left the lights on before heading to the hospital.

“I know you cannot speak back to me, but for what I have to say, I don’t need an answer,” Liam told her, watching as she nodded gently back at him.

“I understand your trepidation about telling us which pack you come from, but at some point, I will need to know,” Liam told her, and watched as her form faltered slightly on the asphalt of the small backroad. “If you are to become one of us, we will need to know if there is a danger posed to us from whoever is pursuing you. Once you break the bond with that pack, their Alpha may feel it as well.”

Giselle slowed her pace, thinking. She hadn’t thought about the bond that the Alphas had with their pack wolves. They could feel when someone was out of their territory or if they pledged to another pack, and that last part frightened her the most. Surely Jeremiah would feel when – or if – his true mate pledged to another pack.

Liam coaxed her along and led her into his home before watching her look around the foyer of the house. It was large and bright, unlike the darker, more foreboding looking home of Jeremiah.

“I will give you a tour of my house tomorrow,” Liam told her before walking toward the curvature of the stairs. “Your room will be next to mine in case you need anything, though I doubt you will do much but sleep tonight.”

She nodded her head again at him, this time tilting it at him afterward, as if trying to figure the man out. Liam truly wished he could tell what she was thinking. If she wasn’t so fragile, he may have forced her to speak.

“I will have some paper and pens brought to you in the morning so you can communicate,” he told her and stopped in front of a large oak door before opening it up for her.

The room was large, but not ostentatious. It was simple in design, with a queen-sized bed and oak dressers bookending it. There was an overstuffed chair and a few bookshelves that Giselle immediately wanted to inspect. They were her favorite part of the room by far.

“This is my sister’s old room,” Liam told her. “She had left some clothing when she found her mate, and you are welcome to anything in here as she will not be needing any of it anytime soon.”

He watched as Giselle immediately went to one bookshelf and started to run her hands over the spines of the many books that lined it. Liam’s sister was a book fanatic, and devoured any genre that could be read, so there was a good mix of them to choose from.

Liam couldn’t help but smile a bit at the apparent bookworm. He had never been one to read anything more complicated than the sports page, and his sister had been the voracious reader among the two of them. Just like their mother before her.

Giselle started to slide out a book and seemed to stop herself. Her head snapped to Liam’s, and she looked frightened, as though he might be mad if even one book was out of place.

“You may use anything in here as well,” he assured her. “My sister has mated halfway across the country and is living in the Rockies at this time. Even if she were to see you in here touching her things, she would not fault you and insist you read as much as you like. She is a very generous woman.”

Giselle seemed to study him again, as if to test to see if he was telling the truth. Slowly though, she picked up the book. It had been one of his sister’s favorites when she had still been living in the Alpha’s home. Thirteen Reasons Why. They had made the book into some TV show, so it was no wonder why Giselle had gravitated toward it. It had been quite popular at the time it aired.

“Did you watch the show on Netflix?” Liam asked, gesturing toward the book.

Looking confused, Giselle looked down on the book as if it was in some foreign language. Shaking her head, she walked over to the bed and set the book down on it, looking at it before opening the front page and caressing the dustjacket.

“I will let you rest,” Liam told her, heading toward the door. He had been standing in the corner by the closet. “There is a bathroom through that door for you to wash in the morning. I usually get up early, and my housekeeper comes to cook for me as I do not know how. If she is not around, please help yourself to cereal or eggs and bacon. Just don’t burn the house down. I’ve come quite attached to living here.”

She looked over at him again as if terrified. When she saw his small, teasing smile, she returned it shakily and nodded at him, in affirmation.

“Goodnight, Giselle,” he told her before closing the door behind him and moving toward his bedroom. He felt like he could sleep for another eight hours, but he doubted he would be able to rest for that long. He was never one for too much sleep these days.