"I didn't mean to make you angry yesterday," Amaryllis said as she hugged her knees close to her chest while watching Ulric tug a shirt over his beautiful body. A light pink tinted her cheeks as she looked at her mate's lean and muscular frame.

"What do you mean?" Ulric questioned, running a hand through his disheveled hair. He looked at his mate with a pink blush on her cheeks as she stared at him from her position on the bed.

"When I flinched back, you thought that I thought you were going to hit me," she replied.

Ulric let out a deep sigh and walked over to the bed. He gently grabbed her healing wrist in his hand and looked it over.

"I wasn't angry at you, Amaryllis. I was upset. I was angry at myself, angry at whoever caused you to have that reaction. I wasn't angry at you," he said, his voice still husky with sleepiness.

"Oh," she said as she thought over his words.

He wasn't angry at me?

"I know you won't hurt me or hit me, but it's just a natural instinct to me when I feel threatened to cower away," the young girl explained softly.

Her eyes darkened and grew sad as she thought about the memory that instilled this fear inside of her.

Ulric noticed and lightly traced his fingertips over her face, subconsciously trying to soothe his mate.

"A few years ago when I was 15, I was standing in line to get into the grocery store on one of the days that they were selling red meat." She recalled. Meat was a very scarce luxury for humans and whenever the vampires allowed them to sell small portions of it in the grocery stores, people went crazy for it. The vampires said that they wanted the human blood to be as healthy as possible, and meat was part of the necessary food group, so it was occasionally sold.

"My parents were both sick with the flu and my brother's ankle was broken because he stepped off of the front steps wrong, so my parents asked if I would go and wait in line to buy the food. There were guards patrolling the area as normal, making sure we were behaving and whatnot. These girls behind me, girls who had hated me ever since the uprising, thought it would be funny to push me out of line right as a guard was walking by." Amaryllis gulped and took a deep breath.

Amaryllis didn't even know she had done it, but she had her fists wrapped around Ulric's shirt and was sliding her body even closer to his. She didn't like talking about that day, but the comfort and support that her mate provided made it easier to talk about.

"I really don't even know why those girls hated me, I think it was some type of need for power because us humans had none in our vampire dominated society. So I guess they figured they would gain power and some type of status by bullying me. I think they picked me to be the target because I really didn't have many friends, so I guess they thought I was weird or something." By this point, Amaryllis had moved so close to Ulric that her face was almost touching his midriff.

Ulric didn't mind though. He could tell that his mate needed comfort, and he subconsciously offered that comfort by not pulling away from her.

"The guard then pushed me to the ground and started beating me. He kicked me all over my body; in the face, stomach, and all over my legs. He stood over top of me and started hitting my face with his hands while he continued to kick my sides. I'm pretty sure he was going to kill me, but some other guard pulled him off of me. I don't know why, but I'm glad that he did. I had bruises for weeks and a few of my ribs were broken from where he had kicked me so hard. It was awful," Amaryllis recalled as she shivered from the memory.

Ulric grew furious at the thought of someone hurting his mate. He could only see red as he thought if his beautiful innocent little Amaryllis laying there as someone repeatedly hurt her.

"Ulric?" He heard the beautiful voice of his mate.

He looked down at her realizing that he had been staring at the wall behind her, glaring daggers at it with his eyes.

"Are you okay?"

He nodded his head, though he was anything but fine. Thanks to this guard, his mate now went around thinking she could possibly get beaten at any moment.

He recalled seeing in her file a list of injuries that included three broken ribs. Two on her right side and one on her left. It also stated she had severe bruising due to damaged blood vessels. He had thought about bringing the injuries up to Amaryllis a while ago, but he didn't want to appear affectionate toward her, well until now.

"Was that the only time a vampire has ever hurt you?" Ulric asked as calmly as he could.

She nodded as she stared up into his eyes. "Good," he growled. He gently pulled Amaryllis's head close to his body so that she was leaning on his chest.

"I won't ever hurt you, Amaryllis. I will never raise a hand to my own mate," he vowed. Amaryllis nodded her head against his chest, believing him completely.

"Do you trust me when I say that?" He inquired.

She looked up into his eyes and stared at him for a moment before nodding her head. "I know you won't hurt me," she confirmed and a look of relief crossed over Ulric's face.

He didn't want Amaryllis to be afraid of him. In the beginning, he wanted her to fear him, but not so much now. Yes, he wanted her to respect him and listen to what he had to say, but he didn't want her to be afraid of him.

"I won't let anyone hurt you ever again, do you understand?"

"Yes," Amaryllis nodded, feeling safer in the arms of her vampiric mate than she had ever before in her life.

Later that night, as Ulric lay next to his sleeping mate, he wondered what he was doing.

He had been affectionate with Amaryllis earlier, more affectionate than he had been with anyone except for her. And that... concerned him.

He wasn't exactly sure he was ready for a mate. He didn't want to make himself vulnerable and an open target like he had for her. He didn't want to be hurt again.

Yet, Ulric knew that Amaryllis wasn't like her. Deep down, he simply knew that she wouldn't betray him as she did. He knew that she was innocent and pure, and the real deal unlike her.

He sighed and ran a hand down his face as he turned on his side to face Amaryllis. Reaching over, he wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her close to him, living the feeling that the touch of his mate brought him - absolute bliss.

He wasn't exactly sure he was ready to give himself to a woman again, but he was willing to try.

About two weeks later

Amaryllis sat on a table in a doctor's office as Ulric stood in one side of her and Doctor Lucius stood on the opposite side of her.

Ulric watched closely as the doctor touched his mate. His inner beast didn't like the way another man touched her, but he calmed himself by remembering that the man was helping his mate, not hurting her.

"Well, after six weeks, everything looks fine. Now, I recommend that you take it easy for a few weeks as the bone is still tender. Don't pick up anything too heavy, no weight lifting or anything like that for a few weeks until you get your range of motion back. However, for the next three weeks, you need to do exercises in order to strengthen the muscles that haven't been used and to regain your range of motion. These are flexion, extension, and stretch exercises that will enable you to do so," he said as he handed Amaryllis a sheet of paper. The paper was full of different images and descriptions of the exercises performed in each image.

"You are lucky though. Many humans with this type of break take a few weeks longer to heal. You healed surprisingly well," Doctor Lucius said in a surprised tone.

"Well? If you don't mind King Ulric, one of the farmhands stabbed herself in the hand with a pitchfork and I need to attend. May I excuse myself?" The Doctor asked. Ulric nodded his head, and the man was off.

"Do you have something to do with why my wrist healed so quickly?" I asked. My gut told me that my healing quickly and effectively had everything to do with Ulric.

He nodded his head. "Yes. When a mate is injured, the more time they spend with their mate and the more physical contact they have, the faster and more efficiently the injured mate will heal."

"Oh, that's cool. Thank you," Amaryllis said as she happily stared at her hand. It was weird seeing her bare skin again, she hadn't seen it in almost two months.

"You don't need to thank me Amaryllis. But let's get out of this office, I hate the smell of rubbing alcohol," he said as he scrunched his face up in disgust. It was one of the cutest things Amaryllis had ever seen. It was odd describing the masculine, stone cold man as cute, but at that moment, he was very cute.

"Do you think we can go visit Marley? Thierry said I could go see her anytime I wanted to."

"I suppose we can," Ulric answered.

"Thank you. Have you met her before?" She asked.

Ulric nodded his head. "Yeah. Thierry has brought her here a few times and I'd seen her in her pack before."

When they walked into Marley's hospital room, Amaryllis noticed Thierry standing behind Marley as she carefully walked back toward her bed. When Marley noticed the visitors, she turned and walked as quickly as possible over to Amaryllis.

"Hey, be careful Marley!" Thierry snapped as he reached to grab her hips to slow her pace. Marley rolled her eyes at her mate's behavior.

"I'm fine, Thierry. I've been walking for almost two weeks now," she said.

Thierry let out a huff but continued to walk with her to Amaryllis and Ulric who were at the door.

"We can come back later," Ulric said as he pulled Amaryllis out of the doorway to give Marley time to rest.

"No! Don't go!" Marley shouted. She reached Amaryllis and wrapped her arms around her. She couldn't give very tight hugs at the moment due to muscle deterioration caused by the coma, but she tried her hardest.

Amaryllis wrapped her arms around Marley's thin body as well. While she was quite skinny, she had made a lot of improvement from when she first woke up. Ulric told Amaryllis that it was all because Thierry was with her the whole time. With Thierry being there with her, she was healing and regaining strength at a much faster pace than what she would have if Thierry wasn't there.

"I've missed you. I haven't seen you in a few days," Marley said.

"I know. I'm sorry about that, but I figured that I would give you space to heal," Amaryllis answered as she helped Marley walk back to the bed.

"Ugh, don't worry about my healing. I'm healing fantastically thanks to Thierry! Because of him, I get to leave the hospital tomorrow and go back home with him because of how quickly I've healed. Doctor Lucious said that if I didn't have Thierry, I would have to stay at the hospital even longer before my levels would've returned to normal," she said while beaming up at her mate.

Amaryllis looked up at Ulric who was staring at her as I sat on the bed next to Marley. She gave him a quick smile before turning back around to Marley who had asked her to French braid her hair.

"You two are mates aren't you?" Thierry accused staring back and forth between the couple.

Amaryllis wasn't sure what to say, so she simply stared at Ulric with her mouth hanging slightly open.

Ulric cracked a smile before nodding at Thierry, almost like he was happy that his friend had finally figured it out. It made Amaryllis smile because his smile meant that he was happy with her.

"I knew it! I knew it this whole time," Thierry said as he reached out and gave Ulric a handshake.

Amaryllis blushed as she turned back around to Marley who was staring at her with a surprised expression.

"I never thought that the cold-hearted vampire King would have a mate!" She exclaimed.

"I never thought I would be his mate," Amaryllis said as she twisted the strands of hair around her fingers.

"I never thought you would be my mate either," Ulric said as he walked closer to Amaryllis and ran a hand through her hair.

"I'm so excited for you," Marley said happily as she beamed up at the couple. "Oh, we won't tell anyone by the way. It's your business so we won't ruin it for you." Ulric nodded his head at Marley as a way of saying thank you.

"So, What do you have to do once you leave the hospital?" Amaryllis asked.

"The doctor gave Thierry a list of exercises that I have to go down to the gym or come back to the hospital to do to regain my strength and what not. But they said that within a few weeks, I should see a lot of improvement."

"That's fantastic. I was worried that you weren't ever going to wake up," Amaryllis admitted.

"Me too," Thierry sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.

Marley giggled at his reaction. "I knew I was going to wake up. But it was kind of like I just couldn't get myself to just yet. I finally opened my eyes when I heard Thierry talking to himself about living without me, and I heard how sad he was and it broke my heart. I guess that was the turning point where I realized I was strong enough to wake up."

"That's nice," Amaryllis said quietly as she tied a hair tie at the bottom of Marley's braid. "All done," she said and stood up from the bed.

"Thanks!"

"Well, we should probably leave so you can have some alone time," Amaryllis said.

"Okay. Thank you for coming!"

Ulric and Amaryllis walked out of the hospital where he proceeded to plant a kiss on her lips.

"Oh," she said with a giggle. She wasn't expecting that. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he led them back to their home.