LOOK AT ME!

His voice rings in my ears, and while everything is fading into oblivion, I can still see him, although as though I'm looking through a blurry lens. He has two of his fingers pointed towards his face, and I can see that he's in a panic.

A voice, one I can vaguely recognise as mine, is speaking:

"I can't breathe."

I truly can't breathe...

My chest feels heavy, and this feeling makes breathing a chore for me.

All of a sudden, his hands grab my head, and he puts his lips to mine and breathes down my mouth, only stopping to inhale and then do it again. This helps me start to breathe again, and when everything becomes steady again, he picks me up and moves me to his bed.

"Gemma? Are you listening?"

I nod weakly, still struggling to breathe even though it feels easier than before. 

"You're going to be fine. I think you have bled all of his venom out. Your wound has stopped bleeding..."

I watch as he holds up my bandage-now soaked in blood, and his bloodied sword-which I find strange. 

"Go to sleep now. You'll be stronger by morning."

He leans over me, watching, and at the same time my eyes roll in my head almost dreamily. I struggle to keep my heavy eyelids open while looking at him, before I lose the battle with Nature and then finally succumb to a deep sleep.

**

I don't know what exactly wakes me up.

I know it's one between the incessant walking around me, or the bright lights, or the air blowing all about, but it does cause me to open my eyes to see who it is. What other surprise, then, is better than having Alpha Grey with his ripped back to me, the muscles on them well-defined and on edge, and naked except for a towel, with his hair and body slick wet.

My brain does not register this quickly and I scream, while he holds his finger up to his ear and turns to look at me, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I plead, suddenly realising that this is no longer the harem with all the other women, but a bedroom he forbade me from coming to with clear words.

"I should move you away from the other women if this is how you wake up in the harem." He replies, an unmasked look of irritation on his face.

I look away, feeling the familiar ache in my chest that his disapproval makes me feel.

He does seem to hate me.

Why does he dislike me so much?

"How do you feel now?" He asks me, his wet feet leaving marks on the floor as he draws closer, while for the first time, I see that he took my shirt off, leaving me with only a bra.

"Better?" I ask, trying to recall what happened the previous day.

His calling me...

Asking me questions about the rogue that bit me...

And the sudden unconsciousness that came over me after I sat when he told me to...

"You are the one who saved my sister, right? You took down the rogue that had been coming for her."

I nod, remembering the event at the dinner party. Just the previous evening.

"You got bitten by a venomous rogue wolf, and a rare breed. Maybe the Pack Hospital wasn't paying attention to the chance of you getting such a bite, but covering up the wound is never the solution. You only bleed to death when that happens. Just keep bleeding until you lose all the blood."

"You saved me," I mutter, subconsciously, daring to look at him. His chest is thick and muscular, and so is his abdomen. He may be proud and arrogant, even evil, but he could be forgiven for all that by many. Truly. 

"One good turn deserves another, doesn't it? You save my sister, and I save you from your own death."

This makes me wonder if Alpha Grey, known as the White Crow and King of Suro, isn't as animalistic as I imagine him to be. Maybe he does have a heart in him after all.

I turn to check the wound on my shoulder, and it is bare with caked blood covering the spots where the rogue's teeth entered into my skin. The area around the spots is pink, and the burning has stopped.

"May I ask you something, your majesty?" I ask him.

"Go on."

"How did you stop the bleeding? You said that the blood never stops flowing from the bite of a venomous rogue."

"Not unless you have a piece of silver," he replies, walking off. "Silver burns into the wound and takes the poison out without the patient even knowing how painless it can be. They're too busy fighting unconsciousness to know..."

His speech trails off when he takes the towel off without paying attention to me, which forces me to look away, while he picks up clothing lying on the bed. When I look again, he is dressed, and obviously didn't care if I was watching or not.

"My sister wants to see you. She was devastated to learn that I had you arrested, and has only forgiven me for saving your life. Now, she wants to see you again, and I will be leaving you here before she comes, as I will be too busy elsewhere." 

He grabs his sword, and then marches towards me, his fingers closing my lower jaw in a painful, iron vise-like lock. His eyes look squarely into mine, and the look of irritation is in his face again.

"If you move a single thing, I will know about it. You may run, but you will never hide from me. And when I find you, you will wish I never did. Do not touch a single thing, and only lie here until your full recovery. Do you hear me?"

I nod, and he lets go, leaving me to attend to my jaw.

"Enjoy. Ask for the servants to get you whatever you want."

With that said, he walks away, leaving me in the room. And true to his threat, I do not touch a single thing. Something in his words made his threat real, looming and larger than life even in his absence.

And besides, I want him to gain my trust.