Chapter Eleven ~ Once bitten

Tristan Cole

Damien had called his sister Hannah, he said that she was the hunter's doctor and luckily for us, she only lived ten minutes away. She arrived quickly in her old-style ambulance and her two daughters followed behind her in their car. They all began to help Freya immediately. We were all asked to back away and give them space to work. They did the best they could at the roadside, but she said they had to take her back to their house, as the metal needed to come out, but taking it out right here would cause her to bleed out. They needed blood to quickly replace what she was losing. Damien's sister brought out a stretcher and I volunteered to lift her onto it. They took her into the ambulance, I wanted to go with her, but Damien insisted that he needed to go.

Apparently, he had ways of teaching Freya how to keep calm, and how to block out the pain. Must be a hunter thing. I thought he was talking out of his ass, but I wasn't about to stop a worried father from going in the ambulance with his daughter, even with him abandoning her all them years ago, he was still her dad. I watched helplessly as they drove off. Evan and Mason got into the car with the two daughters. I noticed that one of them was big time flirting with Mason, but he wasn't paying any attention to her at all.

I guess he was too worried about Freya and that made me angry. To be honest, I was begging for him to notice the hot little blond, but he didn't. I could understand how he felt too, because judging by the devastated look on his face, I felt the exact same way. I prayed to the moon goddess, hell, I even prayed to the archangel's, begging them all to save Freya's life. I couldn't lose her.

“Tristan, are you coming?” Tyler shouted over to me, my father and Landon were already sitting in the car, ready to leave.

“Yeah,” I mind linked back.

I ran over to the car, and Landon had opened the back door for me. I quickly got into the car and Tyler sped off to catch up with the others.

“Hi, I'm Grace,” an extremely chirpy girl greeted me.

She pushed Landon back with her elbow and reached her hand out to shake mine. She had a giant, and slightly crazy smile on her face, and her eyes were almost popping out of her head. I put my hand out cautiously and she instantly shook it, strangely though only with her fingertips.

“Um... Tristan,” I replied politely with my eyebrow raised.

She sat back and started humming to herself. What a strange girl, I thought to myself as I raised both of my eyebrows and exhaled puffing out my cheeks. Landon looked at me out of the corner of his eye, I guess he could see on my face that I thought she was mental, and he growled at me through a private mind link.

“Sorry dude, she's great,” I said through the link.

He huffed out of his nose, clearly not believing me. I chuckled to myself then looked out of the window. We arrived just as they were wheeling Freya into Damien's sister's house. As soon as Tyler pulled the car up, I jumped out and sprinted across the grass towards the house. Evan stood in front of me and put his hands on my chest to hold me back.

“What the fuck Evan?” I growled at him while trying to move around him, but he just kept blocking my way.

“Tristan, that is a house filled to the brim with hunters,” he pointed toward the house. “You go in there and I'm telling you now, you'll be coming back out in a body bag. Now, you see I don't particularly care what happens to you, but, I know, Angel cakes would never forgive me if I just stood back and let the love of her life, run in there and get himself killed,” he said placing his hand back onto my chest.

I exhaled through my nose in a huff, and nodded in agreement.

“Good. Now, there's a diner just down the road, I suggest that we go and get ourselves something to eat, and let them work their magic,” he said as he put his hands on my shoulders and guided me to the car.

I reluctantly got into the car.

“Damien will call us as soon as he knows anything, I promise,” he said as he shut the door. “Follow us, we'll make sure you don't get any trouble at the diner,” he said as he held his thumb up at me.

He grinned and then turned around and headed to the car in front of us.

“What's going on T?” Tyler asked me while turning around in his seat to look at me.

“We're not allowed into the house to see Freya, it's full of hunters, so Evan's taking us to a diner,” I said while looking out at the house.

I really wanted to be in there with her. All sorts of crazy thoughts were swimming around in my head. Like, what if she dies, will they even bother to tell us? Will they tell us she's dead, just so that we would leave, then they can keep her for themselves? What if she survives, and then wakes up to find that I'm not there, will they tell her that I don't care? And that I've gone for something to eat while she lays there dying. Or the worst thought of them all, what if she wakes up and the first person, she sees is Mason? What if she chooses him? My thoughts were suddenly cut short by a high-pitched squeal.

“Ooooh, I've never been to a diner before! I'm going to have a burger and fries, and pancakes, and bacon. Oo! Oo, and a chocolate milkshake, no! no! A strawberry milkshake and an ice cream sundae... Okay! Okay, Nami! I heard you the first time, God, and a steak for Nami!” Grace rambled on to herself.

Landon laughed clearly finding her extremely odd behavior cute.

Fucking mate bonds, I thought to myself as I shook my head. I looked up and saw Tyler's wide eye's in the rearview mirror, he looked like he was almost choking. His face was bright red, and he had his cheeks all puffed out, and then he suddenly mind linked me,

“Bbbwaaahhhhaaaa!”

His laughter filled my entire brain and even startled my wolf, who had growled in response. He finally calmed down enough to talk in between sniffles of laughter, “O..M..G, Tristan! She's fucking mental!” He blurted out at me, still in the mind link, thank Christ.

Landon would have ripped his head off of his shoulders if he'd heard him. I sniggered and replied,

“Did she just seriously talk to her wolf out loud, like she was actually in the car with us?” Tyler burst into laughter again. His intoxicating laughter suddenly stopped.

“Oh, damn!” He said.

I furrowed my brow as I looked at him in the mirror, his face was full of worry.

“What's up Ty?” I asked him in the link, and he looked me in the eyes and replied,

“Landon's going to take her home, isn't he? How the hell am I going to tell Cassie that her sisters only been gone a little while, and Landon's already moved on?” He said with a sigh then looked back at the road.

“I'm sorry, I don't know Ty. Has she still not come out of Jessie's room?” I asked him.

I knew we had a long chat yesterday but to be honest I wasn't paying too much attention. I know, shitty brother alert, but watching him cry because of Cassie's emotions surging around him was making me really uncomfortable. I knew he was upset about Jessie, but all the blubbering and sniffling was from Cassie's pain, not Tyler's.

I couldn't stand that part of the mate bond. Don't get me wrong, I liked the idea of being closer to your partner. I mean I bet it was great, feeling their excitement, love and lust, but I really didn’t like the idea of feeling all of Freya's mood swings, like when she was due on her period, or feeling her anger, when I'd pissed her off.

“Na, I spoke to Missy today and she's even stopped eating now. I really don't know what to do, she won't even let me in to see her. It's tearing me apart T, I miss her so much,” he said as he looked down and sighed out loud.

My father looked over to him and then turned around to look at me, I shook my head indicating for him to leave it, he nodded his head and turned back around.

“I'm so sorry Tyler, I wish I knew what to do to help you,” I said as I leaned forward and put my hand on his shoulder and then patted it. He put his hand on mine and squeezed it in response.

We pulled up to the diner and all got out of the car, I put my arm around Tyler and then pulled him in for a hug. He hugged me back, then pushed me away joking around, so I flung my arm around his neck and started messing up his hair, he hated it when I did that.

“Urgh, get off Tristan, for God sake! Why must it always be the hair?” He whined as he tried to fight me off.

“Because, it makes you whine like a bitch, my dear little brother,” I chuckled and messed his hair up even more, as we walked towards the diner.

Grace and Landon were walking in front of us hand in hand, dad was behind us laughing at our antics, and Evan's lot were just getting out of their car. I finally let go of Tyler and opened the diner door, I bowed as I held it open.

“Bitches first!” I said eyeing Tyler. He growled while punching me in the arm, then ran through the door with me sprinting in after him. “Tyler, you're so dead!” I shouted jokingly.

Landon cleared his throat and stared at me with wide eye's, and Tyler had frozen on the spot.

“Look!” Landon said through a mind link, as he scanned his eyes over to the left.

I followed his gaze, and there were about two dozen people in the diner, and every single one of them had stopped what they were doing and were all glaring, right at us. I scanned over a few of them and saw that their eyes were beginning to illuminate.

“Shit, they're all hunters!” I said over a group mind link.

“Oh! Oh! I can hear you. Wow, Nami this is sooooooo amazeballs, it's gonna be so much fun talking to all the different people in the pack, and oh, we can have singing contests, and quizzes and, and....” Grace rambled on.

“Shut up you stupid girl!” My father growled through the link.

She whimpered in response and lowered her head in submission. Landon put his arm around her to comfort her and she nuzzled into him. Some of the hunters had begun to stand up, and all of them were fixated on us. We all slowly backed up towards the door, ready to make a run for it.

“What the hell Evan, I can't believe you farted in the car!” A girl shouted as she opened the diner door.

“That was bad enough, but to then lock us in with it, that's so not on, Evan!” Another girl shouted as she followed in. Evan and another guy were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes.

“That was so fucking funny dude, the way Stevie and El almost puked...” The guy with Evan was saying, then he was abruptly slapped in the chest, and yelled at by one of the girls,

“Shhh, Finn!”

He quickly shut up and looked around the diner, they all stood as still as we were. All except for Evan of course. He looked around at all the hunters then quickly ascended.

“Move!” He yelled motioning with his arm for us to move to the back of the diner.

He glanced over at the three hunters that came in with him, and pointed to us with his eyes. One by one they ascended and stood in front of us like a barricade. He walked into the middle of the diner facing all of the other hunters.

“No one is to touch these wolves, they are guests of the Fionn and his daughter, Freya,” he shouted in a deep voice. Some of the hunters began to whisper, I could hear them saying things like,

“Who's Freya?” And,

“Why would the Fionn let wolves roam freely around the town?” Some others were just talking about how they wanted to rip us apart, and I stopped listening when I heard one of them go into detail about how he was going to pull my intestines out, and hang me with them.

“If any of you can't handle keeping your hands, or thoughts to yourselves then I suggest you leave right now!” Evan boomed.

Gradually the hunters began to get up and leave the diner, every one of them scowled at us and muttered things as they left. Finally, all but the staff had left the diner, and I think even they wanted to leave, but they knew that Evan and his friends needed serving, so they couldn't. Evan and the others descended and headed over to a table, the one they called Finn started joking about Evans fart again, and the girls began whining. Evan ushered with his hand for us to join them.

The rest of the diner experience was uneventful, well apart from the fact that Grace ordered pretty much everything on the menu, then got up, walked around in a circle, before curling up on the floor and falling asleep. Tyler found it so hilarious that his milkshake shot out of his nose. Everyone cracked up, even my father. Landon growled at us, and then picked his mate up off of the floor and carried her back to the car. We carried on laughing and chatting for a while, I was actually growing quite fond of Evan, if he wasn't a hunter I think we'd be great friends. I can definitely see why Freya missed him when she came home, he's hilarious.

Ring, ring, ring.

“Yellow?” Evan answered his phone.

“Evan,” I heard Damien reply.

“Fionn... Yeah?” He asked Damien.

“Freya's out of surgery and she's doing fine,” Damien replied.

“Oh, thank the angels,” Evan said with relief and I sighed along with my own relief.

I stopped listening out of respect and carried on eating my meal.

“Wait, she did what!?” Evan shouted out in shock.

I wished I'd still been listening now, damn it!

“Okay, I'll tell him, see you in a bit, bye,” Evan said while finishing up the call then looked over at me, and we all turned to listen to him.

“She's awake!” He said with a huge smile on his face.

My dad and Tyler had huge grins on their faces too, and were chattering away excitedly.

“Is she okay?” I asked Evan.

“Yeah, she's absolutely fine. They successfully removed the metal, gave her some blood in a drip and patched her up. Apparently, she's already on the mend. We all heal super-fast but I'm telling you, that girl is something else. She's special,” he said with a huge grin, I smiled back and said,

“I know, she's amazing.”

My heart felt like it was going to explode with joy, I was so happy that she was okay, I couldn't wait to see her. Evan looked at me again and started to talk,

“Damien said that she's been asking for you, he told her that you couldn't go into the house because of all of the hunters and apparently that pissed her off. It wasn't something she wanted to hear, she ascended and screamed loud enough for everyone to hear. She ordered them all to leave the house!” He chuckled as my mouth dropped open and the other hunters looked at him in shock. “You have a real good woman there Tristan. Damien said to let you know, she said she loves you more than anything, and she wants you to get your ass over there to pick her up, she wants to go home... to the bro's and hoe's house?” He questioned with his eyebrow raised.

I chuckled and shook my head. Tyler burst out laughing then suddenly choked on his burger, and it shot out of his mouth and landed on my dad's plate. He looked up wide-eyed and mouth open at my dad. Evan was beyond help at this point, if he laughed any harder he'd bust a nut. Finnley was hitting the table as he chuckled, and the girls gasped and cringed. I was chuckling away as my dad stood up and threw his napkin down onto the plate, then stormed right out of the diner. Tyler just stared at me began to crease up.

“Let's go!” My father boomed in his Alpha voice through a mind link.

We quickly scrambled up and ran out of the diner, leaving Evan in fits of hysterics along with the other three hunters. We jumped into the car and sped off towards the hunter's house. On the short journey to the hunter's house, my mind began to race. I wanted everything figured out before I got there, and I wanted to know exactly what I was going to say to Freya and how I was going to show her how much I loved her. I was so excited and relieved that Freya was going to be okay. We had been through so much, the thought of losing her made me realize that I could move past what she did.

She is my world and I can't lose her. When I get her home I'm going to make sure she knows just how much I love her. I'm going to tell her that I've decided to turn her and make her my Luna after her birthday party in a few days. I need to tell her the risks, but I am convinced that she will survive the turn.

Once bitten, you get sick, and it’s like having the flu. You have that for a few days, and then you get a fever for about a week or so. Then you go through some really horrible hallucinations and delusions, then if the fever doesn't kill you, you begin to heal. You eventually go back to normal, and then you have to wait for your first shift. That usually takes a few months. Once you've had your first shift, and if you're over eighteen, you can then find your mate. It's a dangerous and long process, but I know she can do it, she is the strongest person I know, she is my mate, my Luna, my Freya Rose.