Offered to the Triplet Alphas

[Xanthea]

After our return to the Infernal pack, Ezra departed without uttering a word.

Asher accompanied Ezra, while Raven brought me back to the hospital. He said that I still required continuous monitoring and medical attention to deal with the lingering effects of the carvera poison. It had been three days since I returned, yet it felt like I was still stuck in that night. After Raven brought me to the hospital, I hadn't seen him even once.

Although I knew he did come to the hospital every day to check on the High lady.

Honestly, it was a relief to not see them on the weekdays. Weekends were way too overwhelming already.

Mostly, when the triplets were around, I didn't know what to do or how to carry myself. Or what might make them angry? Around them, I always walked on thin ice. A slight slip and I was sure to drown.

And after everything that happened in the Virgo pack, I couldn't say if I was emotionally drained or just too numb to deal with them. But my thoughts kept lingering back to-

Ezra...

What exactly happened in his past?

What were Raven and Asher talking about?

And what exactly triggered him to that extent?

It clearly had nothing to do with me. Or was it?

I had been zoning out a lot lately and when I brought myself back from the daze; I found myself living that night over and over again, thinking about Ezra even more. Contemplating and trying to decipher the meaning behind the last few words he spoke before he turned completely silent.

Even now when I shut my eyes, my mother's burned down diaries and the burning Virgo pack flashed before my eyes.

A nurse drew my blood in the injection and poured it into three different testing vials.

Mavka had come to the hospital to take care of me. She took care of my meals and medicines.

"Rest well," the nurse said before leaving the royal ward where I was put.

"Why do they draw such a vast amount of blood from you every day?" Mavka glared at the shut door. "I bet they are smuggling it to the runaway vampires."

"Runaway vampires?" I asked, leaning against the headboard.

"Yeah. Vampire's blood, ichor, had medicinal properties for immortals, so their blood is used in several medicines. We rear them like cattle, though. But one or two break free now and then and since there is no true sun in this world, they prosper in the wilderness, feeding on rogues and weak bloods. They aren't a threat to the demon population, unlike your world, where they are always after your kind for your blood," Mavka said.

I nodded, pursing my lips in a tight line.

"What are weak bloods?" I asked.

"Weak bloods? Well, they are worse than rogues, considered even below omegas of our realm. They are the demon-borns who couldn't develop or activate their immortality genes even after coming of age and so their family and the society discards them," Mavka said.

"Immortals are born with the immortality genes, right?"

"Correct. We are born with those genes, but they do not activate until the demon child is three years old. And if a kid fails to produce them even when they turn five years old, they are discarded and in the local language we call them weak bloods. Weak bloods can't even manifest a demon wolf, so they almost turn into the weakest kind of mortal and they can die..."

"I remember reading about them. As far as I know, it's a genetic condition known as Mortalitis or the damaged seed syndrome. Because such kids are referred to as the damaged seeds and their life expectancy is very less. This chronic illness was considered incurable before the concept of forced activation was introduced," I mumbled to myself. "Although mother wrote no further information on the forced activations and even the books stated they were just incurable." "You indeed know a lot about our medicine, your highness," Mavka said with a smile. "And you also have this strange habit of thinking to yourself out loud."

"Oh, I am sorry. It happens when I am going through the information stored in my head. When I read it out loud, I can access them better," I said.

"You don't have to apologize to me, your highness. If princess Nesryn hears you saying that to me, she'll punish me," Mavka said.

I looked around, and it was just us in the room.

"But how will she know?" I asked.

"How can you be so smart and so dumb at the same time?" Mavka shook her head as if I was a gone case she was dealing with. "She runs a spy business, and she has taken some liking to you." I blinked at Mavka.

"Is she spying on me?" I asked in a hushed voice.

"It's her way of accepting you into the royal family. Don't family members spy on one another, stalk one another to show how much they love and care about each other?" Mavka said casually, as if it was in their culture to spy on their family members, and then I remembered Nesryn's conversation with her mother. I guess it was indeed normal to stalk family members in the Infernal pack.

"I am humbled, I guess." I tried to say that with all goodness I could muster.

"I have heard that the High lady regained consciousness this afternoon," Mavka said.

"Really? How is she?" I asked.

"Still the same, if you ask me, but Alpha Raven says she is improving. He has restarted her usual treatment. High lady's nurse was talking to other nurses about it. She said it was like restarting the treatment all over again, but it seemed as though they started with the right foot this time."

"I am glad..." I said, smiling faintly. "I wish I could visit her once."

"The demon lords don't want you to leave your room. Although you can leave your room when someone..." Mavka raised her voice a little as if talking to someone who was hiding close to us. "...from the royal family asks you to leave your room and visit the High lady with them, you can go."

I smiled at Mavka, and she winked at me with a smirk as she shrugged.

"I truly appreciate your efforts, Mavka. I am grateful to you for telling me this. Just knowing that the High lady is better and improving is enough for me," I said.

"You are too humble, your highness. You have taken your medicines. You should sleep now. I'll let you rest. If you need me, I am just a thought away," Mavka said, and left.

Mavka had a demonic ability to sense when I needed her, and even when I didn't call for her, she would come.

After eating the medicines, I was advised to take a nap. It made me heal faster.

***

My eyes opened when the red clouds in the sky were almost as equally dispersed as the black clouds. That's how the evenings looked like in this realm. And they were beautiful even more than the evenings in our realm. I had been looking outside the window that was close to my bed.

Getting down from the bed, I trudged nearer to the window. The soft translucent curtains fluttered against the soft winds that caressed my hair.

I gazed at the patients, nurses, and even spotted some doctors strolling in the hospital's garden. It was filled with healing plants. The hospitals in the Infernal realm didn't smell like disinfectants and antiseptics. They had more herbal odor, like the fragrance of green tea.

Shutting my eyes, I drew in a deep breath and exhaled. When I opened my eyes, I smiled, waving at the red butterfly that rode the winds and fluttered closer to my window, casually passing by. I have been seeing them most often lately. It looked like the same red butterfly I saw when I was in Raven's office. There were a lot of red butterflies in the Infernal pack.

I reached out my hand in a hope it might land on my fingers, but as expected, it fluttered away. I chuckled.

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"What makes you chuckle in solitude?" My heart lit up at the voice that came from behind me.

"Princess..."

Nesryn stared at me with an impassive face.

"Didn't I tell you to call me Nesryn?" She walked closer to me.

"Umm..."

"Maybe I didn't, but you can call me Nesryn," she said. "I was here to see Raven. Thought I should check on my two sick family members. I haven't seen the High lady yet, wanna join me?"

I smiled and nodded excitedly. It could be co-incidence or Nesryn was really spying on me. The idea of having someone spy on me would have been scary and unsettling had I been in the Virgo pack, but for uncanny reasons, having a spy on my back felt like an honor. And for some reason, I was happy.

After wearing the dress robe over my hospital night suit, I followed Nesryn out of my room and into the empty hallways of the royal wing of the hospital.

Mavka followed us closely, but made sure she stayed behind us and didn't take the elevator with us. She took the stairs.

"Can't believe you survived so far," Nesryn said as we approached the High lady's room.

"Me too," I said, and Nesryn chuckled.

Nesryn knocked on the door. High lady's maid opened the door from inside and stood aside instantly.

As soon as I looked at the High lady again, I understood what Raven meant by her improving conditions. There was a vast difference in her body the first time I saw it and her body now.

"I know, Nyssa. Thanks for taking such good care of me. All thanks to you, I feel much better," the high lady chuckled softly.

"It's my job, High lady. But you can't skip a single dose from now on. Raven has worked hard on you," Nyssa said. Maybe she had come for the High lady's routine check up. "If you miss even a dose, the treatment might collapse again." High lady smiled at her.

"Ok. Ok. Now stop nagging me. You don't have to come to give me every dose yourself. My maids are highly efficient in following orders."

"Yeah and that is why if you order them to not give you the dose, they will hide away the medicine or throw it away," Nyssa said and the High lady broke into a serene laughter.

They looked like... a family already.

"Huh! There she goes again buttering the High lady. She is already the top luna candidate, all this is unnecessary if you ask me," Nesryn scoffed.