"Riot, you don't have to do this," I assure him for the last time. "It'll probably heal on its own. In fact, I feel better already," I lie.
It's not that I'm particularly ready to die. It's more like fearing the tradeoff of actually going to this place called Khopeski. I've only ever heard of it before. A city accentuated with white and gold. They aren't tribal, like Visari or Oarca or Bastieel. They live under a different hierarchy. Different laws. Different traditions.
"You're bleeding through your shirt," he growls.
I look down and realize that he's right. There's a growing patch of bright red in the white material, arguing against me so Riot doesn't have to.
Soon he's standing in front of where I sit, picking up gauze off the bed beside me. He gingerly lifts up the hem of my shirt, and luckily for me, only at the side. As tenderly as possible he presses the bandage against the open wound.
With a suppressed wince, I take it from him and gesture him away. "I'll do it. Just finish whatever you're packing."
I hate being taken care of. Not that anyone's ever tried before, rather than Aimee. She's a motherly person, and somewhere along the way, I became her pup to protect. A pang of sadness hits me with realizing that I'll probably never see her again.
Riot hesitates a bit before obliging and going back to the dresser.
Reluctantly, I get up and shuffle into the bathroom, walking at a snail's pace. Even the smallest of movements sets my side and the surrounding areas on fire all over again. It takes so much to bare it that an inhabilitating lump forms in my throat.
Don't whine. Just shut up and tolerate it.
Riot has been on edge, to say the least. Ever since his sister showed up, he's stayed tense. And hearing me screaming out in pain wouldn't help his mentality in the slightest, nor my arguing that we shouldn't even go. My only hope is that he doesn't try fighting his wolf right now, or that would be the final match thrown into the gasoline.
I take a better bandage out of the cabinet under the sink. Standing in front of the mirror, I lift my shirt up halfway. The giant chunk taken out of my side is left raw and open, the blood oozing out and the flesh gleaming. Whatever concoction Senya dumped on me, it was crafted without mercy in mind.
I wrap the thick white material tightly around my abdomen, trying to stop the blood flow. I tie it on the opposite side of the wound and by the time I'm done it feels like I'm wearing a girdle.
When I walk back out, I can't seem to push the burning question away.
"Riot," I say.
He looks up from his packing immediately, his eyes alert. Instead of meeting mine, however, they land on the scarlet stain on my side.
"What's the deal with the Khopeski pack?" I ask, curious.
Khopeski is foreign to me. They're one of the packs who branched off from our ancestors' beliefs in origin and continued evolving their way of life right along with the humans, making them modern rather than tribal.
After hearing the question, Riot goes back to throwing clothes in the bag. It's as if he's entirely uninterested in the subject. Though he feeds me my knowledge anyway.
"My parents took us there to join when we were younger. I didn't like it so I left."
My brow furrows. "You were a rogue before?" Now that I think it about it, that lifestyle seems fitting for him.
"Born one," he mumbles.
That would explain why he didn't have a ring in his ear. Though if he was in a pack at one point, he would have been given one like Senya's. How the hell did me manage to get it off? And with his ear left unflawed?
YOU ARE READING
The Exiled Alpha | ✓
Werewolf"It's like he's a different breed of werewolf. Something... beyond us." • • • Adrienne Gage has spent her entire life being shunned and punished for her mouthy attitude, and being loyal to a pack which doesn't deserve her loyalty. It's been a year...
