Under The Alpha's Protection

Chapter 3: The Fairytale Book

The clinic had only been open for two hours when a female omega came in, her small body wrapped in a shawl, smiling nervously when she made eye-contact with Blue.

Blue took the omega's medical history and other information. She discovered that the patient's name was Evelyn Trident, twenty-seven years old, and new to Bracket Town. Evelyn had a fading bruise on her cheekbone which Blue asked about. Apparently, she had only clipped it on a cabinet. It was her ankle she came here for, having twisted it falling down the stairs. The ankle had been visibly swollen, explaining why Everlyn was limping when she came in.

No vehicle had dropped Evelyn off, and Blue worried that the walk here made the injury even worse. She asked Evelyn more questions while Doctor Oswin finished with another omega's regular check-up.

Yes, Evelyn had a mate. A male alpha. They've been mated for half a year. No, her mate was not coming today. No, she did not have any family accompanying her either, even though they lived in the same town. No, she did not want to call anybody.

"I... I'm alright being here by myself," Evelyn answered, her voice soft and a little shaky. "I just want to get my ankle checked because I'm supposed to be finding work today and I can't go around town like this."

Fortunately for Evelyn, there were no other patients with an appointment currently. The one scheduled for that time had cancelled. Blue helped Evelyn onto a wheelchair to relieve pressure off her ankle, and wheeled her to the examination room where Doctor Oswin was throwing away a pair of used gloves.

The physician introduced himself to Evelyn, then asked Blue to help her settle onto the examination table. Doctor Oswin checked both Evelyn's feet and lower legs, prodding with gloved fingers around the skin of the injury to check for points of tenderness. Evelyn was asked to move her foot, Doctor Oswin taking note of the range of motion the omega had and the positions that caused discomfort or pain.

They did an x-ray to see whether there was a broken bone, and to find out the extent of ligament damage. While waiting for the scans, Doctor Oswin asked Evelyn if she could put the shawl down for a moment so he could examine her torso, just to rule out internal bleeding and to help treat bruises that could have resulted from the fall.

Evelyn followed tersely. Blue even noticed the omega's lips visibly paling. She was wearing a tank top underneath, revealing skinny arms, a mark on her shoulder standing out immediately.

Blue had seen many werewolves with mating marks before, so seeing Evelyn's wasn't unexpected or novel. Evelyn's looked fresh and angry; a puffy red circle of teeth marks that hadn't healed yet on her right shoulder. It was overlapping with another bite mark, more faded. Evelyn's mate had put another mating mark on her very recently, but didn't care enough to help her ensure it healed nicely.

The bruise on Evelyn's face was not the only one.

Littered on her arms, forearms, and even over her ribs, were more fading bruises, some obviously older than others. The one on Evelyn's arm looked like it was in the shape of a handprint, this one more red, indicating that someone had left the bruise on her not too long ago. Possibly even yesterday.

Blue and Doctor Oswin exchanged quick glances at one another.

They've seen these types of bruises before.

Doctor Oswin finished the physical examination, now with a somber air in the examination room. Blue help Evelyn onto the wheelchair and pushed her to the consultation room where Doctor Oswin would examine and discuss the x-ray shots taken of Evelyn's injury.

More importantly though, the consultation room was where Doctor Oswin would attempt to have the talk he had with patients whom he suspected were being abused.

Unfortunately, it's happened many times in the past. Some of the patients would deny it vehemently, the physician had told Blue before. Others would start trembling when Doctor Oswin brought it up, the patient so terrified that the individual abusing them—in most cases, their own mates or family members—would think that the patient had gone to the clinic to tell on them.

The consultation room was soundproof, with a vertical rectangle of glass plane that allowed Blue to look inside. Doctor Oswin was solemn-faced, speaking gently to Evelyn.

Evelyn's body language revealed nothing, the woman carefully unmoving in her seat.

When Blue returned to the reception area, Nurse Okana was in the middle of getting the blood pressure of an older woman who had come with a tall, leggy man holding her frail-looking hand. Okana Akumawe was the nurse on shift today. In her blue scrubs, she sat next to the older woman, murmuring something that looked like reassurance.

Okana smiled up at Blue when their gazes met.

While Doctor Oswin and Evelyn were still inside the consultation room, Blue spoke to a mother and son, giving the little boy wearing a makeshift arm cast a lollipop as she asked the boy's mother how and when her son had injured his arm.

Just as Blue took down the mother's concern—her son's elbow pain had become worse as the weeks went on—the door to the consultation room opened.

Doctor Oswin had his hands in his pockets, the features of his long face carefully schooled in that neutral expression he always put on whenever he was maintaining a professional facade. He greeted the patients in the reception area politely, thanking them for showing patience, then he beckoned Blue to come closer.

As soon as Blue was standing two feet away, Doctor Oswin whispered, eyes somewhere else, "I've contacted the police. Mrs. Trident told me that her mate is physically and emotionally abusing her. Once the police officer arrives, you'll escort Mrs. Trident outside all the way to the police car. They'll take her down to the station to get her statement, and photograph the evidence of abuse on her body."

Blue swallowed heavily, a cold chill going all the way down her spine. She fought down any other obvious reactions that the patients in the reception area might pick up on.

No matter how many times they saw cases such as this, it never got easier for Blue to hear.

Doctor Oswin took a folded piece of paper from his white coat. "You give this to her after you escort her out. It's my statement about the bruises we saw, plus my contact information as her physician. I've already told Mrs. Trident to hand it to the police. It'll help prove that she's dealt with physical abuse several times before this recent incident."

Blue looked down at the inconspicuous white paper now in her hand. "What happened to Mrs. Trident's ankle?" she asked in a whisper.

"Her mate pushed her down the stairs."

As soon as Doctor Oswin turned around, Blue inhaled shakily, closing her eyes and recalling the way Evelyn had smiled at her upon entering the clinic earlier, as if nothing hurt and nothing was wrong with her.

Evelyn Trident had been so calm and composed, and if not for the bruises, they probably wouldn't have even sensed anything awry.

Nurse Okana made her way next to Blue. They were the same height. The nurse studied Blue's expression, glanced down at the paper in her hand, and didn't need to ask what had concluded of Doctor Oswin's conversation with Evelyn to understand.

"Ninety-two percent of the reported cases of domestic violence committed by a mate have omegas as the victims," Okana whispered. "Of those ninety-two percent, seventy-five percent had alpha mates with too much pride and no control over their anger."

Like Oswin, Okana Akumawe was a beta werewolf herself—which had been an important factor on Doctor Oswin's part when he hired her. Alpha nurses could unintentionally scare some of the other patients. Meanwhile, a previous omega had been harassed inside the clinic because she hadn't realized her heat was nearing and the scent of it triggered a patient who happened to be an alpha nearing his own rut.

Even if Okana didn't speak about it frequently, Blue knew the sort of issues werewolves were facing—and have been facing since their ancestors first walked the Earth.

Alphas were given a biological advantage in their physical make-ups, which meant that when they trained their bodies, they generally grew bigger and stronger than other werewolves.

Betas had more opportunities to freely identify where they wanted to stand in their respective Packs. If Okana or Doctor Oswin were part of a Pack, they'd be considered in the middle-tier; some higher than others, depending on their skills, but none surpassing alphas.

Omegas were the only werewolves able to carry in their womb an entire litter of werewolf pups after being impregnated by another werewolf. One of the first things Blue had learned about werewolf mating and pregnancies was that a werewolf impregnating a human didn't always result in werewolf offspring. In fact, it was very rare. Omega werewolves though—male or female—had the highest chances of safely giving birth to strong werewolf pups. This was such an important asset to werewolf Packs that, since the dawn of time, werewolves had protected omegas and refused to involve them in Pack battles.

Though ironically (and sadly), this was also the reason omegas were viewed as weak by the more airhead werewolves.

-----

As Blue walked home that day, she thought about her parents.

Blue's parents were obviously both humans. Lloyd and Violet Emmetson had been teenagers when they eloped against their own parents' wishes. The two essentially ran away together, like characters in a young-adult novel Blue had read before. After moving to Clawsbrought State, her parents took whatever jobs they could to buy necessities that would sustain them in their small home.

There's a picture of Blue's mom and dad in her wallet, taken in the hospital on the day Violet Emmetson had given birth to Blue. Even without taking the photo out, Blue could see clearly in her mind the big smiles her parents had while Violet cradled her baby on her chest, Lloyd with both arms wrapped around his wife and newborn child.

Their death anniversary was coming up soon. She'd already filed for leave from the clinic on that day.

Blue had to go up four flights of stairs to reach the door to her shoebox apartment. She didn't mind the additional steps, grateful that she had even found a place that was cheap enough for a person making money just below minimum wage after first moving to Bracket Town.

The inside of the apartment was cramped even for one person. The only place that had separate walls was the bathroom. It was like a quick succession, the way her furniture was laid out: a table for two in the center of the kitchen counters, a couch that had been in the apartment when Blue moved in, a desk with a chair that didn't match, plus a bookshelf and a set of drawers that were directly across from where she slept.

Blue locked the door and latched the chain on before dragging one of the seats from the dining table and placing it right under the doorknob, making it even harder for any weirdos or desperate criminals to break into her apartment.

A woman living in the city alone could never be too safe.

She took a shower after securing her front door and making sure her windows were still locked. After getting dressed, she ate dinner which was leftover pasta from breakfast. As she waited for the food to reheat in the microwave, Blue skimmed over the notes she'd written on a notebook placed on her desk, the medical book she'd told Laia about at the diner opened on the last page Blue had finished reading.

The apartments were not soundproof, and the noisy upstairs neighbor who always played rock music through speakers or on his electric guitar during these hours had only moved out two months ago, so the quiet was still a bit unsettling to Blue. She hadn't minded the noise so much back then, except when she couldn't sleep. When that happened, she had used a broomstick to hit the ceiling—her neighbor's floor—until they got the hint and quieted down for the evening.

Blue finished her dinner while quietly testing how much of the material she had studied last night was retained in detail within her head, mumbling the important points she could remember.

After the bowl was cleared, Blue sat on her bed wearing a long-sleeved shirt and cotton shorts.

Her bed was a mattress on the floor. The thought of buying a bed frame too was too costly for Blue, and a bit unnecessary. Next to her mattress was a small cabinet she used as a bedside table. There were also books in the cabinet, but not the educational kind like the ones taking up her bookshelf space.

Blue took out her leatherbound fairytale book.

Her mom had read her werewolf fairytales alongside human ones. The book in Blue's hands contained stories werewolves would read to their pups, the first full stories young werewolves learned to read by themselves. It was a compilation of five tales, complete with illustrations of different werewolves described within each story.

Gingerly, Blue flipped through the yellowing pages of the book, some stained worse than others.

She stopped at an illustration of a werewolf with grey fur. The werewolf stared down at the reader with canines bared in a clear sign of intimidation, golden eyes sharp with rage. The paragraph beneath the illustration said that the alpha's best friend had broken his trust, and even put their Pack in danger over the promise of gold at the bottom of a river.

A children's book—except Blue always thought the illustration was a little scary to children, like the boy at the clinic with the sprained elbow.

Blue remembered that, as a child, she had definitely looked away from the drawing of the enraged alpha until her mother flipped the page.

But tonight, she stared at the illustration a little longer.

Her mind wandered back to Evelyn Trident, how the omega was tense the whole time Blue assisted her in reaching the police car through the back exit, Evelyn's ankle supported by a brace that time.

The way Evelyn's fingertips shook when Blue handed her the piece of paper wouldn't leave Blue's mind.

Blue grazed her thumb over the drawing of the angry alpha, and frowned.

Before they died, Blue's parents were vocal about how they viewed werewolves as equal to humans in that all werewolves should be treated with the utmost respect, and their biological differences were never an excuse to hurt, belittle, or judge. Blue had agreed wholeheartedly to all that, and obviously still did.

But... not for the first time, Blue caught herself wondering why her heart was so set on helping werewolves at the clinic in the first place—being the only human willing to even do so—when the Southern Pack werewolves had been the ones to kill her parents.