Khan (Bowen Boys, #2)(52)
Caitlynne left, saying that she would see what she could do to get them up. Walker had a feeling they’d be coming up in a uniform if she had to sneak them past security and her men. An hour later, the door opened again and his mom and dad were there.
~~~
Khan left her to take a shower. Somehow, he had extra towels and other things to clean up with and decided that Caitlynne was going to get a better gift than the one he’d picked out for her for Christmas. The bracelet with hers and Walker’s initials on the pendent didn’t seem like enough to thank the woman who had saved his mate.
He had no doubt that Walker was a good doctor, but all the doctoring in the world wouldn’t have gotten him in the room to kill the bastard that had hurt his mate. Nor did he doubt that she was pulling some major shit to get not only his family up there, but everything they needed to make their stay easier.
The water ran red when he stepped under the spray. He scrubbed his body with the wash rag, then tossed it out of the stall and into the sink when he washed himself the second time. He was on his forth wash cloth when he felt clean enough to wash his hair and his body again. He wondered if he’d ever feel clean again.
He pulled on the clean pants that his mother had bought for him. There was a shirt in the bag, as well as some underwear and socks. She’d forgotten shoes, she’d told him, and would bring them later. He didn’t care now; he was clean and feeling better than he had for hours.
She was still unconscious now seven hours later. Walker had told him that she might need all that time to convert, and he was no longer checking her heartbeat every five minutes. When he declared her well, Khan let him close a few of the wounds on her body that were bleeding still and had to walk out of the room only twice so he wouldn’t hurt him. When he came out of the bathroom, his mother was washing Monica’s face and arms.
“She’ll feel better once she wakes if she’s not all covered in blood, don’t you think?” He helped her by picking Monica up gently so the sheets could be changed. He held her for a few minutes longer before putting her on the fresh linens.
“I killed that man.” His mother looked up at him when he spoke. “I did it and I’d do it all over again if I had the chance.”
“Of course you would. You love her.” She sat back in the chair after handing him a large sandwich, which he told her he didn’t want. “Eat it. You’ll need your strength for when she wakes.”
He took a bite and it felt as if he stomach woke from a long nap. He ate the sandwich so quickly that she handed him another. He ate this one slower and drank three bottles of the water that had been in the small refrigerator. His dad showed up to trade places with his mom so she could go and get some things from the store.
“She’ll buy it out, no doubt. She loves this woman. So do I.” Khan nodded at his dad as he continued. “When I was younger, I killed a man once. He’d been hurting your mother.”
Khan looked up at him. “Someone was messing with Mom? When was this? I don’t remember that.”
His dad nodded. “You were small and Dylan was about a year old. This man had been coming around looking for work and there hadn’t been any around the town. Your mom didn’t tell me that he sometimes came during the day when I was gone, but when he touched her, I knew.”
His dad touched the sheet over Monica, but not her skin. His dad would understand more than any other about touching her right now. But he did go on with his story.
“He’d hit her with his fist in the arm. I don’t remember why now or how he’d done it, but I’d felt her pain and her fear. She’d had you take the boys out to the barn to hide when she saw him coming. By the time I’d gotten there, he’d ripped open her blouse and had tried to rape her. She couldn’t shift to hand him his ass because of the band he’d tied her up with. She was furious and kicking out at him whenever he got near enough for her to kick. When I came in, my cat took one look at the situation and took me.”
Khan waited, knowing that this would be hard for his dad. His father hated for anyone to use their strength over another and this would have been no different for him. But his mate was hurt and the man responsible was still hurting her.
“I tore him off her. He’d managed to get past her when I came in the house. I was a mite younger then and didn’t have any problem taking him down. He was so shocked he shit himself. Didn’t stop me, though. I tore his throat out and spit it in his face.” His dad looked at him. “Never thought to just scare him away. Never even occurred to me to simply wound him and have him run along. I wanted him dead, and that’s what I did. To this day, I don’t regret my actions. And as surely as I’m sitting here, I tell you I never will.”
“I could have stopped when I killed him,” Khan admitted to his father now. “I could have stopped at tearing his throat out and walked away. But I wanted more, needed more than that. He’d not just hurt her, but he’d nearly killed her.”
His dad nodded and sat there for several minutes before he spoke again. “She’ll forgive you if that’s what you’re worried about. She’ll have no regrets at all that you killed him. She might be a tad pissy when she finds out she’s a cat. Not at being the cat, mind you, but because you did one of those major decision things she said you need to discuss together. I know and you know that she was a mite under the weather when it came to asking, but she ain’t going to be happy about you going ahead and doing it.”