The Patient Is a Shark [Shape-Shifter Clinic 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

It’d been a long time since Quinn had been asked to send a sub into subspace. Usually about half of what he did as a Dom in the dungeon was building up the anticipation so the sub would be thinking, planning, and imagining what would happen next. Then when release came, it was much stronger than just from a whipping alone. But for subspace, the pain had to be constant, and building steadily, so long pauses for mental tension didn’t always bring the desired result.

He stomped around the dungeon out of the sub’s sight, letting his boots make a lot of noise on the concrete floor. Then he cracked his cane loudly through the air a few times. Quinn hoped the sub’s cock would be growing and pulling on the crushers as he waited for the first stroke of the cane. That was about the best he could do right now to build tension. Once he started the whipping he needed to continue it for the most productive effect, otherwise there was no guarantee he could send Rainer into subspace.

This was going to be a huge challenge. Because Rainer wasn’t his sub he didn’t know the man’s most sensitive areas, or what his personal limits were.

“You may call orange or red at any time, sub,” he said.

“Yes, Master.”

The sub’s voice was soft but firm. Well, that would have to do. It was time to begin.

Quinn stood to the left of the sub and whipped three hard lines across his ass, two over his shoulders, and one across his calves. Then he moved to the other side and repeated exactly the same firm strokes.

Now it was time to change up the action. Using lighter strokes he punished the sub across his back, avoiding the kidneys, then put maximum force into one stroke over the man’s ass.

Constantly changing from side to side, alternating stroke strength, moving up and down the sub’s body, Quinn did his very best to warm the man’s skin, then make it burn, and finally raise the pain level higher.

He saw the exact moment when the sub began to fly and mentally heaved a sigh of relief as he caned him twice more, just to ensure he stayed deep in subspace, before putting his Thunderbolt back in his toy box.

Quickly Quinn unchained the sub and laid him on the floor on his back while he removed the cock crushers. He rolled Rainer over onto his front, knowing the cold concrete would have soothed his back a little and now would soothe his cock.

Quinn replaced the cock crushers in his toy box in their little tray, and took out massage oil. Kneeling beside Rainer, he drizzled the oil over the man’s shoulders, down his back, across his ass, and over his thighs and calves. Then he began to massage it into his skin. Rainer’s back was a solid red, but no skin was broken. Likely a bruise would develop on his ass, but it shouldn’t be too bad, Quinn thought.

By the time he’d massaged every inch of the sub’s back, shoulders, and legs, Quinn thought he’d be coming out of subspace soon, so left him lying on his front, resting his head on his crossed forearms, while Quinn put away the massage oil and locked his toy box.

Sure enough, Rainer moved a little, then five minutes later silently got up, walked over to the chair, got dressed, and left the dungeon. Quinn watched him critically and he was moving a little stiffly but he should be fine.

As usual, he waited another ten minutes before leaving the dungeon, giving the sub the privacy to leave the club unwatched and unfollowed. But all the way home he wondered why Rainer had asked to be sent to subspace. What was the sub looking for? What did he need? Or was he putting too much emphasis on the event simply because he worked with the man?

Wynter had spent hours and hours surfing the Internet and making her plans. If she sold her car she’d be able to afford the surgery, and pay all her other bills, but she wasn’t going to be able to pay for the rehabilitation and months of physiotherapy she needed. Well, she’d just have to hope swimming would fix that. There was a big, wide ocean out there and swimming cost nothing. Although she’d make damn certain she stayed close in to the shore and away from any fucking sports fishermen this time.

She kept coming back to a small advertisement she’d seen on the two shape-shifter websites she knew were genuine. One was a website run by a pack of werewolves she’d heard about. They were a very large and wealthy pack, well connected with other werewolf groups through North America. The other was a smaller group, but she recognized several names on it that she’d heard her parents talk about.

The advertisement was tiny, only a few lines, and identical on both sites.

Thorne House Clinic.

Specializing in General Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Physiotherapy, for Shape-Shifters only.

The only problem was, it was in Ohio and she was in California. They could hardly have been farther apart if they’d deliberately tried to be.

She was running out of time. She had to pay another month’s rent in a week’s time, and she really didn’t want to spend her money on that if she was going to be in a clinic for several weeks, then off at rehabilitation for months after that. Her money would be much better spent on fixing her leg. But if she cancelled her apartment and sold her car she would have nowhere to store her clothes and possessions. She didn’t have all that much stuff. Living in an RV most of her life had taught her not to collect things. But she did have some things, and it seemed crazy to have to hire a storage locker to put them in. Doing that would likely cost the entire deposit she’d get back from her apartment, money she’d need for food and to live on.

Finally she e-mailed the large werewolf pack and asked if they could recommend the clinic. She deliberately gave a few details about herself so they’d know she was a genuine inquirer, not a competing clinic or something.

She was surprised to receive an e-mail just five minutes later with a Skype address on it saying,
Tell me more about your injury. We might be able to help you. Dr. Oscar Thorne.

Wynter logged into Skype and typed in the address Dr. Thorne had given her. Seconds later he was online. He was a good-looking man with curly, short black hair and black eyes. Wynter was very much aware she wasn’t looking her best. Just as the doctor in the emergency room had told her it would, her damn knee ached constantly and it was almost impossible to walk properly, but she knew he would have told the truth and if she favored the bad knee and limped she’d just end up with a hip injury as well. But the result was she wasn’t sleeping well so her pale skin was even paler than normal with big dark shadows under her eyes.

“Call me Oscar. How did you damage your knee, Wynter?”

Wynter repeated the story she’d told everyone who’d asked her since it happened. “I was swimming and got it caught on a piece of metal. I hurt myself getting free from the metal.”

The doctor grinned at her. “The metal you caught it on, would that have been a fisherman’s hook, perhaps? Or a harpoon? What are you? Your coloring is too fair for you to be a seal, so I’m guessing you’d be a dolphin perhaps, or a shark?”

“What are you?” she asked, terrified of telling a stranger something that could potentially ruin her life.

“Oh, I’m a werewolf. Most of the people here at the shape-shifter clinic are wolves, with some humans, but we treat all shape-shifters. We’ve had a few interesting patients.”

Wynter sank back against the couch, her laptop bouncing on her thighs as she did so. “I’m a great white shark and I need a knee reconstruction. The left knee. An anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.”

“We can do that here, and all the rehabilitation exercises. We’ll program them so you can heal at your own rate, instead of the standard way humans do things. It should be about twice as fast as your doctor suggested.”

“There’s two problems though, Doctor—Oscar. First, I’m in California and I have no insurance. And second I have to swim absolutely every day.”

“How are you coping with the swimming, so far?”

“Not very well. I go to the beach just as it’s getting dark, hop down to the water and swim parallel with the shore, about six feet deep. It’s enough to stop my skin from itching me to distraction, but it hurts like hell to walk on the sand and getting dressed and undressed isn’t fun either.”

She didn’t mention about the group of young men who’d almost caught her coming out of the water naked on the second day she’d gone there, either. But that had scared her witless, she’d sunk back under the surface and shaken like a leaf for ten minutes at the near miss. No way could she run away from them, or swim away from them either, right now.

“How deep do you need to go?”

“Oh, not very deep, just enough to cover my fins, so say three or four feet. The problem is I must swim in my shifted form so a swimming pool or hot tub or bathtub isn’t adequate for me.”

“That’s not an issue. The lake here is about ten feet deep in the middle, but the average depth would be four feet so that would be fine. Being in California and not having insurance is not an insurmountable problem, either. You’d need to pay for your consumables—antibiotics, anesthetics, bandages, and so on, but the operation itself and your accommodation here can be provided free of charge.”

Wynter was so surprised she could hardly speak. “You’d do that for me? Someone you don’t know? Have never met?”

“This clinic was established intentionally for people like you. It’s here to aid shape-shifters who need help. Now, when do you think you’ll be arriving here so I can have someone meet you at the airport?”

Wynter’s excitement collapsed like a burst bubble. She’d checked the costs of flights already. It was about seven hundred dollars. Add to that the price of the “consumables” at the clinic, and basic things like rent and food while she recovered and before she could find a job, and selling her car wasn’t going to provide enough money for all of that. But if she drove to Ohio she could take her possessions with her, sleep in her car as she traveled, carry her own food, and eat cheaply. Surely there was somewhere along Lake Erie where she could even live in her car in a campground while she recovered and until she found a job.

“The cost of the flights from here to Ohio is out of my budget I’m afraid, and anyway I’ll need my car to keep all my possessions in and for finding a job when my knee heals. I’ll have to drive there. It’s a long way. It’ll take, oh, maybe a week,” she said.

“You’re not seriously planning to drive two and a half thousand miles with that knee are you? Let me think.”

Wynter watched as Dr. Thorne—Oscar—twirled a pencil between his fingers, then tapped it on his desk. Finally he nodded and said, “If your possessions will fit in your car, I reckon they’d fit in a small U-Haul trailer. I’ll send a couple of my staff over to help you pack up your apartment. They’ll hire a trailer for you, and you can lay down on the backseat of the car and rest while they drive you and haul your things here. I’ll get my office administrator to make all the arrangements, and she’ll e-mail you the details tomorrow.”

“You’ll send your people to help me? They’ll drive my car for me? Why? Why for me?” Wynter was almost crying. She was so excited at the thought he could help her, make it possible for her to have the surgery and be cared for by people who truly understood her and her needs. But how was that possible? They’d never even met yet.

“I’ve already answered that question, Wynter. The only reason this clinic exists is to help people like you, like me, like us. I established this place specifically to support shape-shifters who need a place to heal where their needs are understood. Don’t try to pack your apartment up yourself. Stay off that knee so it doesn’t get any worse. Ambrielle will e-mail you tomorrow with the details about who’s coming and when they’ll arrive. They’ll deal with everything then for you.”

“Thank you.” Wynter was blinking back tears. Never had anyone other than her parents gone out of their way to help her. Now here was someone who was not only going to fix her knee, but was also having his staff make the arrangements for her and sending someone from the other side of the country to care for her. It was unbelievable.

“Rest, now, Wynter. That’s an order.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Wynter smiled as a few tears trickled down her cheeks. She leaned back against the couch and clicked out of Skype then let the tears flow freely. She was going to have the operation. She was going to have a proper rehabilitation after it. Her knee would be healed properly.

I’ll offer to work for free at the clinic for him while I’m healing. I’ll wash dishes or do any job to show them how much I appreciate what they’re doing for me.

Through blurry eyes she looked around her tiny apartment.
And I won’t have to give away any of my books or clothes to move this time either!

I wonder who he’ll send to help me. Maybe this Ambrielle he mentioned.

Oh shit! How am I going to swim on the way across the desert!
Wynter sat up straight again and called up Google Maps. She needed to find some lakes between California and Ohio.

* * * *

“Hi, Rainer. I need to ask you a personal favor. First, I just want you to know you’re completely free to refuse me. This isn’t about boss to staff member at all. Understand?”

No, Rainer didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he did understand that Oscar was serious. To be safe, he just nodded, and kept his mouth tightly shut. He was in Oscar’s office at the clinic. Oscar was usually only there to answer e-mails and sign paperwork. Most of the day he was around the clinic talking to the patients and supervising their rehabilitation programs to help them recover, so even being asked into Oscar’s office felt weird.