11. Rip
Chapter 11
Rip
S leep didn’t come easily last night. No one but me has ever slept the entire night in my bed. I prefer to have my own space, even when I entertained previous lovers. It was always in their space or a guest room. Having Hettie so close, her lavender scent all over the pillows and blankets, drove me half mad with lust. My cock doesn’t realize that the woman next to us is strictly off-limits.
When dawn finally comes, and the first rays of the morning sun filter through the slightly ajar window, I surrender my battle with sleep and finally get up. Hettie, apparently, didn’t have the same problem.
My mate is curled up in her blanket, her thick hair splayed across the pillow. She’s out cold and doesn’t so much as stir when I get off the bed. In fact, she knocks down the pillow wall between us and moves her body to the center of the bed. Not once waking up.
I let her sleep while I get ready. Today, Hettie gets her answers. She’s pack now. She’s mine, and she needs to be informed about the curse taking over our pack. Ender is certain she can help, but without the proper knowledge, she wields a dull blade.
I rarely bother with a shirt, but today I look through my meager collection and wonder what her favorite color is. Green? Blue? It’s fucking stupid, but I grab the green shirt, thinking Hettie might like it on me best. I pull on my pants just as someone knocks on the door.
A moment later, it opens, and a beta pushes in a cart full of food. The smell of maple syrup hits my senses first, and my stomach growls.
“Do you require anything else, King Alpha?” the beta asks, doing his best not to stare at the woman in my bed. By now, the entire pack knows of Hettie’s arrival. Some, if not all, also know I bonded with her last night. We didn’t pass many of my people on our way back from the ceremony, but it only takes one look at Hettie’s neck to piece together a picture. Word spread quickly after that, I’m sure.
“No, that’s all.”
The beta nods, and his curiosity gets the best of him. He turns his attention to Hettie. Only her top half is covered by the blanket because she wiggled so much throughout the night. The smooth, golden expanse of her legs is on full display. Her gown is hiked up indecently, showing off more of her thigh than I want this beta to see.
I growl a low warning, and the beta quickly looks away, straightening up. “Leave.” My command is harsher than I intend, but it’s effective. The beta trips over himself on the way to the door.
Only once he’s out and far down the hallway do I approach my sleeping mate. I gently touch my hand to her shoulder, half expecting her to flinch from me like she does when she’s awake, but Hettie doesn’t. She turns into my hand, rubbing her damn cheek against it. My little dove is scenting me.
I’m tempted to stay here for however fucking long Hettie remains asleep…but we don’t have the time for such luxuries. “Hettie, it’s time to wake up.” I gently shake her, but Hettie slaps my hand away.
“Hettie—”
“I heard you,” she hisses. Her eyes flutter open, giving me the perfect view of her hazel irises, reminding me of aged tree bark. She purses her red lips in a pout as she pulls the covers up to her chin. “It’s early,” she mutters.
I nod. “It is.”
“Then I’ll sleep.” She goes to turn away from me, but I stop her before she can, which earns me a name I’ve never heard before but doesn’t sound pleasant.
“You wanted answers. Today is that day, but we have a lot to do. You need to wake up.” I feel like a mother trying to rouse their insubordinate teen out of bed. “Breakfast is ready too,” I say, hoping food is enough motivation to get her up.
Hettie peers over the blanket at the tray of food and sniffs the air. “Is that pancakes?”
“I believe so, yes.” I smelled the syrup earlier, so I’m just assuming. But the kitchen staff is fond of pancakes, so I’m not surprised they’re being served to us.
Hettie groans, but the promise of food gets her into a sitting position. She then looks at me expectantly, like I should know what she wants. She gives me an exasperated sigh. “What’s the point of having a bond if you don’t know I want you to get me pancakes?”
“That’s not how the bond works.” At least not yet. Right now, I can only sense each other and our emotions. Even that is faint. If we ever solidified the bond with sex, then I could communicate with her through the link only mates have.
“Well, it should,” she mutters like a child. “Do you have coffee?”
“What’s that?”
A mangled cry leaves her lips, and she simply shakes her head. “A tragedy is what that is, Rip.”
She doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t ask her to. Instead, I move to the cart and carry the tray of food to her, setting it on her lap. Hettie does this weird little shimmy and claps her hands. “Do you always have people bring you food?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.” She smiles as she digs into her meal. It fills me with immense satisfaction to see my mate stuff her face with a delicious breakfast. I doubt it’s something she had regularly back home, though I don’t know for sure. She hasn’t told me anything about her life before. Perhaps today will change that after I expose our secrets.
“What exactly are we doing today?” Hettie asks between bites of her food.
I grab my tray and sit across from her on the bed. I normally hate eating in bed out of fear I’ll leave my bed full of crumbs, but seeing Hettie so comfortable and enjoying her meal, I don’t have the heart to move.
“Our first stop will be the infirmary. That’s going to answer all of your questions.” Or at least it will answer a lot of them. I’m sure more will arise, and I’ll deal with those as they come.
“Infirmary? You mean like a hospital?” she wonders, taking a sip of the wild berry juice. She scrunches up her face after the first sip and quickly discards the cup. I don’t blame her. The juice is too sweet for my liking .
“I suppose so, yes. I want you to see what threat our pack is facing.”
I watch Hettie closely. She seems to consider my words. Questions flash across her face, and I know she wants to ask me more, but she doesn’t. Instead, she nods. “I’m ready to see.”
Unexplainable pride swells within me. My Luna is ready to meet the rest of our pack. Granted, the meeting will not be a pleasant one because I’m going to expose her to the sickness threatening my pack, but it’s necessary. After that, I will show her the better parts of this pack, and maybe—just maybe—she’ll fall in love with the people she’s meant to lead.
“We will go after you finish breakfast.”
Hettie nods, and we eat in companionable silence.
The air is crisp with the scent of citrusy cleaning soaps. Sickness and death linger in the sterilized space, creating a melancholy atmosphere. Soft cries and weak coughs travel down the hallway, reminding me once again of the troubles my pack face.
The infirmary is our largest building, spanning three stories high with about twenty small rooms per floor. Each room is equipped with its own medical supplies, while the more intensive supplies and medicines remain locked in the medical room on the first floor.
Our pack normally has around five healers and three assistant healers. When more of my pack started to move into town, more healers came with them. Right now, we house close to twenty healers and ten assistants .
I thought it would be enough.
It had been enough at the beginning.
But not anymore.
Hettie’s head swivels back and forth as we walk down the long, narrow hallway. The curtains for most of the rooms are pulled back, giving us small glimpses inside. Bodies atop cots, some barely breathing while others moan in pain. We pass a room where a mother and a young girl sit around a sickly man. His skin is pulled taut across his pale skin, making him appear skeletal. His wife leans over him, patting his head with a damp cloth. Silent tears run down her cheeks, but she still smiles at their young daughter.
“Is Papa going to die, Mommy?” I hear the small girl ask.
A strangled cry leaves the mother’s throat. I recognize her husband. A beta named Grant. He was one of the first to fall to the curse and grows worse every day. It’s a miracle he’s still with us. He’s living on borrowed time, and if nothing can be done soon, he’ll be one of the next to die.
The mother—I believe her name is Annelisa—looks up and makes eye contact with me. Her eyes are filled with so much pain and sorrow. “No, sweetie. Papa isn’t going to die. Our King Alpha is going to make sure he feels better.” The beta holds my gaze, reminding me what happens if I fail. People like Grant will die.
We’ve watched enough of this poor family’s suffering, and I take Hettie’s hand, leading her down the hall. More rooms with full beds. More mourning families. Healers race from room to room to check on all their patients. The dark circles under their eyes are more pronounced than they were last week. It’ll only get worse as more and more of the infirmary’s beds fill up.
“What happened here?” Hettie’s voice is barely above a whisper, but it may as well have been a shout. The death-like halls are unforgiving, and each cough is the sound of a pendulum swinging back and forth. Never knowing when it will all be over.
I lead Hettie down the hall and make a left at the fork. This leads up to a private break room that goes unused. None of the healers have time to use this room anymore. Hettie sits down on a too-stiff couch, and I take a seat in the chair in front of her.
The room is cold, much like the rest of the facility, and Hettie trembles, despite her jacket. “There’s a blanket next to you.” I reach for the quilted blanket. She offers me a smile as I drape it around her. I thought the clothes Tallie chose for Hettie would be enough to keep her warm, but she’s going to need something thicker.
“What’s happened here, Rip?” she asks again.
I promised her answers. And she’s going to get them.
“What did Ender tell you about our pack?”
She shrugs. “Honestly? Not much. Probably so I wouldn’t be scared away. I knew I would marry the King Alpha to help his pack. He didn’t mention how or why, though.”
Sounds like Ender. He can be annoyingly obtuse at the best of times.
“Not too long ago, another human from your world was brought over by Ender to marry the Dragon King Malix. She helped break the dragons out of their sleeping curse and restored the wards around Dragon’s Keep that keep the Nephilim out.”
“Rose, right?” Hettie questions. “I know of her, but we’ve never met.”
“Yes, perhaps you’ll meet her someday.”
“I don’t really understand who the Nephilim are. I thought we were dealing with rogues. Are they really your biggest threat, or is it Michael?” I can see her mind working a mile a minute. From her short stay, she has already seen and picked up a lot of conflicting information.
Hettie is smart and intuitive. Those traits will make her a good Luna.
“The Nephilim are creatures of nightmares. Giants with shredded wings and immense power. They are cruelty and darkness personified. Their leader, Gadreel, wants to remake Mescos in his image by annihilating everything and everyone in his path.” The way Malix described these horrendous beasts, I know my pack won’t be able to fight them on our own. Hence the need for his help when the time comes.
I dive into the brief history of the Great War, when the rulers of Mescos came together to imprison the Nephilim. Gadreel cast a curse upon the rulers, that in one hundred years, if the kings of Mescos do not find their mate, they will fall to the Nephilim’s curse. It’s all a lot to take in, and I expect Hettie to stop me. I wouldn’t blame her if she said the story overwhelmed her.
But she doesn’t.
She listens and nods. She doesn’t flinch or appear scared, like I thought she would. She looks…like the pack Luna.
Pride and something else I’m not ready to admit swell in my chest. Her calming presence takes away a little of the stress, which is more than anyone else has done.
“So, these sick people…it’s because of the curse,” she says slowly. “What exactly is the curse that makes your pack so sick?”
“Our.”
“Hmm? ”
“Our,” I repeat. “Our pack, Dove.” Her lips quirk up in a phantom smile. It soon falls as I go on. “The curse is making our wolf go dormant.”
Hettie’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“Every wolf is born with two souls inside their body, that of a human and the other of a wolf. We are one and have always been one. The curse is taking our wolf from us, leaving us shadows of what we once were. Our bodies can’t handle the loss of our wolf. We grow sick and eventually…”
“Die,” she whispers what I cannot. “But…” She pauses, trying to formulate her thoughts. “I don’t understand how Michael fits into this.”
“Michael.” I can’t keep the growl out of my voice. The rogue is worse than the dirt beneath my feet. When the day finally comes, I will gladly tear his head from his body, like I should have done long ago. “He has been my enemy since my ascension to king. He wanted to be King Alpha, so we fought for the title. When I bested him, I made my first foolish mistake as king. I let him live.” It’s a condensed version of the truth, but enough for now.
“You showed mercy,” Hettie says, reaching out to put her hand on my thigh. Neither one of us moves. My mate is touching me, and my wolf fucking loves it. As if sensing my wayward thoughts, Hettie blushes and pulls back. “So, he’s the leader of the rogues?”
I nod. “He’s the reason we can’t make our sick wolves better.”
“So, there’s a cure?” Hettie perks up, hope blazing behind her eyes.
I hate to be the one to extinguish her flame, but she needs to know everything. “Yes, but the only known cure is in Michael’s possession, and we believe he is working with the Nephilim, but we aren’t sure why. ”
“What is the cure?”
“I can show you.”
There’s no hesitancy in her gaze or voice as she reaches for my hand again. It’s a soft touch. A whisper of a touch. I feel it all the same. Like fire coursing through my veins. The same fire is within her.
Hettie squeezes my hand. “Show me.”