Chapter3

When I woke, consciousness struggled up from a bottomless swamp.

The texture beneath me felt unreal in its softness—no rotting straw or smell of blood.

I blinked at the unfamiliar wooden ceiling overhead. My first instinct wasn't to check my body but to sit up in panic looking for shoes.

I was tribute, a slave. Getting the master's carpet dirty with my feet meant being whipped until flesh split.

But my bare toes only touched soft, thick wool.

The bedside was empty. No shoes.

"Don't move."

A low voice came from the window. Hoarse, like sandpaper scraping eardrums.

I stiffly turned my head to see Kyle sitting in an old wooden chair, backlit, his form like a silent, oppressive sculpture.

He didn't come over to inspect the goods like those nobles would, nor did he rage at my movement.

He simply stood slowly and walked to the bed.

He sat on the bed's edge, using a spoon to scoop water from the bowl extremely slowly, blew on it to cool it, then brought it to my lips.

I looked at the spoon of water, then at him.

My hands shook badly—aftereffects of long-term starvation and terror.

I tried to take the bowl myself but knocked its edge.

Kyle didn't scold. He steadied the bowl and continued feeding me.

Only after the entire bowl was empty did he set it down, gaze falling on my bandaged right hand and hoarse throat.

"The Silver Moon Tribe's tribute document said you're an Omega with no wolf." He spoke, voice deep. "But you have a wolf. It's just been sealed."

He paused, eyes becoming profoundly dark, carrying a heart-pounding certainty.

"I'll heal you."

I didn't respond. Couldn't respond.

The throat injury made it impossible to make sounds. Could only stare at him with wide eyes.

I feared the trap behind this gentleness.

Kyle summoned the healer.

The white-haired old man trembled as he lifted the bandages on my hand, revealing the severed, crookedly rejoined finger bones and the silver nail fragments embedded in my collarbone.

The old man gasped, hands shaking.

Kyle, who'd been standing silently in the corner, suddenly let out an extremely suppressed, beast-like growl.

"Who did this?"

His voice was cold as ice shards, the murderous aura radiating from him plunging the room's temperature.

He stared at my mutilated fingers, fists cracking audibly, knuckles white.

"Damn them... damn them..." He ground out through clenched teeth, each word crushed from his chest. "They dared cut off her claws? Dared pour silver water down her throat?"

The healer collapsed to his knees, scrambling to prepare tools: "A-Alpha, my lord, we need to clear out the silver nail fragments first, then clean the corroded wounds..."

"If you can't heal her," Kyle said with his back to me, voice carrying undisguised killing intent, "I'll hang you on the city walls to feed the crows."

The healer nearly died of fright, working with trembling hands.

When the tweezers touched the silver nail fragments in my collarbone, violent pain made my whole body convulse, broken whimpers escaping my throat.

A large hand suddenly reached over, gently grasping my uninjured hand, pressure just right, carefully avoiding the wounds.

It was Kyle.

At some point he'd crouched beside me, forehead covered in cold sweat, those gold-red eyes fixed on the healer's hands as if wanting to dismember the man.

"Bear with it." He said quietly, voice carrying a heart-pounding tremor. "Ella, bear with it... It's my fault, I came too late..."

What was he saying? I thought hazily. How could an Alpha apologize?

Over the next few days, my fever wouldn't break. Dreams full of Ryan's smile and silver nails piercing marrow.

Every time I woke with a start, I'd see Kyle sitting in the chair beside the bed, silently watching over me.

He didn't speak, just looked at me with extremely complex eyes—holding heartache, anger, and some fervor I couldn't understand.

Finally, a week later, my mind cleared enough to barely grip a pen and write responses on parchment.

He carried me to the window seat where the sunlight was just right.

"You can stay." He stood by the window with his back to me. "No one here will hurt you."

I gripped the pen and wrote on paper: "Stay to do what?"

"Whatever you want."

I didn't believe it. I'd heard too many such words in the Silver Moon Tribe.

Ryan had once said "you can do whatever you want" too. Later he personally drove silver nails into my bones.

I thought this was just some higher level of torture, a ploy to manipulate.

But the truth was, I really did move into the Alpha's quarters.

The bedding was brand new, giving off the clean scent of soap, even the blanket was thick wool.

On the windowsill sat a pot of freshly bloomed calendula.

That was my favorite flower back in Silver Moon Tribe. Back then Ryan thought it vulgar and never let anyone plant it.

Evening, as it grew dark, someone knocked on the door.

Kyle stood in the doorway, backlit, outline gilded with gold.

"Want to go see the moon from the back mountain?" he asked.

I didn't refuse.

We walked one in front of the other, neither speaking.

At the cliff edge of the back mountain, we sat down an arm's length apart.

I could feel the heat radiating from him, but he never crossed that invisible boundary.

When the moon rose halfway up the sky, he finally spoke.

"My wolf hasn't called out in six years." He didn't look at me, gaze on the dark forest in the distance.

"The night I met you, it called."

I whipped my head to look at him, pupils contracting sharply.

He still looked at the moon, voice soft yet hitting my heart like a heavy hammer.

"So you're not a calamity, Ella."

"You're the one it waited six years for."

Night wind blew past, bringing coolness. I slowly turned my face away, eyes uncontrollably reddening, stinging badly.

This time, not from fear or pain.

But because I finally knew—I was still alive.

And truly needed by someone.