The Alpha's Prey [Alpha-series (I)]

Chapter 28

“Are you sure you don’t want anything, honey?”

Maureen cast me a worried look.

“I am not hungry. I am happy with my coffee.”

Just the thought of food made my stomach turn, and forcing my coffee down was already hard enough.

“Your loss”, Liam shrugged. “Means more for the rest of us.”

He held his plate up to signal his mother he was interested in the scrambled egg I just had forsaken, which earned him an incredulous look from Rou and Maureen.

“What? She said she doesn’t want it. Twice.”

“He can have it, really.”

Liam gave me a thumbs up and mouthed Thanks.

“There, you heard it. The Luna has spoken”, he said and raised his plate an inch higher. His mother sighed but complied in the end.

“I wish there was anything we could say to make you feel better.” Neil patted my hand in a fatherly gesture. “Nobody should make such a sad face on the day of their claiming.”

As customs dictated, I hadn’t slept with Caleb last night. Instead, I had used one of the guest rooms at his parents’ house. Caleb was already at the arena, preparing for the big fight that would take place in less than two hours while I had breakfast with his family, Neil, and Chris. They all knew how nervous I was and wanted to offer moral support, especially considering I had no family of my own to do so.

“Caleb’s wounds won’t be much worse than the ones he occasionally suffers during warrior training”, Alistair predicted. “He’ll be healed before dinner.”

That made my head snap up in surprise. Not once had Caleb been injured during training – at least not to my knowledge …

Don’t tell me all these times you stood me up for one of our lunch dates and insisted I eat at Neil’s …

Most of the times it looks much worse than it actually is, Caleb answered my telepathic call instantly, not even trying to deny the unvoiced accusation. I didn’t want to worry you.

“He never showed you, didn’t he”, Maureen understood.

“I guess from a human point of view it is quite intense”, Neil defended him. “Their bodies are so frail. A small cut takes days, a broken bone even months to heal. They have a completely different view of what is considered a severe injury compared to us.”

“You are supposed to make me less nervous, remember?”, I cut in before this conversation could get any bloodier.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He flashed me an apologetic grin. “I got carried away.”

I played with the handle of my mug.

“Sorry for being such a drama queen.”

Even as a human I had never liked any sport centered around violence, like wrestling or boxing. I had always viewed it as barbaric and didn’t understand how anyone could find entertainment in watching others getting hurt. My mother had taken me to a box-fight once when I was six to watch her boyfriend, Kingston. He was the only decent guy she ever introduced me to, played dolls with me, took me to the movies … I liked him a lot. I can hear it to this day, the deafening cheers of the crowd when he got a critical hit to his eye, and later when his nose was broken and his blood soaked the floor. The match ended when he fell unconscious. No need to say that’s when the cheers were the loudest. After that, my mother broke up with him.