Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Waking up took a lot of effort.
Ren kept feeling his mind slipping away just as he started to grasp consciousness—it was like one of those nightmares where you kept running and running, trying to catch something always out of reach.
Maybe he should have realized he wasn’t meant to wake up yet—maybe his brain knew what was coming and was trying to save him from the trouble of it.
But he had to wake up eventually.
Ren’s eyelashes fluttered as he sucked in a quick, sharp breath through his nose.
His eyes rolled back and forth, trying to take in his surroundings all at once, but the lights were too bright, there were too many smells, and everything was far too comfortable to be familiar.
He wondered when the cold, gray prison had become a safe place for him because waking up here was far more terrifying than it would have been in his cell.
When he finally managed to blink away the grogginess clouding his vision, the room was almost entirely empty.
His head lolled to one side to see a row of empty beds—one had a sleeping form covered in soft blankets.
He could see the Wolf’s chest rising and falling and vaguely wondered why she was here.
Ren glanced down, noticing the same soft, warm blankets on his own body; he wondered if the other Wolf had had the same questions when she saw Ren.
It took Ren a moment to notice the doctor—the Alpha was far too tall for the little desk and chair he was seated at, hunched over as he wrote furiously.
Slowly, his mind caught up.
He was in the infirmary. A quick glance outside told him he couldn’t have been higher up than a second story.
He could run.
Maybe he would go to the Faeries; he had heard their kingdom was beautiful with its white stone castle and endless summer. Even if they had lost their magic, it was still a place of peace and warmth.
Ren didn’t have time to think—didn’t know how long he would have before someone noticed he was awake. He was shocked Falk wasn’t seated beside him, watching him like he always seemed to be.
He tried to make as little noise as possible, gaze glued on the doctor at his desk, as he lifted the blankets off of himself.
He barely had time to wonder who had put him into new clothes—a sweater and soft, cotton pants—before he was swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and throwing himself toward the window.
His feet barely touched the floor when pain sliced up from his abdomen, nausea sliding up his throat.
He managed to make it the few steps to the window, fingers curling over the stone ledge, before he cried out in pain.
Ren tried to pull himself up onto the windowsill, but ultimately slid down to his knees, unable to get his body to listen to him.
The doctor was on him in a second. He heard the man calling out—asking for guards—as he grabbed Ren by the shoulders to hold him still.
Ren screamed, thrashing and kicking as he was suddenly lifted up into the air and deposited back on a bed. “Let go of me!” He howled, balling his hand up into a fist to swing at the Alphas holding him.
“Ren, calm down!”
The familiar voice had Ren’s heart rate slowing. The panic left him enough to realize Falk was the one holding his waist down—his grip much softer than the other holding onto his shoulders.
Falk’s expression stern, etched with concern in the line that had deepened over his forehead.
“Don’t move too much. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Falk said, voice quiet, soothing.
“We should restrain him. Do either of you have cuffs?” the doctor asked, his gaze skipping over Falk to instead look at the other Alpha who Ren didn’t recognize. She was taller than Falk with wild red hair and thin lips that made her look even less approachable than Falk.
“Yeah. I do. I can—” she started.
“Bram,” Falk’s voice was harsh on the name. “No, do not restrain him,” Falk snapped at the woman. “He has already been under far too much stress. He needs to rest and heal right now. He can?—”
“He just tried to run!” The woman argued. “He’s deranged. He can’t be trusted!”
“He will not?—”
“Falk,” The woman said, voice raised. “We need to keep everyone safe. Have you forgotten who Ren is? Have you forgotten why he’s here?
” Falk’s jaw clenched tightly as he glared at her.
“Also, we need to protect Ren from himself. He was about to jump out of a third floor window.” Ah, Ren had misjudged the height they were at by a little bit, but he still wouldn’t have done much more than break an ankle. “He can’t be trusted right now.”
Falk’s lips twitched, but he straightened into a typical Warrior stance and bowed his head at the woman.
“Don’t!” Ren gasped, struggling against her hands as the Wolf clamped the first cuff onto his wrist. “I promise I won’t run! I promise!”
“Yeah, like your word means anything,” she muttered as she got the second one on. Her grip on Ren was bruising enough to make him wince.
“Alright!” the doctor yelled over them, bringing everyone’s attention back to him.
“Even if Ren is a prisoner. He is currently my patient, and I need to speak with him.” He glanced between the woman and Falk, “Even if he is a criminal, he has rights here, and doctor-patient confidentiality is something I take seriously. So, both of you, please step out.”
Ren didn’t give his hands permission to move before they were grabbing Falk hard by the edge of his sweater. “I want Falk to stay—he can stay. He’s my guard. He needs to know things about me.”
The doctor’s shoulders slouched in defeat, but he nodded.
When it was finally just the doctor, Falk, and Ren sitting together, Ren was able to get a better look at the doctor who Falk had called ‘Bram.’ His face was tired, with lines permanently stretched into his features around his eyes and mouth, and hair clipped so short, Ren could see his scalp beneath.
Glasses were balanced on the bridge of his nose, and the looks he and Falk were exchanging could only be described as ‘familiar.’ Ren wondered especially what the soft look in Falk eyes could mean.
The doctor clearing his throat made Ren realize he was staring. “Did you know you were pregnant?” It wasn’t the question Ren was expecting for the Alpha to ask.
“I wasn’t,” Ren said, shaking his head.
Doctor Bram and Falk exchanged glances before he cleared his throat and went on, “You were probably about fifteen or sixteen weeks along—which means this miscarriage was a major?—”
“I wasn’t pregnant,” Ren repeated.
“Ren,” Falk whispered, his voice far softer than Ren had ever heard him. He refused to meet his pitying gaze.
“We had to perform minor surgery to get all of the fetal tissue out?—”
“There was no fetus,” Ren said.
“Ren, I understand things like this can be hard to grasp, but the baby?—”
“There was no baby,” Ren snapped. “I’m a virgin. I’ve never been with anyone before.”
Doctor Bram blinked slowly at him, but it was Falk who whispered, “Ren, those Alphas you killed…were they the ones who?—”
“I was not pregnant,” Ren repeated again, cutting Falk off. “So, please, I do not need a whole medical discussion about something that didn’t happen—can I please go back to my cell?” He never thought he would long for the damp, stone walls of his little room.
“I need to get through this,” the doctor said, holding up the clipboard piled with documents. “I am a good doctor. I want to make sure my patients are well taken care of and know what is going on.”
“Then tell Falk your lies,” Ren snapped. “I do not need to hear it.”
Doctor Bram looked down at his papers and continued as though Ren hadn’t spoken at all, “The patient was about sixteen weeks along and required surgery to remove extra fetal tissue from the womb. The patient will most likely experience symptoms from anemia for the next few weeks due to the blood loss and will continue to experience some bleeding for a few days up to a few weeks. The patient needs to be checked by his doctor every few days minimum to ensure sepsis does not occur.” He glanced at Ren, surprised.
“I will be asking the King if it would be possible to keep you in the infirmary for the duration of monitoring, but I’m not sure how open she will be to that.
She was angry you were here for the last few days while you were unconscious. ”
Days? Ren had been asleep for days?
“This is ridiculous,” Falk huffed. “He needs to be monitored and taken care of like any other Omega who goes through this!”
Ren’s lips tightened into a line, his jaw ticking with how hard he was grinding his teeth together.
“I also want to ask the King if I can do some psychiatric testing on him.” The doctor sighed, now speaking to Falk, “I do not believe in torturing a mentally ill patient with isolation down in those prison cells. I think he should have been tested right away after we heard what his crimes were. No sane person murders five people. And now that we see he is denying what has happened to him at all. I am more than concerned.”
“So, you will speak to the King?” Falk asked.
“Yes,” Bram said, “but I might need you to write a report to show him what has been going on; your observations of him would be a key component in potentially changing his situation.”
“Well, we are keeping him here as long as we can—until the King herself tells us to move him. I will guard him here, if that is okay.” Falk asked.
Doctor Bram nodded, “Yeah, that would work well since I’m not always able to stay here. I have to attend to some patients in their own quarters because they can’t make the journey over here.”
Ren’s gaze dulled, no longer paying attention to what the Alphas were talking about, and instead let his eyes drift over to the window. It was sunny outside—he hadn’t seen the sun in so long. It was a shame this moment was tarnished by so many lies.
Ren wanted to ask who this new guard was, and what they had done with the real Falk.