Rescuing His Captive Mate: Saving The Future Luna

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Artem

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I had just drifted off for a second when I heard a knock on the door. One look at the clock told me I had only been sitting in this chair for five minutes so I knew it hadn't been longer than that. I stretched and scented the person at the door, it was Doc.

"Come in." I called out to him, just loud enough for him to hear me but not loud enough to wake my sleeping mate, I hoped she was just sleeping.

"How is she?" Doc asked in a hushed voice as soon as he came into the room. I was already standing and stretching out my body that was growing stiff now that the adrenaline was leaving me.

"She's been asleep since before the fight was over. I'd say she's been out for close to an hour now." My eyes were soft and full of emotions as I looked over to my beautiful Star. 

"I'm going to check her out, see how bad the injuries are from the accident. Chay's were pretty bad and she needed to have a few rebreaks so that bones would set right. She's still in a lot of pain so I have her sedated. She will be out at least until the morning." I winced at those words, I didn't like the idea of him having to break the healing bones to fix them. Chay was my little sister and I hated to see her hurt like she was now.

"I will go to see her in a little bit. Is Bailey with her again?" I hoped she would have someone there with her right now, even if she was asleep.

"Yes, as soon as you all got back he rushed to her side. He cares for his cousin, but he loves Chay immensely."

"I am glad they have that bond."

"You'll have it soon as well." Doc clapped a hand onto my shoulder in a comforting gesture. "Once her wolf is free she will feel the bond."

"I know." That's part of what I was afraid of. Would she resent her wolf then when it told her to love me even after what I had done? The only thing I could do was wait and see.

Doc walked to her side then and set down a bag that had some medical tools, both traditional and modified.

"I'm going to examine her now." He was saying as he grabbed the blanket that was tucked around her. "I will most likely have to remove some of her-." He paused then and looked at me with shocked eyes. "I was going to say clothes, but I see that she isn't wearing any. Did you strip them away knowing I would need to examine her?"

"No, that's how I found her." I felt my expression harden as I spoke. "Well, almost like that, I rehooked her bra for her."

"Should I check to see if he-? Do you think that he-? Was she-? He let each question trail off knowing I could finish them myself.

"I arrived in time, he hadn't gotten that far yet."

"She was with him for several hours, are you sure he didn't?"

"I don't think he did." I honestly didn't want to think about that right now. If I found out he had, there would be no one left for me to punch since that cowardly asshole was already dead.

Doc rose to his feet and came over to me then, his hand once again on my shoulder.

"I know that you don't want to think about this, Artem, but I can examine her if you want. See if her hymen has been broken. That will be the surefire way of knowing."

"That wouldn't tell you anything." I looked at him with regretful eyes. "She wasn't a virgin when he took her from the car."

"But she assured us that they had never touched her that way when she was locked up." Doc sounded appalled when he thought that she might have lied about that part, like they had hurt her so much worse when she was younger.

"And they hadn't, that's not when it happened."

 "Artem, are you telling me that you and her-?" He trailed off again.

"Yes, last night, when I took her on that date."

I was looking at Star as she slept there, mostly ignoring the fact that Doc was standing by my side.

"YOU IDIOT!" Doc bellowed just as I felt his hand smack into the back of my head. "You're a fucking idiot you know that." He was still angry as he stepped around to glare at me full on, his eyes nearly level with mine.

"What the hell was that for?" I asked him as I rubbed the back of my head.

"Because you're an idiot and a dumbass."

"What the hell?" I straightened up and looked down at him since I was no longer hunched over from being hit.

"It was too soon, you moron. You should have waited. Didn't I tell you how fragile her psyche was? Why would you do that?"

"She told me she wanted me to, she didn't stop me. But I now know that it wasn't her talking it was that stupid talisman."

"The talisman?" He looked shocked to hear my words, his whole body seeming to recoil from the force of that one word. "What does the talisman have to do with it?"

"Howard said something. Implied that the talisman she has was meant to make her into his love slave but I took her before it became active so she was like my love slave. I thought she loved me, but it was never real. She had even told me that she loved me, but it was all fake."

I felt tears begin to sting my eyes then, the pain of waking up to find out that she had never wanted to be with me, that I had basically violated her, it was enough to make me hate myself.

"You will have to tell me about the talisman later, I need to know everything that happened. Right now though, I need to check her out."

"Yeah, go ahead." I felt myself fall into the chair I had been sitting in before while Doc got to work. My self hatred in full loathing mode.

I could still see Doc though, when he pulled the covers the rest of the way down. He seemed to be checking her arms and legs. Then he felt around on her abdomen and listened to her heart. He was methodical and meticulous, he wouldn't half ass or forget to check anything. He really was a good doctor and a hell of a good friend.

"This is so strange." I heard him speak again after a long silence, but his voice sounded so confused, like he couldn't accept what he was seeing.

"What's strange? Is something wrong? Is she OK?" My worry was at its peak again, my self loathing momentarily forgotten.

"I noticed some blood on her but it just seemed to be smears from something else."

"Yeah, probably from me. I held her against me when I was covered in blood. I think that Howard the nasty cleaned her up before the wedding."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear the word wedding just now, but you are right that she was cleaned up." He agreed with my assessment then continued. "The truly strange part though, is that she is unharmed."

"What do you mean 'unharmed'?"

"I mean, that she isn't hurt at all. Aside from a bruise on the side of her face that looks like she was slapped, there are absolutely no injuries on her body at all." His words were making no sense to me at all.

"But I smelled her blood all over the Jeep, I know she was hurt, just like Chay had been."

"And I believe you, but there are no injuries now. Nothing broken, not even a scratch. There is just that slap which most likely happened right before you got to her, judging by how new it looks."

"How did she heal?" I wondered more to myself than truly asking Doc for an answer.

"I don't know." He answered me anyway.

Then it hit me. I had seen Howard the Demon, half Demon and half Warlock really. He had healed where his scalp had torn. Could it be that on top of illusion magic he could heal? Did he heal her?

"Would a Warlock be able to heal her?" I asked him, now truly aiming the question at him.

"Probably. I haven't met many Warlocks, but I have heard that most of them are skilled at healing, some of them do it as second nature when they're injured. Why do you ask?"

"Because Howard, the dear old pervy uncle, was not a wolf."

"Huh?" That seemed to not compute with the good old doctor here. "Not a wolf? OK then what was he?"

"Half Warlock and half Demon, he told me and showed me that for himself."

"You actually saw him looking like a demon?"

"Like half a demon, literally. He was human on one side and demon on the other, it was actually quite comical really. He looked like a horror movie reject."

 "That would explain the healing then. If he was a warlock. He probably used magic to speed up her healing process. But I can't believe you managed to kill him if he was a warlock and a demon."

"He was weak, he said so himself, he didn't have the magic to fight me."

"Hmph, then you lucked out. If he was powerful like the one that used to be here then you might have been in trouble."

"That was his father." I answered without thinking and so my voice was soft and quiet.

"Pardon me? What did you just say?"

"Gannon, the warlock that was here before, he was Howard's father."

"That makes a crazy amount of sense. And now I expect you to regale me with that tale and tell me everything you know."

Doc grabbed a chair from the table and dragged it over to face me. He sat in it backwards, his chin resting on the back as he lounged lazily. I did as he asked and told him everything that I had learned from Howard, and everything that I had learned from Daniel. The story was far from complete, but we knew a lot more than we used to.