Voice dripping with Honey and Sin

Astrid

Strong and rough hands pressed into my shoulder blade. The sting sending pain ripples up my neck. Who had those hands, and why were they being this rough, given how broken I was?

I did not know where I was or who was in front of me, asking me to lie still in a not-so-welcoming deep voice that dripped with honey and sin. Too sad that the honey part of it didn't make the voice any gentle. It was all sin; the kind I would have loved to commit if the situation I was in right now was different.

Still, I craned my neck to the right side of my body where the voice came from.

I needed to see who it belonged to and from the look of things, he wasn’t the only one in the room.

When I craned my neck, a small crack broke in. I stayed stiff, not daring to make another move. Everything hurt so bad. It was like my head had been repeatedly hit with a hammer or something heavier.

I forced my eyes open. My eyelids were heavy, but I didn't care as I strained them open nonetheless.

My eyes trailed down to the foot of the bed. About two to three men stood randomly. Some had their hands across their chest. Others stood leisurely. All of them had their eyes on me. Their upper body was exposed, but they had red kilts around their waist.

Wait!

I blinked and narrowed my eyes at the Kilts. Though I was certain that the honey voice didn't come from amongst them, the kilts around their waists sent warning signals to my brain. Only the southern werewolves dressed like that.

Was I in the south of Veridian?

How?

"Where am I?" I demanded with a strangled voice. If I was in the south of Veridian, I needed to know which pack, though it wouldn't be of any use because I was too damaged to escape.

No one said a thing. They all directed their attention to my right like the answer to my question stood there.

I followed their line of vision, although my neck couldn't bear the pain.

"UUhm" I groaned as a sharp pain shot through my back. I didn't give up. I gazed still. But then the voice commanded again, sounding meaner and unwelcoming.

I almost rolled my eyes in agitation. I did not do anything wrong except lay here like a bedridden woman.

"I asked you to be still,"

I swallowed my lips in a thin line. My eyes peered up at an impossibly tall finger. Was he this tall because I was lying down?

My eyes caught the sight of extremely ocean-blue ones.

My heart pounded heavily against my ribcage as my eyes roamed over the familiar face.

Long curly dark hair tied in a bun, a few strands falling down the sides of his face. I didn't avert my gaze when our eyes met. He sucked his thick bottom lip into his mouth, eyes intense on me with a calculative look in them.

The lump in my throat would have jumped out by now if I was feeling nauseated.

How in the name of Veridian did I end up in Shadowfen? In Soren’s Thornheart's Pack?

A man whom I heard, had a fetish for killing his enemies cut off their heads, hung them on a spike, and peed on them.

I tried to lift my shaky hands up to clean my face and looked again to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Too bad that I couldn't even lift a finger.

Aside from that, he wasn’t the greatest fan of the Northerners. The side I came from. Would I be dead if he found out where I came from? Had he already found out?

The questions popped into my head as I tried to come up with a possible solution.

This wasn't good at all. I should have been in another pack and not here.

Not in the Lion's den. I wasn't a fan of the Lions.

No one could know that I was from the Emberclaw pack or from the North.

He knew Jarvis. Somehow, he did.

Alpha meetings had brought Alpha's in Veridian together on several occasions. I heard one time that the two had gotten into some kind of clash, and he had promised revenge. So if he knew Jarvis, it meant that he knew me.

Ah! I was done for. My head on a spike flashed right before my eyes.

Tears burned at the back of my eyes. I just lay still, waiting for a complete demise.

He wasn't a nice man based on confirmed rumors. The tone of his voice confirmed that.

He was keen on bringing strangers to his pack. He only did that with a thorough background check, which only confirmed that he knew who I was. This was my end. He would finish what Jarvis and the pack started.

I shifted under whatever I was wearing. It felt light on my skin and made me feel naked.

'Shit,' I cursed when I peered over my chest and found my nipples peeking out of a thin blue robe, probably a hospital-owned robe.

They must have found me and brought me to the hospital. With all my information in their hands.

They should have let me die. I wasn't worth saving, not after losing everything to the people I had dedicated my entire life to.

Life was truly a bastard! One moment, you are cool with people, and the next, they stroke you right in the heart.

"You should have just let me die," I grumbled, turning my face to the white wall, on my left, hiding my tears.

"Good choice, but not so quick." Honey, Sin, filled with a murderous mockery. The longest he had said.

"It would have been such a waste to let such a beautiful woman die when you could be of some use to me."

I felt movement's in the corner of my eyes.

That should have hurt. But hearing him refer to me as beautiful was entirely a different thing, especially from a man like him. Jarvis had called me beautiful on different occasions but never sounded so sleek and smooth coming from a mean tongue.

"Which pack are you from?"

Huh? my inner being asked in surprise before my heart leaped into my chest.

Was he trying to catch me lying? He should know the pack, given that he brought me to his pack.

Again, he didn't ask which part of Veridian I was from, which meant he knew I was from the South.

Still, he could be tasting me.

Yet, I couldn't risk it. Lies or no lies, he will kill me anyway.

"Newport," the lie came out smoothly from my mouth, and I heard some inaudible sneers coming from the men at the foot of my bed.

Great! I was done for. I gave them a lie while they had the truth.

"The place of the nasty rogues. They must have tried to have their way with her, and she escaped," one of the half-naked men said.

Yeah, you could imagine the tiny bit of surprise. If they said that, it meant they had no idea who I was, or perhaps their alpha knew and had told them to act up. If that was the case, then we would all act up until I was ready to escape.

I hadn't meant to mention Newport but that pack wasn't the best in Veridian. It was like that one bad child your parents forbade you from interacting with.

"Enough. Someone should get Doctor Benedatte." The bed dipped on my side, and the next thing I knew, a hand was sliding under the bed and cupping my waist while the other supported my neck.

The sensation prickled my skin. I held back a groan. Soren lifted me to a sitting position in a not-so-gentle manner.

A few minutes later, a woman with coal-like wavy hair, dressed in a long-sleeved lab coat that ended above her knees, entered the room.

"Good progress since you're able to sit upright." She smiled at me, a pair of dimples appearing on her rosy cheeks. She clutched a notepad under her arm and moved to the stand that held a drip.

She tapped on the white plastic holding a pale yellow liquid, which was halfway through. She then checked the small, narrow tube bringing the liquid into my body.

"Three more of these will be enough to stabilize you. For now, you need rest and food, and then take your medication," she said all that while writing in her notepad.

" I will have someone bring some food to you." Soren, Alpha Soren murmured.

He tucked his hands into his jeans pockets; his eyes ran over my form and to my face. They squinted. I avoided them by looking at my hands in my tights.

Why did he keep giving me that intense look?

I nodded and mumbled an inaudible thank you, and without any further words from him, he left. The other men followed behind.

I was left alone. Not that I was scared of the loneliness, but of what would happen when he found out I was lying. He didn't ask any questions, which meant he bought the lie and considered it the truth.

My eyes scanned over the small confined space I was in.

It was a universally known fact that hospitals smelled of formaldehyde and antibiotics. The scent pierced through my nostrils, making me queasy.

A small white cupboard was to my right, with a bottle of water on it.

Down from where the men were standing was a black leather sofa, and the door was next to it. The white walls had a few posters of humans, werewolves, and their body parts; other posters held information about drugs and some kind of direction on how to avoid contracting a disease.

After a close examination of the room, I tried closing my eyes to get some sleep, but it never came.

My gaze shifted to the door when it creaked. My eyes caught sight of deep dark curls before a face that gazed inside. When the door opened, a woman strode in.

She was much older than me. A big smile lit up her facial features.

My eyes traveled down to a filled aluminum tray in her hands.

"Thank goodness you're healing just fine." She moved over to the cupboard. She took off the bottle of water and kept it on the floor before placing the tray on it.

Was she the 'someone' Soren said he would be sending over? She looked too classy to be a maid. Brown leather sandals clung to hairy olive legs.

A white and pink floral gown covered her not-so-small frame. Her curls danced effortlessly around her head.

"I did not think you had made it out alive, given the broken state you were in when they found you."

She elaborated while setting up the tray.

"Oh, Sorry for talking without an introduction."

"I'm Luna Henna, and Soren is my son." A proud smile brightened up her face at the mention of her son.

"He wanted a maid to bring this to you. I decided to bring it myself."

I struggled and lifted myself up in the bed and leaned against the high pillows behind me.

So, she was Soren’s mother. I should have noticed that from the eyes, but his were quite a darker blue than his mother's.

"Thank you for bringing me food. Although you did not have to"

She arched a brow.

"Thanks for the first part, and for the second, I can bring you food whenever I want. You are in my pack, and it is right for me to do just that."

She placed the tray on a bed stand and positioned it across my thighs.

The smell of toast and eggs wafted in front of me, making me inhale deeply.

There was steamy coffee, toast bread, eggs, and some kind of deep red meat. My nose crunched up at the sight of it.

I tossed it around with a fork. What kind of meat was this? Not well cooked, or was this how it looked even after being cooked?

"That's a Caribou. The kind we eat up here in the south."

Caribou. of course. I nodded.

"I will be outside. Eat and have your medications." She closed the door behind her.

The rest of the week passed in a blur. Soren didn't come to visit often, just his mother, who showed up occasionally,, and the doctor who came to check on my vitals, her smile never leaving her face.

"You must be one lucky fellow," she announced suddenly, writing on her notepad.

My brows narrowed, waiting for an explanation.

"Not everyone gets this kind of treatment. I don't know what my Alpha would get out of this. And he is giving you a room in the pack house."

She gazes at the door and then at me. "He is never this generous with strangers."

My jaw hung low. What was she talking about? Wasn't this a normal treatment they gave people who were sick?

"No need to think into it. You shall be discharged today. Your vitals look good. You shall be taken to the Alpha's house."

I stayed quiet the entire time, not knowing what to say to this.

"It's okay, I will take her."

Soren inched inside the room and leaned against the door.

That intense gaze found my face.