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

5. Commotion

Alpha, there seems to be some sort of commotion at your house, Blake told Liam through mindlink.

What sort? Who’s there? I only left Giselle there, and Colleen should be at the store picking up some essentials for her, Liam replied.

Liam had been on the training fields and was now meeting with Evelyn on how to help Giselle recover her voice. The news was both uplifting and depressing. She would be able to physically speak as soon as she her throat was healed, but the doctor was afraid that the trauma she suffered could keep her mute much longer than that. It only made Liam want to know more about the strange wolf that had been dumped on his land like a sack of unwanted debris.

I don’t think anyone is there but... there is screaming. No words. Just screaming.

Giselle. She could only scream. No words.

“I will be back later to speak more about this, Evelyn,” Liam told her before moving swiftly toward the door.

“Yes, Alpha,” the woman replied and moved behind her desk to catch up on some long overdue paperwork.

Liam started at a brisk walk toward his home, but was soon speeding along and giving Usain Bolt a run for his money once he heard the screaming coming from within his usually silent home.

As soon as his door was open, he saw that Giselle was tossing and turning as she whimpered on the couch. Then, another scream and Liam shut the door quickly behind him before moving swiftly toward the couch.

“Giselle! Giselle! Wake up!”

He tried to wake her with his words, but they were drowned out by her own pained screeches. If Liam hadn’t been standing there watching her torment, he would have thought someone was torturing her with hot branding irons or slipping bamboo shoots under her fingernails.

Sinking to the ground on one knee, he started to gently shake the girl.

“Wake up, Giselle!” he told her, louder this time.

Nothing except for another resounding, blood-curdling scream.

“Giselle! Giselle! Wake up for me!”

Eyes, blue and bloodshot, popped open before the tears started to run down her face. Giselle then curled into a ball, a sniffling, sobbing mess. The only sounds that she could make were ones of pain and suffering, and it hurt Liam to know that what she wanted more than anything was to sing like a bird, not screech and sob like a banshee.

“Are you alright?” he asked, concern layered in the tones of his voice.

She stopped sniffling for a moment and shakily nodded her head. It was an obvious lie. Deciding to ignore that, he went into the kitchen and got a mug out before filling it with water from the tap.

He put the mug into the microwave, heating the water while he got out a teabag and a jar of honey. Figuring her throat must be sore from her wailing, he tried to ignore her sniffles, and found himself fighting to go to her. He wasn’t comfortable being so close to people, though he might make an exception for Giselle. She seemed to be more of a shell of a person than even he was. And he was a mess, albeit self-proclaimed one.

The microwave beeped and he set about putting a teabag into the hot water and adding some honey. Bringing it out to her, he placed it on the coffee table next to her head and watched as her shuddering breaths became more even, less frenzied and desperate.

“You should sit up,” Liam told her, gesturing to the mug. “Drink that. Hot tea with honey. For your throat. It must be sore from all that screaming.”

Nodding her head, Giselle sat up and took the mug in both hands. She blew on it to cool it, and finally took a small sip, closing her eyes as she did.

“Better?” he asked, to which she nodded back at him with big, watery blue eyes. There was just a hint of something in them. Trust? Gratitude? He couldn’t tell, and he picked up the pen and paper, happy to see it nearby as he had advised.

“Was it a nightmare?” Liam asked, pushing the pen and paper toward her.

Giselle looked on the items and hesitantly picked them up to write.

Nightmare... reality. They’re one and the same to me.

Looking at her words, Liam’s eyes creased with some unknown emotion and he looked up, studying her.

“Are you willing to tell me what it’s about?” he asked, all the while knowing the answer probably would be “no”.

Giselle chewed on her lip, nibbling at it until she let it go. She plucked the pad from Liam’s hands and wrote.

I will show you.

Giselle stood and turned, placing her mug back on the coffee table and then lifted up the back of her shirt a few inches.

At first, Liam didn’t know what he was looking for. Then, he saw it... a scar. A very odd shaped scar.

Moving forward, Liam looked closer and had to stifle a shocked gasp. It wasn’t just a scar; it was initials.

A brand.

JB

He immediately felt an odd rage stir within him, an anger he hadn’t felt in years. Well, at least not this strongly.

Pulling down her shirt for her, he had seen enough.

“Is that the person who did this to you?” he asked, his voice a low, guttural growl. He gestured to her whole body, not just the brand she carried.

Giselle didn’t turn to face him, scared. He sounded angry. At her? She didn’t know. But she nodded and flinched as he huffed out in disgust.

Liam watched as the girl flinched, her shoulders bunching up as if readying herself to receive a blow. His gaze softened and he worked to relax his stance a bit.

“I’m not going to hit you, little wolf,” he told her softly. “What has been done to you... it angers me, but only because it is the sorriest type of person who would brand another in such a way. It must have been painful. Silver?”

Giselle nodded and relaxed her shoulders. She had known he wasn’t going to hit her, but her response had been a knee-jerk reaction. One that was ingrained in her over the past 6 months. Embedded, you could say. Like the brand. A brand that would never go away for as long as she lived. Yes, a part of her would always belong to her cruel Alpha mate.

Turning around finally, Giselle was surprised at the level of concern she saw in Liam’s eyes. He stared at her until she felt the overwhelming need to look down at her feet.

Shaking his head as if clearing it, Liam came out of the anger-fueled daze he was in.

“We should bring you to the doctor, have her check your throat,” he told her and walked toward the kitchen. “Go upstairs and change. Colleen should be back in another hour or so with your clothes, so we have enough time for a quick trip to the clinic.”

FFF

“She was screaming when I got there,” Liam told Evelyn quietly as the doctor made hasty notes. Giselle was with one of the nurses who was taking her blood pressure and temperature. The nurse was talking to her like she was a deaf-mute, and Giselle had the oddest look on her face. Like the nurse was the one that needed a check-up. It made Liam smirk a little bit. She was the same idiotic nurse from the other day, and she was still too moronic to even realize that being unable to speak was not the same as not being able to hear.

“Well, her throat is almost healed up completely, so in a couple of days you can try to get her to speak,” Evelyn told him.

“Me?” Liam asked, surprised. “Why me?”

“She trusts you,” Evelyn told him, nodding over to Giselle who had stopped scrutinizing the nurse long enough to look over at the two of them talking about her. “If anyone can get her to talk, it would be you. You already have a rapport, even if it is in just hand gestures and writing.”

“What about that nurse?” Liam asked, listening as Evelyn scoffed.

“She’s completely clueless,” Evelyn told him. “I’m surprised she learned to speak herself. How she became a nurse, I’ll never know. And I don’t think their rapport is that great either. Just look.”

They watched as the nurse spoke louder, as if Giselle was half-deaf. Giselle, in turn, c****d her head like the girl was touched in the head.

“You have a point,” Liam said, sighing. Along with his duties as Alpha, he would have to become a speech therapist to a shell-shocked female who had been a mere stranger to him twenty-four hours ago. “Any suggestions?”

“Start out small,” the doctor told him. “Small words, maybe names. Start with yours. It’s easy enough and only two syllables. Or Colleen’s name since she knows her as well. Blake’s is good, too.”

“Right,” Liam said and stood from the desk chair. He called over to Giselle. “Ready to go? Colleen should be back any time and it’s almost time for dinner.”

Giselle smiled softly, her eyes wide, thankful that she could finally leave the clinic, and especially the simple-minded nurse, behind.

Once they got back into the Alpha’s home, Giselle went immediately to the kitchen and started to root through the cabinets and freezer.

Curious, Liam followed her and went to see what she was doing. He saw that she had taken two steaks from the freezer and was getting ready to thaw them in the microwave. Along with a couple of potatoes and some frozen green beans, he watched, fascinated, as she silently went about cooking them dinner.

FFF

“Wow,” Liam said, sitting back in his seat. His old housekeeper had been a good cook, but she had never been able to stay long enough to make dinner for him. She usually just cooked something earlier in the day and he would heat it up when he was ready.

“That was... you’re a damned fine cook,” he told her, approvingly.

Giselle smiled, pleased, before blushing. She hadn’t had a compliment in what seemed like ages, unless it was to tell her she was a good girl that day for pleasing her Alpha mate with her mouth. Those days at Jeremiah’s were few and far between.

“Dr. D’Amato said that you can start trying to speak in a couple of days. You are almost completely physically healed.”

Giselle was whipping out her pen and paper faster than Liam had ever seen. They were never far from her now.

Will I be able to sing again? Ever?

She looked sad when she passed the pad over to Liam and he looked back up at her.

“Run before you can walk,” he told her encouragingly. “If we can get you to speak, I am sure you’ll be singing around the house in no time.”

Giselle was pleased with that, and smiled brightly at him. The intensity of it hit him right in the gut, but then her face froze and she looked reticent, though she took back the pad of paper willingly enough.

Do you think I should go by a different name - like a nickname? I don’t want my identity to be known freely. Just in case.

Liam nodded back at her.

“Good idea,” he told her. “What about… ‘Elle’? Would that be good? It is part of your name already.”

She smiled, nodding her approval at the idea.

“I’ll tell Colleen, Blake, and the medical staff to call you Elle from now on,” Liam told her. “But you will have to eventually tell me where you came from and how you ended up here.”

The reminder didn’t seem to worry her as much, and she just nodded her head before writing on the pad of paper.

Soon.

FFF

The two of them watched TV for a bit after dinner, some show Liam had never seen before. He didn’t have much free time for frivolous hobbies, and they were really only waiting for Colleen to come back. The girl was taking longer than usual at the mall. Probably robbing the man blind by proxy of his credit card.

When they were halfway through a rerun of The Deadliest Catch, there was a knock on the door.

Liam sniffed and shouted out, “Come in, Colleen. The door is open.”

She was inside before he could finish his sentence, and had Blake in tow with a myriad of bags filled to the brim with clothing and other essentials.

“Hey there, big guy,” Colleen chirped as she sashayed her ass into the room. Blake came in, more subdued, shaking his head at his female. She had no sense of propriety. Luckily, Liam had known Colleen his whole life, and allowed her to speak freely with him, so long as they were not within earshot of the pack.

“’Sup, Col?” he asked. “Did you use all of the rainy-day fund? Hope you enjoyed it. It’s the last time I give you the Pack credit card by the looks of it.” His eyes wandered to the bags she and Blake held in their collective arms.

Elle looked over at Liam, trying to gauge whether he was upset with the amount that Colleen had purchased for her. It was much, much more than she honestly needed. She scrambled to get her pen and paper, and scribbled hurriedly onto it.

Too much. I don’t need half of that stuff!

She gave it to Liam who read it and tossed the pad of paper back at her.

“It’s fine,” he told her, waving away her anxiety over the purchases. “Honestly, I have a daily spending limit on that card, and no one from the bank called me to approve any overages.”

“Lee, your daily spending limit on that account is $3,000,” Colleen told him. “I already knew that before I went to the store and picked up this stuff. I have a great knack for finding sales. C’mon, Giselle. Let’s go upstairs and make sure all this stuff fits you.”

“Oh yeah, and call her Elle from now on,” Liam told her. “Incidentally, it’s what we should all call her. Please let Evelyn and the staff at the clinic know on your way back.”

Blake nodded and brought the rest of the bags to the stairs before heading back out to the truck. He was driving a red Ford F150 that was overflowing with bags in the truck bed.

“Go on, Elle,” Liam told her and she trotted past him slowly, looking back as if wanting to say something, a worried expression on her face.

“Honestly, he has more rainy-day money than he knows what to do with,” Colleen told her when Elle was in her bedroom and looking at the innumerable bags. Even when living with her parents and siblings she hadn’t owned this much clothing, and the thought was daunting. Nothing came for free. She knew that all too well.

“Besides, I had oodles of fun picking stuff out for you. Best time ever, save for shopping for myself and some alone time with my man.” Colleen’s bubbly exuberance was infectious, and it was difficult for Elle to stifle the grin her ebullient new friend brought to her face.

“I thought you might be a size 4, but I think that after you bulk up a bit – you know, have had a few decent meals and such – you’ll be a solid size 6. Like me!” Colleen looked at her and flashed a mischievous grin. Elle felt that the girl would come over often to borrow her clothing.

“So... the underthings are there in those bags.” Colleen pointed in the general direction of a series of bags that looked to have come from some lingerie store. “You can put those away while we mix and match outfits and make sure they all fit.”

Elle placed a bra over her chest and found it was too large. Not by much, but still too large for her small breasts.

Seeing her frown, Colleen laughed at her and assured her they would fit. Eventually.

“Like I said, once you’ve gotten a few decent meals in ya, you’ll fill those puppies out,” Colleen said and watched as Elle blushed a pretty pale pink.

“Come on over here after you’re done,” Colleen told her as Elle started to put away her panties and bras. “I bought you some dresses too that I am sure would go very much appreciated at social gatherings.”

Colleen winked. She had a playfully impish sort of smile.

Elle knew that she was going to probably regret having Colleen do her shopping for her.