From that girl's constant chatter, I am convinced that Elif is a pain to be around for longer than a few minutes. Unfortunately, while I was proved right, I am also starting to realise that Elif together with that Randy person is even worse.
By now, it's fairly obvious that he truly is a doctor. When he works, his face shows all the qualities a pack doctor should possess: concentration, knowledge, skill, efficiency. However, as soon as he sets his tools down, an immediate irritating scowl takes over his features. He also doesn't talk much. Elif does most of that. She is constantly explaining what Randy is doing, how he's doing it, why he's doing it, how whatever he's doing will heal and how, of course, she will eventually be as good at what he's doing as he is. When not working, she proceeds to tell both me and Raph, who probably barely registers any of it, what an apparently unpleasant person Randy is, only to earn constant annoyed noises from the man himself. After a while, it actually gets quite comical.
On first glance, Randy seems unbelievably frail, but only until I take a closer look. It became clear quickly that he isn't at all. His body is lean muscled, but the way he carries himself speaks of fighting experience and I have no doubt that he can easily hold his own in a fight.
After a few hours of working on Raph's and my own injuries, they both lean back with exhausted sighs. Randy unties his pony tail and unleashes a mane of hair that had a weird shade of brown, almost bordering a dark red in places. I have never seen anyone with hair as long as his. Once it falls over his shoulder it's obvious his pony tail must have been tied with some kind of technique to hide all of that hair somewhere. As he's sitting down, it's obvious that his hair falls way past his waist.
Immediately the girl is snuggled into his side and starts braiding his hair similarly to how she did her own. And it only takes a few minutes for Randy's arm to come around her shoulders. My eyebrows shoot up in surprise as I was not expecting that.
'Shhh, he's sleeping now. He always needs some rest after treating patients.' Elif chuckles before continuing, 'We'll stay here tonight and then get daddy tomorrow so he can tell you where you'll be staying. You should both do better by then. There's a bag by the door, can you get that? There's some food in there for dinner.'
The "door" is really only the root that leaves a gap big enough to crawl through so I quickly grab the bag and come back. I've not yet asked about the Alpha, but there is really no point anymore. It's clear that this is the Alpha's daughter and I would be stupid to count on him being as helpful as his daughter is. I should be preparing to leaving tomorrow. At least they let us recover properly, it would give us much more of a chance to actually make it.
Elif takes the bag off me immediately and just turns it upside down to shake it. All kinds of stuff falls out, but on a closer look, I realise the majority of it is chocolate.
'Dinner?' I can't help but ask. I hear a chuckle next to me and immediately throw my arm around Raph, who's sat up next to me. He still looks a bit pale, but he's alright moving and talking already. As Elif said, by tomorrow he should be as good as new, just like me.
'That's mine, silly. As if I would give you all the good stuff. Besides, apparently having only chocolate isn't good for recovery, Randy says. I don't think that's true, but he won't believe me anyway.'
As she's talking, she grabs some more food that looks a lot more healthy and hands it to us.
'Also, just to clarify, this is dark chocolate, so it's all healthy anyway.' she says as she munches on the first bar of "dark chocolate".
I can't help myself and let a little laugh slip. Raph smiles up at me in answer and kisses me on the cheek.
'I've missed that.' he whispers and I give him a chaste kiss on the lips in return.
A loud squeal rips us out of our little moment, only to look at the very excited face of the Alpha's daughter.
'You're so cute!' she squeals some more, right until a hand covers her mouth and forces her back to Randy's side.
'Shut it princess, or I'll send you home right now. I wanna sleep.'
'I told you not to call me princess when we're working! I lose all credibility!'
'Stop copying your dad's words all the time, it's annoying.' is the only thing he mumbles to her whining and she just settles on pouting by his side, soon resuming braiding his hair.
The two of them really are an odd pair and I wonder how they're so close.
'How old are you?' Raph quietly asks as he's eating his sandwich. Elif starts beaming when she realises Raph is paying attention to her.
'My birthday was two months ago! I already turned 5!'
Elif doesn't notice, but I can tell how his smile falters slightly at the revelation. She's so close in age to Sam. I grab Raph's hand with my free one and squeeze. I would find a way to let him see his brother again at some point, no matter how.
'How old are you mister? Oh and also what's your name? You haven't told me yet cuz you don't trust me, right? But you trust me now, right?' Her eagerness and openness seems to distract Raph somewhat, since he quietly chuckles, genuinely amused, before answering.
'My name is Raphael and I'm 20 years old. And this overanxious dork is Donovan, same age.'
'You are so old!' Elif exclaims, only to slap her hand over her mouth with wide eyes, in fear of having woken up her strange companion. But Randy doesn't move at all, completely dead to the world and I wonder, not for the first time, how he can just sleep like that with both me and Raph in such close proximity.
'Daddy and Dad are so much older though.' Elif whispers to us, as if telling us a secret. I smile at that. She sure is cute.
'Don't go around calling me old, sweetheart.' comes a deep and familiar voice from the entrance.
My head whips over and immediately I cover Raph with my body. He doesn't object, mainly because he probably doesn't recognise the intimidating Alpha standing in the doorway.
'Daddy!' Elif whisper screams before standing up and running outside to her father, who snatches her up and twirls her around before setting her back down. She starts chattering on about everything that happened since she got here, telling him every detail of what she did to save me and Raph, apparently. I don't listen though, being too focused on the Alpha that keeps getting closer. My breath accelerates with every hunched step he takes in our direction.
He stops a few feet away from us, having probably sensed my tension, before frowning.
'Sweetie, did I not tell you to get them some clothes?' He turns his scowl away from us and towards his daughter, who was still talking nonstop.
'I had to pack chocolate, there was no space.' she just shrugs and then goes right back to her chronological account of yesterday and today.
'I can tell Randy did a great job fixing you up.' he then addresses me, gesturing his daughter to be quiet, to which she simply obeys and sits back down next to Randy.
'I'm no threat. If I wanted to kill you, I could have long ago. Now drop the threatening look, I'm pretty sure we established rank three days ago, no?'
There is a quiet confidence about his words and for some reason, his non threatening demeanour makes me relax just slightly.
'I'm Raphael and this is Donovan.' Raph suddenly introduces us for the second time. I almost want to face palm. This is generally so unlike Raph, but alas he also seems to think much clearer than me at the moment.
'I am Marc, Alpha of the pack residing on this land at the moment. It is nice to meet you.' His smile is a genuine one and I finally give up. There's absolutely no point in fighting this any longer. No matter how cautious I am around them, truth is he could have just left us, kicked us out of his land, killed us or anything really. Instead he chose to help us, so realistically I have no grounds to be suspicious anymore.
'Look, I'll get those two home and then I'll come back here to have a chat with both of you. Don't leave.'
He doesn't even wait for an answer before he tells Elif to go ahead. The girl immediately obeys and runs out, shouting excited goodbyes and see you's over her shoulder to me and Raph. The Alpha walks over the a sleeping Randy and squats down to slip his arms underneath Randy's body. He effortlessly lifts him up.
'I won't be long.' he says to us before adjusting Randy in his arms and turning to leave. As he has his back to us, I can see Randy sleepily snuggling into the bigger male, sneaking his arms around his neck and placing his head by the Alpha's neck. Before they leave our view I can see the Alpha gently kissing Randy's temple and it finally makes sense why the girl and Randy are so comfortable together.
'Did you just see that?' Raph asks next to me with about as much disbelief as I am feeling.
'You mean the fact that the Alpha allowed his mate and daughter to check on two rogues? Yup, I sure did.'
A delighted laugh at my side makes me turn my head just in time to catch how Raph lifts himself over to straddle me. His laugh is contagious and soon we are both laughing, hugging each other, revelling in the sheer absurdity of our luck.
Suddenly, he's kissing me. It reminds me of that time when we snuck out on Sheila to make out in the bathroom, it's fierce and passionate and I want nothing more than to just keep going.
'Wait.' I say against his lips. 'Raph.'
He breathlessly pulls away, only enough to let me talk, but not enough to lose any other contact between our bodies. We both need to be close to each other right now.
'We can't, you're injured.' I reason.
'Not injured enough.' he immediately retorts and goes for my jaw, and from there to my neck, leaving a hot path where his tongue was. I can't help but moan, even when I know exactly that this isn't good. At all.
'Even if you weren't, you know we can't. The pack will smell our mixed scent if we have sex. They'll find us, we can't risk it.'
'We can just run again.' he simply dismisses my words. But this makes me angry. I grab his hands that are steadily getting closer to my groin and pull them behind his back, careful of not worsening any of his injuries, but firm enough for his body to lean away from mine.
'I almost lost you! I won't risk it! I can't!' I did not want to shout, but I couldn't control my voice. I can see when the raw lust leaves his eyes and sadness and shame replace it.
'I'm sorry.' he says quietly and wraps his now released arms around my head, hugging me to him in a calming manner.
We stay this way until we can hear the Alpha come back.
We quickly leave the little root cave and meet him outside.
'Sit down.' the Alpha says in a stern voice, 'this is what will happen.'