From The Ashes.

Chapter 5

As the room filled with the warm orange of sunrise, I blinked slowly awake to find a head of curly hair in my face.

"What the?" I muttered, pushing myself  into a sitting position. I heard a chuckle beside me and looked up to find Zak standing over me with a smirk on his face.

"Morning Princess." I groaned when he chuckled and collapsed back into bed where a small, sleepy moan made me sigh and run my hands through the mess of curly black hair in front of me. A dip in the end of the bed told me Zak had just sat down.

"I'm not a princess." I groaned, pulling the doona closer around me. Even without my pillows two nights in a row of terrible sleep made my bed feel as though it was of clouds and the frigid air that existed outside of my warm cocoon was not exactly inviting. But something about the fact that I was currently curled up in bed waa bugging me. I remembered being on the floor when I fell asleep last night.

My eyes flew open and I turned to look at Zak, who was sitting looking at me with his eyebrows furrowed, like I was a puzzle he was trying to piece together.

"Why am I in bed?" He blinked, visibly taken back as though the question made no sense to him. He frowned, his forehead creasing, as confusion swept across his expression.

"It's your bed." He announced as though that should have been obvious. The utter confusion on his face just made me smile, the man in front of me was about as threatening as a puppy.

"I was asleep on the ground last night, though." Even before I'd finished speaking, a light bulb seemed to switch on and he lit up with realisation, a smile stretching across his face as though laughing at himself.

"Oh, right. Yeah, you fell asleep before I did. I wasn't sure if that man would be back so I pushed you onto the bed and stood guard. Once the moon went down,I put you in the bed." I frowned, trying to imagine the logistics of the huge black wolf trying to push me onto the bed and failed. It didn't matter anyway, since it was obvious that he'd been up all night and yet, he looked as fresh as if he'd just had a good nights sleep.

"You don't look tired." I stated slipping out of bed and making my way over to the kitchen counter that stretched out beside the bed. Zak scratched the back of his neck, leaning over to resettle the doona on the boys shoulders before following me over.

"I'm used to staying up pretty late. We run patrols along our borders at night and as he Alpha-Heir I'm required to lead them pretty regularly." I frowned, pulling the cupboard open I pulled out two packets of instant hot chocolate and leaned over to turn on the hot water jug.

"Alpha-Heir? That's what that guy called you yesterday. I don't know what he meant by it." As soon as I turned around, I blinked in surprise. Zak was standing in front of me with two mugs in his hands. He stared at me, his eyebrow raised.

"What?" He placed the mugs on the counter and I shook my head.

"Nothing." I turned to pour the hot chocolate powder into the mugs when Zak sighed and leant against the counter beside me.

"I guess I should explain." He muttered, mostly to himself then me. Zak was silent for a few more beats as the water began boiling. For a moment, I thought he wasn't going to continue, until he leaned forward and pulled his shoulder length, black hair into his hand.

"See this?" He tapped at something just below his hairline and I craned my head around to see it. I blinked. It was a lowercase A only it looked a little strange. It took me a few moments to recognise the greek alpha, black against his dark brown skin.

"Tattoo?"

"Birthmark." He let his hair fall again and I frowned. I could've sworn I'd seen a similar marking recently but I couldn't remember where.