Chapter Six

Lydia 

My eyes flew open and the first thing I noticed was the lights. The extremely bright lights temporarily made me think that I had gone to meet my maker— well, not until I heard strange voices that sounded way too normal to be the voice of the moon goddess. 

I opened my eyes again briefly and noticed that two women were standing by the doorway. I took the chance to peep around the room, and that was when I realized that I was currently lying in a hospital bed. I didn't remember how I got here, but I remember not feeling too well and calling for the guard to help me, but as expected, he thought I was being too dramatic and overreacting, and he didn't even bother turning to look at me. 

The ladies' voices got slightly louder, so I quickly shut my eyes again, not exactly wanting them to know I was awake just yet. 

“Do you think he'll lock her up again?” one of the voices asked, and I didn't need anyone to tell me I was the 'her' in the question.  

I wondered where I was for a while, but decided to keep my eyes shut so that they wouldn't notice that I was awake and stop talking. I was quite curious to know where their conversation was headed and why they were even talking about me in the first place. 

“What sort of question is that, Maya? Do you even need to ask? It's obvious that he's going to keep her locked up for as long as he wants to, even if she ends up passing out a thousand times,” another woman's voice answered. 

“But what could she have done so wrong? She doesn't seem to look like a criminal to me, so what does the Alpha have against her?” the first lady, whose name I now know to be Maya, said, and I almost thanked her for noticing that I looked nothing like a criminal. In fact, I was completely harmless in every sense of the word. 

 “Does everybody who commits a crime usually have some sort of mark or sign on their foreheads that says they're criminals? Just because she doesn't look the part doesn't necessarily mean that she is innocent. She must have done something extremely crazy to warrant the Alpha's anger,” the other lady answered, and I mentally rolled my eyes. 

I knew she had a point about criminals not having it on their foreheads that they were criminals, but I was the farthest thing from being a criminal, and I did not appreciate that she was assuming that I was a bad person.

The only bad person here was the Alpha, who was choosing to lock me up just because he thought I had some ulterior motive for trespassing on my first day. 

 “I still don't think he should lock her up, but what do I know? Maybe he's even interested in her in his weird, psychotic way,” Maya stated, and I struggled to hold back my laughter at how ridiculous her conclusion was. 

The Alpha was certainly not interested in me. The look he had in his eyes the last time I saw him made me more than certain that he hated me, and I'm pretty sure he would want nothing more than to get rid of me. 

“How long have you worked here, Maya?” the other person asked. “You know better than anyone else that the Alpha isn't interested in women. He doesn't even like his family being around them, so what makes you think that he would want anything to do with any random woman? He…,” she was responding to Maya before suddenly pausing. 

I wondered what made her stop talking at first since I was enjoying the gossip, but when I heard a familiar voice speak, I realized why they shut up, and I froze. 

It's him; It's my mate. 

“How is she? Did she wake up?” he questioned in his usual stern tone. 

I didn't want to admit it to myself, but despite knowing he had no good feelings towards me, a part of me was still wishing and hoping that the reason he was here to ask about my well-being was because he cared to an extent. 

I'm aware that it sounds ridiculous to even hope for such a thing, especially since he's the reason I'm even here in the first place, but I couldn't help but just wish that a part of me cared for me as his mate. 

 “Not yet, Alpha. We've confirmed that she's much better, and she's recuperating quickly. She should be awake by evening time or tomorrow morning,” Maya, who I now know was a nurse and not a cleaner, like I first assumed, responded.

 I could have sworn that I heard a sigh of relief from him when she answered, or maybe I was only deluding myself into believing that he was relieved to find out that I was doing okay.

“Alright then, you may leave,” he instructed and after hearing the retreating footsteps of the nurses, I felt him walking closer to me and my heart almost stopped in both fear and confusion. 

I was expecting him to just leave after speaking to the nurses, but the fact that he was walking closer to me instead of leaving made me somewhat afraid because I won't even be surprised if he suddenly attempts to choke me to death. 

He doesn't say a word, but even with my eyes closed, I could feel that his gaze was on me; it made me wonder what he could be thinking of at the moment. 

Was he thinking of releasing me, or is his sadistic mind just coming up with more ways to torture me? I thought to myself, dreading the thought of the latter. 

After living in a tiny cell for almost a week with barely any food and water, I can now fully understand what it means to suffer and to be desperate and believe me, I never want to find myself in such a situation ever again. 

 “There you are!” I heard an unfamiliar voice exclaim, and could tell that the voice belonged to a man. 

“Did you follow me here?” the Alpha asked the unknown man. 

“Come on, Nicholas. Did you think I was going to let you come here by yourself? I already have enough to deal with, trying to convince people that you're not a sociopath, and I'm not going to let you ruin that by acting out in public,” the unknown man responded. 

Not many people could call the Alpha by his first name so easily, so I put two and two together and came to the conclusion that the other man in the room was most probably the pack Beta, Beta Liam. 

According to what I heard, he's the only person that can speak to the Alpha, and he's quite popular in the pack, as everyone respects and adores him. 

“So you also think I'm some sociopath that would act out without a reason?” the Alpha's voice hissed, sounding irritated, but not in an offended way. 

“Don't ask if you already know the answer, Nicholas. Anyway, what did the doctors say? How is she?” Beta Liam asked. 

“She's fine. She's most likely to be awake tomorrow,” he replied nonchalantly. 

 “Hmm, that's good, then. Seeing how you rushed all the way here without even waiting for me, she must be special,” Beta Liam voiced out and even though his statement sounded a little hopeful, I tried not to think too much of it since I'm probably only going to get disappointed. 

“If by special, you mean someone that I want to see suffer quite miserably, well then I guess you're right, she is special,” the Alpha responded, and my heart fell to the pit of my stomach. 

 Hearing him outrightly say that he wants me to suffer quite miserably made my heart ache for some reason, and I couldn't help but wonder what exactly I did so wrong that warranted for him to hate me so much. 

I suddenly felt the strong urge to cry because I've never felt so rejected and despised in my entire life, but I knew crying now would only expose the fact that I was awake, and I wasn't ready to deal with how he would react to finding out that I was only pretending to still be unconscious. 

 “What are you going to do about her? You're not going to lock her up again, are you?” Beta Liam asked. 

“Nah, I can't do that even if I wanted to. I'm not ready to deal with my mother's constant complaining and as much as I don't care what people think, I don't believe she's worth the torment of dealing with multiple complaints. I'll just deal with her my own way,” he replied, and his response made me even more nervous. 

 “Tsk tsk tsk, I don't have a good feeling about this, bro. Something tells me you're cooking up something terrible in that head of yours," Beta Liam said, voicing out my exact thoughts. 

"It should be fun. I haven't had fun in a long time. I'm looking forward to it," I heard the Alpha reply with a dry laugh and the way he said it like some deranged psychopath, made my skin start to crawl in fear.