Chapter 8

Lucas’s pov

The day Penelope was discharged from the hospital, I made sure that a limo had to pick us up from the hospital. I wasn’t going to drive her in my fast car back to the park. That might not be good for her still healing body.

“Are you in any pain?” I asked her in concern as she sat across from me in the limo.

She looked around with a smile on her face.

“You know… this is the first time I’ve been in a car like this.”

“Trust me, it’s not going to be your last.”

She stared at me for a while before leaning back.

“So, is this like a rental or did you lease it for like a year or something?”

I smiled. “It’s mine. You should know that we Alphas have a lot of disposable income.”

“So do you, like, work for money or how does this work? How do you have so much money?” I could see she was concerned.

“I have businesses running around the pack, even around the lands beyond the pack. So for someone of my caliber, you should know that I would have a lot of money.”

She was confused, but that was normal for someone like her. I would try to start small so that I would not overwhelm her.

“So are you okay? Do you feel any pain? Because by the time we get into the pack, my healers would be the ones taking care of you.”

She nodded. “I’m fine. I can feel my body healing up.”

“Great. So very soon you’ll be able to tell us how you got beaten up and left in the woods for dead.”

“How about we… we don’t talk about that?”

The fear in her voice was breaking me. 

I slowly leaned forward with clasped hands.

“Listen, I understand how scary this might be for you.”

“You know nothing about me…”

“…because you’re not letting me in. You are not telling me anything. You should be helping me so I can help you in turn. That is how this should work.”

She stared at me in frustration for a while before I sighed.

“Look… you keep hiding things from me, how will I help you? I want to get the bastards that did this to you, but I can’t if you keep hiding them. Trust me, I’ll make those bastards regret whatever they did. I will make sure everything, the pain they’ve caused others, will be little compared to what I would do to them. And whatever pain that they’ve caused you will be multiplied a thousandfold. Trust me on that.”

“It’s fine. I can take care of myself.”

She was making this hard for me. She was in pain, and not just physical pain… emotional pain. Something was broken within her. She didn’t trust me, I could tell. 

Because of what she had gone through, her experiences in life, she was broken. And I could tell she didn’t trust me. Not even one bit.

***

We soon got into the packhouse as the car slowed to a stop. We got out as I opened the door for her and she came out after me.

“Thank you,” she smiled before the smile disappeared from her face.

I looked around to see the elders coming to me with my beta in his own car. Peering behind, I saw more of our convoy.

“Are all these for us?” She asked in shock.

I nodded. “They are.”

I turned to the elders. “These are our elders. You’ve already met Callum, my beta.”

He bowed.

“And the maids,” then I pointed to the lands behind us. “And right there are the packlands. You can go wherever you want, but you need to stay with me until you’ve gotten well. And then I will introduce you to more people in the pack so that you know who you talk to and who you are able to associate with at different times.”

She nodded.

The elders came closer. “Alpha, we are trying to talk to you. We haven’t been able to get a hold of you for days now.”

“Yes, I know. But I’m kind of busy now.”

Callum came to me and whispered into my ears. “Alpha, it’s very important we talk about this. You can’t keep pushing this away.”

I turned to him. “I know. But right now is not a good time.”

“Lucas,” one of the elders said in a deep voice.

I turned to him, growling as I felt a rumble in my chest. The elder bowed and stepped back.

I gave a deep breath and looked at Penelope. “You can go inside. Callum will take you to your room.”

Callum bowed before going to Penelope and leading her into the packhouse.

I then turned to the elders. “This better be very fucking important or you all will pay.”

“First of all, who is a stranger?” one of the elders said as I shook my head.

“Not now. Why do you want to talk to me?”

“The other elders from the subordinate packs around us have sent their messengers to talk to us. And we just wanted to know if you are still willing to…”

“Scratch that,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m done. I don’t want to do anything with the other elders for now. All deals should be held back.”

They exchanged looks between themselves in confusion before turning back to me.

“Alpha, are you being serious?”

“I know that a thousand percent. Look, I know this is very confusing for you all, but just listen to me. Right now, we need to focus on our pack and the strength in our home. I feel like our lands have rogues in them. People might be getting attacked on a regular basis and we might not even know it. We need to tighten security. Right now is not a time to be going from pack to pack trying to get money and stuff like that. We need to tighten security first. Then we can go ahead with any deals that are pending. So if you all can send messages to the other alphas around the kingdom, that would be great.”

The elders looked amongst themselves with puzzled looks before turning to me. 

They didn’t know why I was talking about safety, but I knew. After my mate had been attacked, I wasn’t going to sit idly by while this attacker or group attacked again? I was going to find them.

Tightening security so that this kind of thing will not happen to anyone was the best thing I could come up with.

“Any other thing?” I asked them as they nodded then we went into the throne room to talk more.