Bride of the Cursed Alpha - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Auren POV
I could feel the heat crawling up my neck and spreading across my cheeks like fire licking at dry wood. I bit my bottom lip to stop my embarrassment. My face must’ve been as red as the tomatoes I used to slice in the pack house kitchen back at the Crimson Howl pack. I tried to look anywhere but at him, while his gaze remained forward as he carried me to the car.
No one had picked me up in their arms. Maybe my parents had done that when I was a babe. So this was new, and… warm.
The harder I tried to steady my breath, the more my blush deepened, spreading over my skin. It was as if my cheeks had turned into glowing embers for everyone to see.
Alpha Lucien made me sit in the car and then sat beside me. However, the moment he sat, he saw a red stain on the leather seat. His eyes narrowed and anger flared in his eyes. “Show me your foot?” he said darkly.
When the wine glass had shattered next to my feet, one of the pieces scattered next to me. So when Alpha Lucien pulled me up and I started walking, I stepped on a tiny shard. It was lodged in my skin but I didn’t make a fuss about it because everything was happening so fast. I was used to so much more abuse that this little wound hardly affected me.
“It’s nothing,” I said, shrinking under his dark gaze. And hiccupped.
“Show. Me. Your. Foot.” He said a little loudly.
I must have been a bunny in my last life. His loud voice made me jump so hard that I instantly slapped my left foot on his thigh. He jerked his face back. “I—I’m sorry,” I said, giggling when I should have scolded myself. What the hell was happening to me? When I tried to pull away in a hurry, he grabbed my ankle, his eyes landing directly on my skin where the shard was lodged.
A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“It’s absolutely nothing,” I reminded him. “Back in my old pack—”
“I don’t care what happened in your old pack, Auren,” he cut me off sharply. “This is my pack. You can't walk like this with a shard stuck in your foot. You understand?”
I hiccupped and then bobbed my head nervously as he focused on removing it using his claws. The moment he removed it, I hissed in pain. He muttered something under his breath and then took out his hanky, which he tied like a temporary bandage around my foot. And for the rest of the journey, he didn’t allow me to keep it down. When we arrived at his home, once again, he scooped me in his arms and carried me all the way to my room, taking the stairs like I weighed like a feather.
As he set me on my mattress, our faces were merely a few inches close. My eyes darted to his beautiful bow-shaped lips and my breath lodged in my throat.
He covered me with the blanket and said, “We will not leave the house for the next two days, okay?”
“Okay,” I somehow managed to say.
“If you want anything from me, ask Tarian, and he will pass the message.”
I nodded, my gaze now darting between his eyes and lips. “You're so beautiful!” I breathed.
He raised an eyebrow and I slapped my mouth with my hand for being so daring and also because I couldn’t stop giggling. Silence hung between us for a few moments after which Alpha Lucien straightened. Then without a word, he turned and left. And only when he shut the door behind him, I loosed my breath. Goddess, he was so intimidating and huge and strong that I couldn’t help feeling like a bunny in a wolf’s den.
Ten minutes later, the doctor of the pack, Dr. Kenny, arrived. He was an old wolf with gray eyes and a receding hairline. He shook his head as he saw my wound. “Lucien sounded like it was a deep gash, but this is so tiny that it doesn’t need my intervention. It could have healed on its own in less than an hour!”
That night I didn’t change and went off to sleep in my formal dress. However, at night the weather outside turned bad.
The wind outside was loud, howling like an angry wolf. It shook the windows, making them rattle in their frames. Rain poured down hard, hitting the glass so fast it sounded like someone was throwing tiny stones. Thunder rolled far away at first, a soft rumble, but it got louder and louder until it felt like the whole house was trembling. I pulled my blanket tighter around me, but it didn’t help. I felt scared, alone as my teeth chattered. The storm outside felt like it was trying to get inside my chest, making me uneasy and cold.
I lay down and closed my eyes, but the noise wouldn’t let me rest. Each crack of thunder and flash of lightning made me jump. After what felt like forever, I finally drifted off, but my dreams turned dark.
In my nightmare, I was running through a forest. The trees were tall and black, their twisted branches reaching for me. My feet hurt with every step, bleeding from sharp rocks and thorns. The moon shone above, golden and beautiful, comforting for a moment. I stopped for a moment to watch the full moon. Suddenly, thick thorny vines started climbing my body and reached my back, squeezing me tight and crawling under my skin. The thorns dug into my flesh, drawing blood that dripped down the vines, and the moon’s light began to fade. My back started to burn like fire. I tried to scream, but no sound came out.
When I woke up, my own scream filled the room. I sat up so fast my blanket slid off. My heart was pounding fast, and I was sweating even though the air was cold. Lightning flashed, lighting up the walls for a moment before plunging the room back into darkness. I sat up, shaking, trying to catch my breath.
That’s when I felt it. Someone was there. The room was quiet except for the rain, but I could feel it—like someone was standing in the dark, watching me. I reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on. As soon as the room was lit, I took a deep breath and examined it, but there was no one. Perhaps I was going insane. I had never had this kind of dream earlier.
Feeling restless, I bolted my door from inside and curled beneath my blanket, closing my eyes tightly. I don’t know when I drifted off to sleep, but when I woke up, I had a terrible headache.