he nodded
1514 Words
My eyes fluttered open and the first thing I saw was Asher's magnified face.
He was close. Far too close.
For a moment I had no idea where I was or what was happening until memories from the night before came rushing back. The cave, the chains and that moment we sat in silence holding hands like two people who had run out of words.
"You are such a sleepyhead." Asher noted with a smile.
"I carried you all the way to your room without you stirring once." He added.
I looked around and confirmed I was indeed in my room and in my bed. Asher was sitting on the edge of it looking far too comfortable for someone who had been half shifted and chained to a cave floor a few hours ago.
"You carried me." I repeated and he nodded.
"You fell asleep mid sentence." He said. "What was I supposed to do, leave you on the cave floor?" He asked.
I opened my mouth to say something but Asher beat me to it.
"Don't answer that." He said.
Luna chose that moment to purr so loudly I almost looked around to see if anyone else had heard it.
I snickered at her.
“ You sure know when to appear and disappear as you please.” I mocked.
After deserting me yesterday, she had the guts to reappear unannounced?
“ Don't you dare say a word.” I warned her and she purred again. The audacity!
I sat up and pushed my hair out of my face and tried to look like someone who had not just been carried to bed like a child by the Alpha King.
It was a losing battle.
"How long have you been sitting there?" I asked.
"Long enough." He said simply.
"That is not an answer." I pointed out.
"No." He agreed pleasantly.
I looked at him properly for the first time since waking up. The black veins that had crawled up his neck the night before had totally disappeared.
The color was back in his face and his eyes were clear and steady.
He looked better and pleasant to look at.
I noticed that without meaning to and looked away before he could catch me doing it.
He caught me anyway.
"I am fine Bella." He said quietly.
"I know." I said to the window.
"You know yet you were checking?” He asked and I could feel the smile in his tone.
"I was looking at the curtains." I lied immediately and with a straight face.
Asher said nothing but I could feel him smiling. He didn't buy my cheap excuse.
We sat in a comfortable silence for a moment.
Outside, I could feel that the pack was waking up slowly.
I could hear voices carrying from the grounds and the sound of the kitchen starting up somewhere below.
It felt like a normal morning, like last night's events were nothing but a dream, a bad dream.
It felt like the night before had not happened at all.
Except it had and we both knew it but neither of us was ready to talk about what came next.
"Are you hungry?" He asked.
"I am starving." I admitted. I hadn't eaten anything except the milk Kiara had drugged the previous morning.
Although I was a werewolf and could survive longer than a human without food, that didn't mean we were exempted from hunger ( werewolves)
"Good." He stood up. "Get ready, Ill wait outside."
He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the frame then turned slightly.
"Thank you for coming back." He said quietly.
The words were spoken softly but I could feel the weight they carried. He didn't take it for granted that I rushed back here for him. That I abandoned the freedom I always craved for and came back here without having second thoughts.
I looked at him.
"Don't thank me." I said. "Just don't get yourself chained to a cave floor again." I added.
The corner of Asher’s mouth moved.
"I'll try my best." He said, then he was gone before I could say anything else.
I sat there for a moment with Luna humming softly inside me and told myself that the warmth sitting in my chest was just from a good night's sleep.
It was not a convincing argument but I decided to take it.
I had barely finished washing my face when the door burst open.
Kiara stood in the doorway.
She looked at me, then past me at the empty room like she expected to see someone else then back at me.
Then she burst into tears.
"Kiara…" J called, suddenly alarmed.
She crossed the room and wrapped both arms around me so tight I lost air.
"You came back." She said into my shoulder. "You actually came back."
"I told you I would settle the score with you later." I reminded her.
She pulled back and wiped her face with both hands, laughing and crying at the same time in that specific Kiara way that somehow made complete sense on her.
"I know that.
I will accept my punishment." She said.
"I am so sorry Bella. I hated every second of it. You have to know that but it had to be done.” She tried to explain.
"You drugged me." I reminded her.
"I am guilty as charged." She agreed miserably.
"With milk of all things Kiara.” I scoffed at that.
"You would have tasted it in coffee.” She said with a smile. She was right.. I would have.
I stared at her and she looked back at me with those wet blue eyes.
I felt my resolve crumble embarrassingly fast.
"You are lucky I like you." I said and Kiara threw her arms around me again.
Leon appeared in the doorway behind her with the expression of someone who had been managing Kiara's emotions since before sunrise and was running on very little patience and even less sleep.
"She has been like this since four in the morning." He said to no one in particular.
"I was worried." Kiara said without letting go of me.
"You were inconsolable." Leon replied.
"Its the same thing." She whined.
"It really isn't." Leon argued.
Listening to them argue, you would get the impression that the two of them are lovers and not a beta and the Alpha’s sister.
I looked at Leon over Kiara's shoulder.
He looked at me and something passed across his face.
It was not his usual easy expression but something quieter and more genuine than that.
"I am glad you came back." He said simply.
That coming from Leon landed heavier than a speech would have.
"Me too." I said.
The four of us walked to breakfast together.
Something was different and I felt it the moment we stepped into the corridor.
Pack members we passed looked at me differently than they had before.
It was not the open hostility from Reina's corridor incident and not the cautious curiosity of the first few weeks.
It was something else. A woman near the kitchen doorway dipped her head slightly when I passed and two warriors straightened almost when Asher walked beside me.
I didn't understand it immediately.
Then Leon fell into step beside me and said quietly, "The pack felt the change from Asher through the mate bond.
They don't know the details but they know something happened and that you were part of it."
I said nothing.
"They respect what they felt." He added. Then dropped back without another word.
I walked beside Asher and thought about that.
Breakfast was loud and warm in the way it had become over these weeks. Kiara talked enough for everyone. Leon argued with her out of what I was now convinced was pure habit and food disappeared from plates.
But underneath all of it something had shifted.
Asher sat at the head of the table the way he always did. But every time he looked at me it was different from before.
It was not the careful measured glances from the early weeks.
It was something more open than that, like a door that had been sitting slightly ajar had finally been pushed wider.
I caught myself looking back without looking away first.
Luna noticed. Of course she did.
'Don't say anything.' I told her.
'I wasn't going to say anything.' She replied innocently.
She was absolutely going to say something.
After breakfast Asher excused himself for pack duties. He pushed back from the table and stood and then paused the way he sometimes did.
He looked at me.
"Walk with me tonight?" He asked.
Kiara made a sound beside me that she disguised badly as a cough.
Leon studied the ceiling.
I looked at Asher.
"Okay." I said.
He nodded once then left.
Kiara waited approximately three seconds.
"Okay." She mimicked in a small voice, pressing her hands to her chest dramatically.
"I will end you." I told her.
She grinned so wide it looked like it hurt.
- Writer
