Chapter 9
“Alex?” Althea was shocked to see him here again.
“For you.” Alex gave her the flower and smiled brightly.
“I told you not to come again.”
“You only said that you didn’t want to get into the carriage, you didn’t say anything about not wanting to see me again.”
“I am sure, I did say that…” Althea was speechless, but she accepted the flowers.
“I have cooked for you, should we eat together?” Alex added. “I am hungry.”
“I will give the food…”
“No.” Alex cut her off, knowing what she was going to say. “Can’t we have a nice meal together? I have proven to you that I didn’t up to no good.”
Althea was torn, she knew that he expected more from her, she could see the longing in his unfathomable for Althea to even entertain the idea.
eyes,
but it was very
But at the same time, she felt bad to turn him down again and again even after how generous he was. In the end, she relented and said it was only for tonight.
“Okay. I promise, I will behave.”
Althea wanted to laugh, but she held herself.
Meanwhile, outside of her rented room, there were a few royal warriors in their beast form patrolled around this area.
“How far you are?” Alex asked, he ate gleefully. It had been so long since the last time he could enjoy his food without feeling nauseated every time he swallowed something down.
“Seven months,” Althea replied, she was astonished to watch how this man gobbled up all the food.
At first, she was worried, they wouldn’t be able to eat everything, but now, she was worried that the food was not enough for him.
“Seven months?” Alex narrowed his eyes, he put down his cutleries and stared at Althea stomach, which made her felt uncomfortable. “You look like you are just four to five months.”
Althea put her arm around her stomach, as if to cover her bump
“It’s okay.” Althea looked embarrassed. “Probably because I am so thin to begin with, thus I didn’t gain so much weight.”
“That’s because you didn’t eat properly,” Alex corrected her. There was this small furrow between his brows.
“You don’t need to be concern about me. I thank you for your kind gesture, but I think this is more than enough.”
“No. This is not enough.” His voice turned dark and was very cold.
The spoon in Althea’s hand slipped and fell to the floor, she looked mortified, which made Alex looked at her with worried, the coldness in his tone disappeared.
Althea was having a hard time to breath. She had this flashback. The coldness in Alex’s tone and how aloof his expression was reminded Althea of Killian.
“That’s not enough. You have not yet suffered enough.’
That was wh
Killian said with the same tone that Alex used and the thought of it suffocated Althea, she wanted to curl herself into a ball and get away from anyone, who wanted to harm her.
“Althea?”
“Don’t touch me!” Althea stood up immediately. She looked at Alex, she was terrified and this worried him even more.
“Althea?”
“No! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
“Althea, calm down!” This strong reaction sent him on alert. He immediately rushed to her side, but it only made her condition became worse.
“Alpha Killian, can we talk for a while?” Brian asked. He approached the alpha a day before his departure to the harbor. Unfortunately for Killian, no matter how hard he wanted to go to find Althea, he still needed to wait for the next ship to dock.
“If this is about Willow, I don’t want to talk about it. I am done with her. There is nothing to be discussed anymore.”
Killian’s answer was very curt and blunt, which made Brian grimaced. Right now, Killian was being polite to him, because of the long history between the two family.
That was why, he had Brian’s name as his middle name, therefore, they had known each other ever since Killian was little.
“I know, there is no amount of apology that could redeem what my daughter had done, but at the very least, please hear me out first,” Brian said politely. He was very ashamed on behalf of Willow.
He wanted to punish her harshly and her crime was justified if the alpha wanted to banish her from the pack, but Brian was very grateful that Killian didn’t do it.
“I know, how wrong Willow is and I know you will never forgive her, but we are all in the wrong here,” Brian said gently, he chose his words carefully.
“We are all in the wrong?” Killian stopped whatever he was doing and turned around to face Brian. He didn’t think he heard him clearly. “What did you say? We are all in the wrong? For what crime?”
Killian’s eyes darkened, they filled with malice.
“We jumped into a conclusion too fast about what happened with Althea, I was in the wrong too because I didn’t say anything.” Brian lowered his head, because he felt ashamed, but also because the look on Killian’s eyes were very unbearable. “What you feel right now is only a guilty feeling. You don’t need to cut off Willow completely. You can go to find Althea and sort the thing between you two and return to talk about your relationship with Willow.”
“Sort thing out?”
“Althea will understand… She will be happy to know that her sister is still alive. I would love for her to come home so we can properly apologize to her, with that we can all move on.”
“Move on?”
In Brian’s eyes, everything was very simple, but for Killian it was way deeper than that. No one knew about Althea’s suffering in Killian’s hand and all the pain she had to endure during that time.