Page 40 of Ruthless Alpha Beast
His breath is loud and heavy, and the bed dips beneath his weight as he moves around.
Despite what he says, I know he’s in pain.
I can hear it.
I stay silent, and for some reason, I’m holding my breath. Being this close to him is making me inexplicably nervous.
Then I feel concerned.
Against my better judgment, I sneak a subtle glance and see that he’s wincing in pain. His face is contorted, struggling, as a bead of sweat drips down his cheek.
So much forbeing fineandhealing before I know it.
I lay my head back on the pillow and decide that it’s only fair I distract him.
I clear my throat, but my voice still comes out shaky.
“So how was the hunt?”
I sound stupid. Clearly, the hunt wasn’t very good.
I’m meant to distract him from the hunt, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
He doesn’t respond at first, and a few awkward beats of silence pass before I hear his voice.
“It wasn’t a typical hunt.”
“What was it then?”
I haven’t felt confident enough to ask the pack members what exactly has been going on over the past couple of days; all I know is that he was searching for something.
Surely, that’s a hunt?
“A hunt is typically when you go looking for food; this was because the intruder alarm sounded.”
“So, you were hunting for a person, right? Rather than food.”
World’s greatest distractor. Clearly.
Why do I always sound so un-smooth?
“I suppose, yes,” he winces. “We were looking to eliminate the threat.”
“Did you?”
There’s a beat of silence, and then he sighs. It’s a sigh that I know has little to do with his physical pain and more with his frustrations.
“No,” he murmurs. “We didn’t eliminate anything.”
I’m about to let it go. Surely there’s something else we can talk about that he’d enjoy? Pack politics? The art of war?
Then he speaks again.
“At first, all we found were large areas of blackened forest. It was bad, really bad. Worse than I thought it was.”
“The blackened forest,” I say. “That’s to do with the curse, right?”
Again, as with most of what goes on this side of the valley, I know some information, but not a lot. What I do know, though, sounds crazy, like something out of a storybook.
