Capture (Book 1 in the Wolfen Brethren Series)

Rose Tinted Blood

                   

This has been edited but there may still be mistakes

"Back again?" mumbled Emmaline as she took in the state of Neema. The bruises from the night before had deepened in colour and the scars had begun an attempt at healing. Her skin was clear from any blood but Neema definitely looked worse for wear, she had a swollen cheek and bussed lip that cracked with every movement.

"Yep, but you'll be glad to know it wasn't Khan."

Emmaline merely nodded her head at Neema's response and continued moving around the room, looking for any reason to fully face her. The tension was still strong between the two women and neither knew how to make up for the wrong doings they had done.

The woman refused to face Neema as she pulled out a blue flower that had lots of blossoms on it, she continued pulling out more stuff and placed them on the desk in front of Neema.

She pulled a petal from the flower and placed it into a small dish, moving over to the sink she carried the dish and a small bottle of a yellowish liquid to the sink. Her back was to Neema as she crushed the flower and added a little of the liquid along with some brown and red dust. She then set fire to the mixture and waited for a deep purple haze to rise from the dish before she blew it out and headed back over to the desk where Neema sat and some of her remedies still lay.

She began spreading the warm paste over Neema's skin in silence her eyes focussed on her work as if the woman she was working on was a corpse and not a live person with questions.

It was Neema who broke the silence.

"Emmaline I'm really sorry for what happened the other day, I know you probably hate me but I had to tell you the truth."

Neema would never apologise for the words she had said, they were the truth and though they were hard to hear she could not take them back. Emmaline needed to know the truth and she had been the barer of the bad news. She was sorry for the reaction it had on the woman, Neema could only imagine how she reacted to her mate that night. It was not everyday a female realised she had been pulled into a loving bond with a rapist but the scenario was one Neema was aware often happened to the women of this world.

People in the old world had come up with clinical terms for women who formed attachments to their kidnappers and rapists but in this world there was only one that they new, Life. It was life. It was how things had been for as long as anyone could remember. Even human marriages were not always roses that bloomed, some were weeds that spread and killed life around it. Sucked all the love into rot. It was life, a part that Neema had no intention of being a victim of. If she was to ever love Khan, she would remember the beginnings of this godforsaken mate bond and he would remember right alongside her.

At Neema's words she placed the dish on the table and closed her eyes, tears pooled at the corners of her lashes as she bit her lip and her hands clenched on the desk in her frustration.

"I do not hate you, I just. It was hard for me to hear it." Her voice cracked as she licked her lips. "when I got home, I had to look at my mate and tell him I remembered. I had to look at my son Konan and know that he was not conceived out of love. It hurt, it still does."

When her eyes opened Neema saw sincerity and a lightness that she had never seen in Emmaline the few times she had met the woman.

"But I'm better for it and my family will be better for it, the love we have now is one that I chose. I may not have in the beginning but I made that choice when I went back to my mate and lay my head on his chest. You gave me a choice, even if I did not realise I needed to make it. Thank you."