Chapter 5

"It's going to be fine, my alpha," I hear Velkan say, who is sitting on the bed next to mine. Eyes are narrowed and the pain in my side draws a groan from my mouth.

"Are you sure?" Kayra asks him in a shaking voice "that branch was stuck between her ribs, and it must have punctured her lung. She was drenched in blood. From what I know, she must have even pierced his heart."

"Remember who she is," Velkan replies, but before he continues, I try to sit up.

"And who am I supposed to be?" I tell him, looking at my side. The pain diminishes little by little as if I had taken some pain medicine and now it was taking effect, "and I think you two are exaggerating, I just scratched myself, look," I show Kayra, who is putting her hand to her mouth. The medicine or whatever they recently gave me to take effect and now I am much better.

I sit on the bed edge still weak and look around me. The sun rays hit me directly in the face and I rub my eyes. Derrick and Frans are leaning against the wall near the exit, while Kayra is sitting next to Velkan and Kieran has his face buried in his hands, but he looks up as soon as he hears me and a smile spread across his face, but he changes immediately when I look at him.

"You're a fucking stubborn and a fucking liar, I hope you learned something today," he tells me and gets up from the chair, leaving the room, slamming the door behind him. Derrick and Frans follow him, leaving me with Velkan and Kayra.

"He's worried about you," Velkan tells me, and I glare at him. "He brought you from the forest with a branch pierced through your ribs."

"Don't be exaggerated," I still blurt out in a sleepy voice, "if that were the case, I'd be dead in a pool of blood, besides, if you're so worried about me, why the hell are you kidnapping me?"

"You are not kidnapped," Kayra tells me, “We are rescuing you."

"Fine, I was lucky, I had a future, and you are taking me out of what was going to be my perfect life," I tell them wanting to cry, but I restrain myself, "there's nothing you can tell me which it makes me agree. You don't know and you don't understand me. Plus, if they were really orphan guys, you two would understand what I am talking about."

"I am an orphan, Bianca, I know what you are talking about and that is why I know that the best thing for you is that you come with us," Velkan replies, "also, you are not an orphan, but we will talk about that later. Now we have to get out of here."

"Of course I want to get out of here as soon as possible," I tell them half annoyed and half sleepy, but I don't waste time to fix myself and it strikes me that I find my booties at the foot of the bed, which I put on right away, "this place is full of wolves, one attacked me and I fell, almost crushed me. It's the only thing I'm going to thank Kieran for because I don't know how he did it, but he chased away the wolf."

Velkan and Kayra look at each other knowingly. I don't care, I just want this damn nightmare to end.

"Let's get out of here," Velkan says, and we let's go toward the restaurant.

~~~

At the end of breakfast, we take the road to wherever they are taking me. We make two more stops, one for filling the cars with gasoline and another for eating. I don't want to run away again, I don't want to run away into forests full of wolves and dangerous branches, so I try to act like a good girl. In the afternoon we stop again at another hotel, just as secluded and surrounded by forest. Apparently, it's the only kind of hotel that Kieran and his cult know.

When we take rooms, Kieran takes the one in the middle of the other two rooms and decides that he will be my roommate again. Velkan, Derrick, and Frans stay in one room, while Kayra and Astrid stay in the last.

At dinner, I decide to eat without protesting, but I don't talk to anyone either. I'm not resigning myself to them doing what they want with me, but we've already gone through all this, so I must be more original with my ideas, besides, they are forewarned, and it is not good to tell the same joke twice.

In the room, I go to the bathroom and put on my pajamas and go to bed.

But when I settle in, I feel like someone, rather Kieran gets into bed with me.

"But what the hell are you doing!" Yell at him, "this is my bed," I blurt out and get up immediately.

"You made fun of me, and you ran away," he tells me as if nothing had happened, "don't wait for me to leave you alone again," he laughs, "don't worry, don't get excited, this will be only for today, and tomorrow we'll get to Scarlet Moon."

"What, another bar?" I say sarcastically.

"In fact, it's a chain of bars that my pa… my family has," he corrects himself, "but now we're going to our territory called Scarlet Moon."

"Okay," I tell him, rolling my eyes. I don't even want to ask what you mean by territory, "Kieran, it's absurd that we sleep in the same bed. I already showed you that I am going to behave well and after what happened with the wolf, I am not going to try to enter a forest anymore in my life. So, you can stop the drama and I can sleep in peace."

"I don't believe you," he replies, "yesterday you made me believe that you understood, and I felt like an idiot. So don't complain if I don't trust you. Now, if you insist on protesting, I will wrap myself around your waist and put my head on your neck."

"Don't!" I yell at him sulkily, looking for a blanket on the other bed and trying to curl up in one of the chairs. "Don't be absurd."

"Okay," he replies, taking the blanket and placing himself in the other chair, but he moves it to block the door, "but don't blame me if your neck hurts tomorrow."

I think this has been the worst idea I have ever had in my life. This chair is the most uncomfortable piece of furniture in the world and trying to accommodate me is taking a lot of effort, but it's taking Kieran much more.

The poor man tries to accommodate himself as best he can in the chair and I feel sorry for him, but then I remember that he is there because of his own stubbornness, and I begin to believe in divine justice.

His body contorts and he shrinks in a way that hurts just looking at him. It is that his enormous muscular body doesn’t fit in any way.

But I'm so tired that I don't know when I stop paying attention to it and sleep.

~~~

I wake up feeling ridiculously hot and the sound of an alarm. I am on a bed, and I can hardly move. There is an arm that takes me around the waist and a rhythmic sound of a breath on my nape.

My heart begins a race that I cannot control. The strong arm tightens me against the warm body and I'm getting dizzy. All the colors rise to my face.

It is Kieran's arm that adjusts me to his belly as if we were two parts of the same piece. His breath on my nape sends me waves that harden my nipples.

But no, not like this.

"What the hell!" Yell and try to separate me from his body, "let go of me, Kieran!"

He reacts immediately and separates. We both sit on the bed, me furious and he, bewildered.

"You fell out of the chair, I picked you up and brought you to bed," he says hoarsely, "at some point I must have moved and hugged you like you were a pillow. I'm not going to apologize for that," he adds and gets up to go to the bathroom, "by the way, you're welcome."

I throw a pillow at him, but it doesn't come close to hitting him and that angers me a lot more.

He's an idiot!

And besides, he wants me to thank him.

"Don't try anything," he warns me, before going in to shower, ignoring the pillow at the foot of the bathroom door. "Frans and Derrick are outside, in case you try to escape."

"I already told you I'm not going to try anything," I snap, "but I can't expect the same from you."

"I don't believe you," he replies, pulling his semi-naked body out the door, and my anger suddenly disappears. When he finishes bathing, I do the same and we both leave the room and head to the restaurant.

After eating, our day passes the same as the previous one. Two stops for eating and for filling the cars' tank. In the afternoon, we enter what looks like a small town with a huge house in the center, to which we go. Both cars are parked in a huge garage located to one side. When we meet at the huge front door, it flies open, showing a couple, a man, and a woman in their mid-forties, I think.

"Welcome!" The woman greets us, who kisses and hugs Kieran. It sure is her mother. The man, who is very much like Kieran, nods at him, who returns it.

"This is Bianca," he tells them and I'm deciding if I want to greet them or not. In the end, I decide to nod at them, not trying to make it appears like one of those creeping bows that others due to Kieran. They ignore my rudeness towards whatever it's that makes them a kind of royal and make us walk alongside them through the doors into the lobby decorated as if it were a mansion. After the lobby, we stop by a huge hall, from where you can see all the floors of the building, with stairs on each side of a huge hallway.

"I am Alpha Kyle, and she is my Luna Atea, which for you would be my wife. We are Kieran's parents," the man introduces himself, as we continue walking.

I think I'm going to have to moderate my manners with these people if I want to get out of here and back in my life, so I try to smile at them.

Behind us are Frans and Derrick. Velkan, Kayra, and Astrid have disappeared a few minutes ago. We passed the stairs and entered the hall.

"Where we go?" Kieran asks his parents.

"To the boardroom," says his mother, "we need Alanna to see someone," I notice that she makes a conspiratorial sign.

"To whom?" I ask them, but they don't answer, instead they direct me to huge doors guarded by two tall and muscular men, with profoundly serious faces. Seeing Kyle, they both bow and step aside to let us in. Past the doors is a table arranged in a U-shape, and before it, the figure of a man with his back to me.

And I am paralyzed.

I don't usually cry, not in front of strangers. It bothers me that they think I'm weak, afraid, or scared. But the tears that spill down my cheeks have nothing to do with any of those things. They are tears of joy to see the person who has always comforted me when I feel lost, like now. My body relaxes, as if I were already at home, out of danger, from kidnappings and wild animals. It is relief to a weight that I didn't know I had on my shoulders.

He turns around and looks at me. I run to him to hug him.

"Richard!" I yell at him excitedly. But he doesn't hug me back. He is frozen and that's when I stop to see his face, "what's up, Richard?" I ask him, but he just grabs my shoulders.

"Bianca, we have to talk," he replies and from the expression on his face, I think I'm not going to like what he means.