Chapter 04.

“Thank you,” I licked my lower lips while I rubbed my left arm. Chris smiled and nodded. He parted his lips and took in a breath as though he wanted to say something and thought twice about it.

I grabbed my dirty gown from the brown chair in the treatment room and headed to the small restroom to change. When I returned, Chris had cleared out the bloody cotton wool and apparatus he used to treat me and was sitting on the brown chair with worry lines evident on his forehead.

“Don’t you think you should wait up for him?” He licked his lips.

I blinked twice.

“I’m not sure I should,” my hand flew to the back of my neck.

“Alpha didn’t say I should,” I gulped. He had only ordered Chris to take care of me, and Chris did meticulously. I had no business lounging around in the medical house or the pack house when I had work to do.

Chris had stitched my wounds and given me painkillers, to which he ordered that I get something to eat if I didn’t want to faint while walking. I quickly remembered Kimi. I promised her lunch together, and I had to check on her to see if she was okay. I couldn’t wait for Alpha Kane.

“If I’m opportune to see him again, I’ll thank him for this,” I looked down at my body.

Chris parted his lips again, but no words fell out. Instead, he nodded, and I went my way.

A servant being called out by the Alpha and walking freely after the meeting was something that never happened, so I could understand why eyes followed my every movement as I made my way to the servant quarters.

My dress fit the theme of the quarters, dirty and abandoned. It was a fair distance away from the bustling streets of the pack. The roofs were old and couldn’t hold much. Sometimes, when rain fell, it leaked into rooms. Some doors were chipped, some were broken, and some rooms didn’t have doors at all. Males and Females lived together as no one had the time or energy to separate us. Sometimes, it felt like we were in a world of our own, in a pack of our own without an Alpha, without the hierarchy that plagued the packs and made wolves treat others like dust. Maybe it was because of how hard life was for us, but servants barely fought other servants. We had enough beating and maltreatment from higher members of the pack to want to make life more difficult for us. Usually, we didn’t talk much to each other as every servant had that one person or group of people they talked to, which were usually their roommates. Servants bonded based on the reason they were there, and most of them were rogues, some from the same pack, others from different packs. I was the only servant whose father was a traitor, and so I was alone until Kimi came around.

“Rune!” Kimi ran to me the moment she saw me. She opened her arms to hug me, but when she saw the bandages on my body, she halted and held my hand instead.

“Thank the Goddess, you’re alive! I was so scared! I thought I wouldn’t see you again! I thought he was going to…” She broke down in fresh tears.

“I’m fine, and I’m here. I got treated,” Kimi wiped her face and nodded, her body shaking.

“I was ready to end my life if I heard something happened to you,” she cried.

“Kimi! You can’t say things like that. Remember, you still have to find your family,” I wrapped my arms around her shoulders.

“You’re my family. I could not imagine losing you, too,” I hugged her and patted her head.

“Are you okay?” She nodded.

“A nice nurse applied some numbing cream on my cheek and gave me painkillers,” who knew there were still nice wolves in Shadow Moon pack? My mind immediately went to a wolf with dark green eyes. Alpha Kane was not nice. He was far from nice, but I owed him gratitude for saving me today.

“So, lunch by the waterfall?” I nudged Kimi’s side, and she nodded, her face bright with a smile.

“But first, you need to change out of this,” I looked down at my dress and nodded.

After using a wet cloth to wipe the dirt from my skin, I changed into a faded black dress and felt fresh. Kimi talked my ears off about how security wolves arrived and sent everyone away while Rachel and Jummy had to face a query. I was more than happy that she didn’t take what happened this morning to heart or get depressed over it since it was the first time she experienced it. She seemed happy that it didn’t end up worse than it did, and I was, too.

“Rune,” the voice came before the knock on my half-opened door. I whipped my head to the sound of the voice, and a petite brown girl entered. Nora.

“I’m so sorry, Rune,” she looked like she’d been crying.

“I swear I had no idea they would do that to you,” fresh tears pooled in her eyes.

“They came to me and asked if I knew you and why you weren’t on cleaning duty. I told them you were, but we had different portions to clean. They threatened me and told me to switch with you no matter what, or they’d deal with me. I had no idea…” I pushed my lips and sighed. I figured that much from Racheal and Jummy’s conversation earlier that they came to me on purpose. They got a certain high from bullying people who couldn’t fight back. Racheal especially.

“I know,” Nora’s head shot up, and her eyes widened.

“You know?”

“They weren’t discreet about it. I’m fine now,” I plastered a small smile on my face. There was no need to be angry or annoyed at Nora. She, too, was a victim.

“I’m really sorry, Rune,” I nodded. I knew she was.

“Let’s go, Kimi.”

There was a small kitchen where food was made for servants. It was very public, and the food tasted awful; sometimes, the food didn’t have any taste, but it kept us full and alive. Like the servant quarters, the kitchen was run down and smelled of burnt wood and concrete. The kitchen was more like a storage while the cooking happened outside, behind the small building. We had potatoes on the menu, as we did every other day. It was the only thing they fed us. Boiled potatoes with some salt and pepper. Other servants who couldn’t eat it usually went rabbit hunting late at night, but I wasn’t a hunter, and neither was Kimi.

Kimi and I liked to mash our potatoes, and Kimi always stole some oil. How she got in and came out without getting caught was a mystery to me.

“Ah, potatoes and oil, my favorite,” Kimi looked down at her plate with a sly smile, and I laughed before sitting on the large stone Kimi, and I found close to the river to sit on whenever we visited.

The waterfall was the most beautiful place in the entire territory —not that I’ve seen all of the territory— nothing could beat it. We had no idea where the water came from, but it was clear and not salty at all. Wolves often came here to swim, some even planned dates, but Kimi and I used it as an out from reality. We often made up stories and pretended we were different people. It was the one place where we stripped our servant titles. I was just Rune, and she was just Kimi.

“What happened out there?” Kimi turned to me. I didn’t need to ask to know what she was talking about. I sighed.

“I have no idea. I really thought today would be my last day,” I fetched a handful of the potatoes, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

“Alpha found out I lied about the situation,” Kimi’s mouth hung open. I smiled down at my plate.

“And he let you go?” I nodded. “Maybe he thought I’d been punished enough? I can’t tell what he was thinking,” he looked furious throughout the meeting. I’d been so scared to meet his eyes even when he chuckled; I didn’t want to breathe the wrong way and have him snap my neck in two because it pissed him off. I’d been barely breathing

“I haven’t been here long, and I know it’s a first,” Kimi stuffed her mouth.

“I can’t help but think my punishment for lying to him will come after I’ve recovered. There’s no way he’ll let me go like that. He knows who I am. He knows who my father was,” I shook my head.

“I’ll pray to the Goddess that he forgets. He can’t take you away from me,” I smiled.

“Enough about that depressing stuff. I saw Damon cry today,” Kimi and I ate, talked, and laughed for hours until the sun started to set. It was nice to have a semblance of normalcy after the events of the morning, and I thought the night would be without any issues, too, until a warrior wolf came running toward us with his sweat-stained face full of frustration.

“Are you Rune? Do any of you know who Rune is or where she might be?” I gulped hard and got up.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“No. Nothing is alright. Are you Rune?” I wanted to lie. I should’ve lied.

“I’m Rune,”

“You have to come with me right now. The Alpha is looking for you,” I blinked multiple times, trying to make sense of what he said. Why was Alpha Kane looking for me? I didn’t do anything wrong.

“I suggest we run. He’s very furious,” Kimi and I exchanged looks. I gripped my dress so hard my knuckles turned white. My heart hammered against my rib cage because I knew that a furious Alpha Kane was a dangerous one.

“B-but I…I didn’t do anything,” my voice trembled. The warrior wolf gave me a once over and shrugged.

“You should tell him that. Come with me,” he grabbed my hand and started walking. I looked back at Kimi, who looked frozen in place.

“Kimi,” I cried for whatever reason.

The warrior wolf held my hand tight as we ran until we got to the medical house where people gathered. Was the medical house cursed? Or was I cursed for stepping my legs in there?

“WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?!” Alpha Kane thundered, sending shivers up and down my spine.

“Here, Alpha,” the warrior wolf said beside me, but he sounded far away.

I let him drag me through the sea of wolves until I was standing in front of a very angry Alpha Kane. His face was a glowering mask of rage. His eyes were the darkest shade of green I’d ever seen, cold and distant as they raked over my body and stopped between the warrior wolf and me. I looked down where our hands joined and swallowed. His nostrils flared.

“Get your hands off her!” His voice was low and dangerous. The warrior wolf released my hand and stepped aside, leaving me to face the beast alone.

He took one step towards me, and I unconsciously took one back. His jaw ticked, and fresh anger graced his features.

In one swift movement, he stood in front of me and grabbed my arm.

“Where the hell were you?” I could only part my lips and close them like a fish. His presence overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t think of the right thing to say, or anything to say, for that matter.

“Answer me!” I wanted to, but I couldn’t. His lips flattened, and he narrowed his eyes.

I knew then and there that I was dead meat. Worst part? I didn’t know what I did.