27. Bye Bye Baby.

Damon changed shape. He rushed over to Mimi.

"Baby, baby, hey, hold on, I am so sorry, so fucking sorry. I was an idiot. Mimi, hey Mimi, it's okay shh, shh..."

He untied Mimi and wrapped her in a blanket, holding her in his arms and rocking her. Mimi turned her head away. Adam and Charles came into the room.

"Damien?" Charles asked.

His voice was an icy, furious whisper. His hands were bloody and in another room lay a lifeless Sark, his heart torn out of his chest. But as Sark had, that damn Magic new one was born somewhere else.

Damon nodded. He rocked Mimi, his eyes wet. No purr has come out yet.

Adam said, " Where do you want to take Mimi?"

Damon said, "San Jose castle, there is a fantastic medbay. "

I was silent. Damien was dead, but I still felt the heat and the uterine horns inside me. I knew I was full and pregnant. My belly had grown already. The drug panic was just under the surface. I had developed a shell as Damon had once been a shell. I knew the shell wouldn't last forever.

I just wanted to get rid of these non-fetuses inside me, then escape somewhere far away to safety to be alone, and then let the feeling come over me. I couldn't bear to look at Damon. I didn't want to. I was ashamed and desperate. There were not many feelings inside of me. I was drugged, and tortured for a year or more. 

I said, "Kill me. I don't want to carry these inside me for one more day. Kill me, please stop this, let me go. Haven't I suffered enough already?".

Damon did not respond. Mariella saw how broken Damon actually was. Mariella blamed herself. She should have realized that the past was trashed. Her fault. Why didn't she ask God? Mariella had dozens of different why options running through her head. But right now, Damon needed her. Damon didn't let Mimi be taken.

Mariella thought only of Damon, not Mimi, and it was just how she was built. Damon was her priority always and forever. It would long time for her to learn her true purpose and it would be a rocky road for her too.

He held Mimi protectively in his arms throughout the teleportation to San Jose Castle. Damon tried to purr but did not yet come out. He kept her tightly against him, even though he felt her swollen belly. 

"Baby, Baby, listen. I need to make you my alpha female again, you understand? Mariella can't be. Her white power is not really compatible with being an alpha female. When I make you my alpha female, my alpha half wants to protect and nurture you. Try to remember that."

"Yep," I thought, except it doesn't want to. I was used, filled with evilness, and desperate to end this.

I was marked, and I smelled Damien. The wet dog smell was obvious. I could see Damon smelling it. I smelled the other males. The only consolation here would be that Damon would kill me quickly and painlessly. I knew I couldn't die, but I knew Damon could put me in stasis for a while, even for centuries. At this point, I am technically dead. Somehow, it felt right for Damon to kill me.

Damon heard his wife's thoughts and almost collapsed in that place. He couldn't stand it. His alpha male was already desperate. It wanted to nurture, wash, clean, and protect. He knew alpha males had a brutal reputation, but the way Damien had brainwashed Mimi was heartbreaking. Mimi was so damn broken.

Damon said, "I'm not gonna kill you, Baby, no matter what you smell like. I can wash you and control you and keep you asleep, but I won't kill you."

Damon bit hard and deep into the ugly mark on Mimi's shoulder, and put all his will and alpha power into the bite. This was his female. When the mark was gone, and in its place, Damon had his own mark.

Mimi was now an alpha. Mariella sighed. That terrible and wonderful alpha power was flowing back into Mimi. How Mimi had controlled it, she did not know. Mariella silently retrieved a cocktail made for Mimi from the medicine cabinet. She came over to Damon and slipped it into his hand.

Damon was still rocking Mimi in his arms and was now purring reassuringly at her. He had finally gotten a purr out when she was now his to care for. Mariella didn't know what the hell Damon was doing to keep himself in check. The wet dog's stench almost made Mariella attack Mimi.

Then she wondered how Mimi would feel. How it feels when no one in the whole pack believes what you say, but just look at something Mimi didn't have access to and believe it.

The bite hurt, but it was cleansing at the same time. I felt the alpha power coming into me; I felt it finding the embryos. I felt the fucking embryos inside me all the time. I felt a sting on my elbow. I watched Damon press the piston before I fell asleep and watched a tear roll from his eye. Then came the darkness.

Damon carried the now unconscious Mimi to one of the patient beds and undressed her. Mimi's ribs were clearly felt, there were scars all over, half-healed wounds, and Mimi's entire upper torso was covered in bite marks. Damien's marks. Her belly was visibly swollen and Damon could feel embryos inside her.

Damon controlled himself. The worst part was the smell—a wet dog. The rage inside him threatened to rise. It wasn't time to bite the marks off yet. The embryos had to be destroyed. As Damon felt through Mimi, he felt many hot horns of her uterus full of warmth. The rage began to rise. Mariella became wrapped up. Damon took her hand and pressed it against many of the wombs.

Mariella shuddered with disgust. She could feel how full Mimi was and those embryos too, made her want to do something, ripping them out from her. Mimi was too precious for this. She would need a long time TLC from the entire pack after this. 

"Bite off those horrible marks. Now I know you want to," Mariella said. "I want them gone. She really did not deserve this. How could we be so damn stupid?"

"Fine," Damon replied and began to bite.

Forty-five minutes later, everything was gone. Damon got up from the bed he had been sitting on.

"I'm going to go get the operating room ready. " He said shortly.

He first fetched a large metal barrel from outside and brought it into the operating theatre. Then gasoline. And matches. He got the room ready. Mariella carried Mimi in without any trouble. They began the operation. They burned everything. They scraped every tissue from every organ inside Mimi and burned. They flushed and worked their magic to make sure not a single sperm, not a single piece of Damien, remained inside Mimi.

Then, they let the new organs grow. No womb was born. They used magic to destroy the smell. They knew they could wash Mimi physically, but what could they do for Mimi's mind?

Damon quietly carried the sleeping Mimi to her bed. He covered her up. Mimi would get some rest. Then, he would begin to nurse. He was already in desperate need of a nest. He wanted to make a soft, sheltered nest, hide Mimi in it, and nurture her. But Damon knew better. He'd given nesting the power he'd always given it from time to time. Once, he spent six months with Mimi and Mimo in a nest.

Now he had Mariella. Mariella blamed herself so terribly that it broke Damon's heart just to have her. Oh, if only he could help everyone move on.

He sat on the bed and held Mimi's hand. "Baby, I lied or said whatever, then well, you'll remember when this all started. You were never just a job. Yes, I had emotions at play from the very beginning. Believe me. One day, baby, one day, I'll show you. Don't give up on us. I know it's a bad time, a real, real bad time, but hey, we're us. We'll get through this. "

Mariella quietly came up behind Damon. She wrapped herself around this wonderful gorgeous man she was with who was in another awful place. Not that they all were. Every one of them blamed themselves. They wondered how they'd ever get the bond with Mimi right. Mariella sensed that something irreversible had taken place between Mimi and Damon.

Something had been broken that wasn't meant to be.

Mariella said, " Come on, let Mimi rest. Come on, let's go over there and unpack a little bit, okay? This has been the worst day of my life. Then when we are ready, I want you to take me and Mimi into the nest. Can you do it? Can you take us both?"

Damon did not say anything. He touched Mimi one last time. Damon left with his wife. They went into the bedroom and fucked with fierce, furious enthusiasm for two days.

I woke up in a hospital bed. I wasn't strapped down. I took this as one more sign. I still felt the medicinal panic sedation, as strong as ever, but my shell held. It would hold for a while longer. I need to get out. I couldn't bear another pitying look, not one more thought of shushing Damon. I have to get through this. I felt clean, clean of everything, Damien. I didn't smell anymore, but I was hollow inside. Emotionless.

I wrote a short note and left it on the bed.

"Thanks for the treatment. It is time for me to go and recover. Alone, as I should. All I need is time. Fret not, I will remember my duty as an alpha female. I will be back. I need peace, I don't want pity, I can't take it now, please, don't look for me. I am yet too broken. Leave me alone. I'll be back. Try to cope and move on. Mimi."

Then I left. It was night. No one saw me sneak out down one of the secret passages and go away. There had not been a cannula in me, no feeding, no sides brought up. Like it would have meant to me to leave, to go and recover.

I had no idea why I thought that way. I did not think that they abandoned me but it was more that they could not deal with this, not this version of me and I knew that if I had stayed, they would have seen me only as broken, a victim, nothing more and it would have just reminded them all the time about their mistakes. I needed to get this drug panic first out of me, let it run its course, and then see where I was.

I went to Nepal. I bought a house there when I was looking for Lady. It was a big house. With modern amenities and as fucking remote as you can get. The perfect hideaway. I went into the house. I found one room and made a safe cave, where I curled up into a ball and let the shell crack. The feeling came over me. Everything else disappeared. I just needed to be safe, hidden in the dark. I was in my drug panic, all alone, as I should be. 

They had fucked over three days, Damon, and said to Mariella, "Honey, I'm gonna go check on Mimi and bring you some breakfast. "

Mariella replied wearily, " Fine, you do that."

They had been feeling worse for two days. Now, it was starting to help a little. They had gotten the worst of it unloaded and soon it would be time to start nesting with Mimi. Mariella watched as Damon left.

After a moment, Mimosa walked into the room, jumped into bed, and put her muzzle on Mariella's stomach.

"It didn't work. She left. And I don't know when she'll be back." Mimosa sighed.

Mariella asked, " Who left? Damon just went to get breakfast. He'll be back." She did not pay attention to the pronoun that Mimosa had used.

Mimosa looked for a moment and said, her voice sad, so sad, " It's too late now, never mind."

Damon went to the medbay. He saw an empty bed. Somehow, it was not a surprise, and he realized that part of him had known this to happen. He sat there for a moment, took a pillow, and buried his face in it, the pillow only smelling of a hint of strawberry now. He stared at the note. He read it again and again. She was too broken. He could not help her. He had not let Charles or Adam go near her. And why, so she would leave and maybe come back someday. He was not sure why.

He knew Mariella would be devastated by this, as would Mimo, Shadow, Adam, and especially even Charles. They had all betrayed Mimi. Damon thought, "I wish this had never happened."

He somehow knew that Mimi needed time to pull herself back together, but he remembered Mariella's plan to nest with Mimi and even one part of him was furious with himself not to make sure that Mimi would have stayed here so they could nest, thought of nesting was not something that might help Mimi. How could he explain this to them all? Charles and Adam would be furious and they would seek Mimi, not honor her wishes at all. 

He had an idea. He began to develop a spell, magic, so powerful and so cunning that even Mariella would never know. He, too, would change the past so that the whole event would never have happened. Mimi would have gone on a road trip, and they'd have gone to the Azores and from there to Europe. He'd still be sick of her. They'd have toured Europe in a pack, and now they'd want their own time again. It would not be fair to Mimi, but this was better for the pack. Just gloss it over as if it never happened. 

The magic would ensure that not so much attention would be paid to the passage of time. It would be better for Mimi, maybe too. When Mimi would return, it would be as if nothing bad had happened. It would be just their secret. Damon concentrated, and the magic began to spread, so he whispered, "Bye-bye, Baby," and the magic took over.