Chapter 11

Chapter 11 Alpha King found her?

CA SSANDRA

When I awoke, my vision was blurred, and my head swam with incoherent thoughts. As I fought back the dizziness, my eyes began to adjust, and images of the Moon Goddess and the Holy Moon appeared.

For a moment, I stared at them and wondered if this was the afterlife.

Had the bear managed to take my life? Was I… dead?

Suddenly, the room came into focus, and I recognized the mural I’d painted on my ceiling long ago. I wasn’t dead. I was in my bedroom, tucked tightly into bed.

How had I gotten here?

Suddenly, I felt the soft touch of a warm hand on my arm. When I glanced over, I caught sight of Marley.

“Oh Ca ssandra,” she gushed in pure relief, and her pale green eyes glittered with tears. “You’re awake!”

It took me a moment to register everything. I blinked a few times and then I smiled up at my dear friend. “H-hi, M-Marley.”

The effort of speaking hurt my throat, but I was so relieved to see her that it

didn’t matter.

“I was so worried, Ca ss,” Marley continued on, and she wiped a tear from her cheek. “So extremely worried.”

She then took my hand in hers.

“I’m sorry to scare you,” I managed to say. I wanted to comfort her further, but when I attempted to squeeze her hand, a sharp pain shot through my entire b*dy.

When I winced, she pulled her hand away quickly.

“Oh, Ca ss,” Marley uttered, and her eyes widened. “I’m so sorry, that must have

hurt!”

“It’s… it’s okay,” I said through the pain, and then a thought crossed my mind.

Where was my Finnick?

I glanced around the room, but my son was nowhere to be found. Panic flooded through me, and my heart rate increased exponentially. Had he made it out of that cave? And how had I ended up here anyway?

“Marley, where’s Finnick?” I asked, and my lower l*p trembled as I choked out

I I the words. “What’s going on? Is he alright? And how did I get here in the first place?

“Hey, take a breath,” Marley urged, and her expression grew serious. “Finnick is perfectly safe. He’s back at the Pack House with the Alpha and Luna. They’re taking good care of him.”

“Is he h-hurt?” I stammered, and my vision grew cloudy with tears as memories

of the bear and the cave crashed over me.

But Marley shook her head. “Finnick is perfectly fine. He’s a little bruised but that’s it. Now, I’m serious, take a deep breath. Doctor’s orders. You’re in pretty rough shape and I don’t want you to hurt yourself further.”

It took a moment for the information to sink in, and when it did, I heeded my friend’s advice and took a long, deep breath. A few minutes later, when I was in a calmer state, another thought crossed my mind.

“Who… who saved me from the bear?” I wondered, and my eyebrows creased together. “And how did I get back here in the first place?”

A strange look crossed Marley’s face.

“The Alpha from Anemond brought you here,” she replied with a roll of her eyes, and she let out a small sigh. “He was the one who found you out in the woods.”

I gasped in surprise.

Asher Collins had found me?

It made a little sense, I supposed. Before I’d lost consciousness, the last face I remembered seeing was Asher’s.

Is it possible I hadn’t hallucinated after all?

“The Alpha found me,” I repeated back quietly. I attempted to sit up, but the effort sent another pang of pain through my chest, so I laid back down. “Wow.”

“It was definitely a surprise to get a call from him in the middle of the night,” Marley remarked. “When he explained the situation to me, he sounded like he was going to bite my head off or something.”

I frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Marley sighed again, and she sat down on the chair beside me. “Well, he was extremely angry. He was super short-tempered with me and ordered me to get to the clinic-to help. I totally understand the urgency, and I would have rushed there in a second anyway to help you, but he was intense, to say the least. That being said… What he did really changed my opinion of him.”

“Really?” I asked in surprise and she nodded.

“When he arrived at the clinic, he was so gentle with you,” she explained. “You were pa*sed out cold, and he handled you so carefully. He helped me get you down on the table and made sure you were comfortable as I started treating you.”

“Wow,” I uttered.

“Right?” Marley agreed, and she shook her head slowly. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. He could have sent a guard to handle the whole thing, but he wouldn’t let anyone else into the clinic the entire time I was taking care of your injuries. Then he carried you himself all the way here to your house.”

“That’s… surprising,” I remarked.

Asher Collins had personally escorted me back to my house?

For a moment, I felt strange about the idea of the Alpha King being in my small house, but the other part of me was grateful that he’d intervened and helped Marley get me home safe. That meant more to me than I could express, even if the idea of

it all was so strange.

“Definitely,” Marley said. “We made sure you were comfortable, and then he left. for the Pack House. It was so strange, Ca ssandra. It was like he was a completely different person than he’d been when we were taking care of his son.”

“That’s definitely strange,” I said. When I tried to readjust myself in bed, my shoulder cried out in pain, and I let out a soft cry. Marley immediately reached out and supported me.

“You have to be careful,” she urged. “You’re going to stress your b*dy out if you keep moving around.”

I

Tears welled up in my eyes as I suddenly became aware of the rest of the pain. It was there in my abdomen, my arm, my head… I was a wreck.

“So, how bad is it?” I wondered even though I was scared of the answer.

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s not great,” Marley replied, and she gave me an apologetic look. “The bear’s claws scratched your stomach up pretty badly, and your shoulder

is sprained.”

My eyes widened.

“Relax,” my friend insisted. “You’re going to be just fine. It’s just gonna take some time to heal. Now, I’m gonna take a look at your stomach and make sure nothing is bleeding, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

Marley carefully shifted the covers away from me and got to work immediately.

She gently checked my bandages, and after a minute or so, she pulled the blanket

back over me.

“Looks good,” she said, and after she smiled at me, the expression faded, and she stared deeply into my eyes. “Ca ss, I just have to ask… why were you out in the forest with Finnick to begin with? Especially that late at night. What was going on?”

My heart stopped in my chest, and I gulped quietly. I’d a*sumed Marley had read the letter I’d left her, but evidently, she hadn’t.

When I hesitated to find an answer, Marley’s eyes narrowed.

“I can tell you’re about to lie to me,” she said. “Please don’t. I want to know what happened, Ca ssy. It must have been serious if you’d brought Finnick out there with you. Please just tell me. I won’t tell anyone else, I swear.”

I wanted to lie, but Marley was my best friend. I couldn’t reveal all of the details. of my past, but I had to tell her this.

“The Alpha King ordered me to come with him to Anemond,” I revealed. “He told

me I had two days and then I was supposed to come with him.”

Marley was shocked.

“That dog,” she cursed under her breath. “I take back everything I said. He’s a terrible person. How dare he try to uproot your entire life like that.”

After the words left her l*ps, we fell into silence. We could curse him all we wanted, but we both knew his order was law. I could only imagine what he would do

now that I’d tried to leave.

But that was something I could worry about later. For now, my only concern

was Finnick.

My eyes flew toward the window. The sun hadn’t risen from the h orizon yet. It was earlier than I’d thought.

“I have to pick Finnick up,” I remarked. “He’s probably scared and worried sick.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Marley replied in a serious voice. “You’re too weak to go anywhere. Finnick is safe. You need to worry about yourself and get some rest.”

She picked a bottle of medicine off of my nightstand and opened the container. She retrieved a pair of pills. Painkillers, I a*sumed.

“Take these,” she urged, and she carefully helped me get them down. After I swallowed, she gave me some water and then pulled the blanket up further.

“But what about-” I started to say, but Marley cut me off.

“Finnick will see you later,” she said. “Now, try to get some sleep. When you wake up, I’ll accompany you to the Pack House.”