Claimed By The Cruel Alpha King

CHAPTER 8

Elara's POV

Ace had never let any form of distraction disrupt his moment with me. Whenever a report came, he'd always ignore and attend to it later. This must've been urgent.

Good riddance. I hoped he fell on the stairs and twisted his neck.

He didn’t bother locking the door. I didn’t hear him lock it. I felt my heart skip a bit at the thought of the implication. That means I could finally be able to—

I sighed, feeling the ache of my tied limbs more than ever, like a mocking reminder that I was going nowhere. Of course, he had tied me to the bed. How could I have forgotten that? I was just a helpless wolf stuck in the hands of the monster.

I shut my eyes, trying to reign down my feelings. I felt a tear run down my cheeks as I remembered Laurie. She had almost taken a picture of me and I didn't know what I would have done if Ace hadn't stepped in.

I sniffled.

I didn’t know how long I had stayed there, but I woke up to the sound of the knob turning and the door opening.

Ace stepped in, his eyes unreadable and cold. My heart rate intensified as I cowered slightly on the bed. I looked away from his piercing stare, my eyes roving around his body, but stopping right at his shoulder. His sleeves were torn and there was bloodstain on it.

My eyes narrowed. He was hurt. I swallowed, feeling an inexplicable warmth in my chest.

He was hurt. Someone had hurt him the way he had always hurt me. He should have been dead— it wasn’t his blood— I realised. I let out a bitter scoff.

He shut the door and locked it this time, his eyes fixed on my body. The sound of the door clicking made me flinch and I adjusted on the bed, trying to move away from him.

He noticed me flinching away from him but didn't make any comment. Rather, he slowly walked towards me till he reached the foot of the bed and squatted to pick the knife with dried blood which he had discarded on the nightstand.

I felt my breath quicken, my chest heaving rapidly as I whimpered, trying to move away from him but he held my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze, "Stay the f**k still!" He hissed through clenched teeth.

I shook my head, wanting to beg that he didn't hurt me, but the gag prevented that, making my voice come out muffled.

He slowly reached out to my nape, his eyes fixed on me as he unstrapped the buckle of the gag, pulling it away from me.

I took a sharp intake of greedy gasps, trying to catch my breath. I started to calm down slowly, my heartbeat slowing down a bit.

"There you go," he murmured, rubbing my head in a mocking soothing gesture, "See? When you're good, I'll be good to you too. Or not. Depends on my mood," he laughed cruelly.

Then he moved to my wrists, cutting the ropes off with the knife. I could only watch him helplessly as he rose to his feet, walking over to the other side of the bed to cut off the ropes.

A breath of relief left my lips as I rubbed the bruised spots and as soon as he was done, I immediately scurried away from him, knowing there wasn’t a way he'd let me go without touching me again.

"I told you to stay still, didn't I?" He muttered calmly, a dangerous glint in his eyes, "Don't act silly if you don't want me to punish you,” he threatened, tilting his head as a wicked smirk formed on his lips, "You would love that, wouldn't you? I always knew you were a little masochist."

I shook my head slowly, my jaw still aching.

His smirk widened. “Good girl.”

Then, without another word, he turned and reached behind him. Something soft landed on the bed beside me—a robe. Thick, warm, grey.

“Put the robe on,” he ordered, his voice void of emotions as he straightened up. “Don’t make me do it for you, little mouse.”

I stared at it for a moment, unable to move as he offered me the robe. My limbs still trembled from the ache of the ropes. He didn’t move, but the weight of his stare was worse than a shove. I forced myself to sit up, biting down a hiss. My muscles screamed in protest. My arms, my shoulders… They felt like they were filled with stacks of broken bones.

Slowly, I reached for the robe. The blanket slipped from my chest, exposing the bruises I already knew were there. My fingers were clumsy. I pulled the robe over my shoulders, wrapping it around myself like an armour, hiding every part of me I could. It smelled faintly of lavender. Like it didn’t belong in this nightmare.

Ace didn’t look away. Of course he didn’t. His eyes moved over me with something between hunger and satisfaction, like he was proud of the pain.

Once I was done, he pushed himself off the wall and walked to the door. He opened it slightly, just enough to gesture.

A moment later, someone stepped in. The doctor from the other day whom I had pleaded with to not disclose the information of my pregnancy to Ace. My heart thumped as I whipped my head to Ace’s direction, panic starting to rise on my chest.

The doctor paused when her gaze landed on me. I watched her eyes soften just a bit, just like it did when she walked in that day.

Ace didn’t speak, he only leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, silent and still, with his phone in his hand.

“May I?” she asked, crouching down beside me.

I nodded once. She then opened her box and began pulling out supplies—gauze, antiseptic, something that looked like a cream. “You’ve got some deep bruising,” she murmured. “Dislocated tissue around the shoulder… some rope burns. This’ll sting a little.”

It did. But not enough to make me cry out.

Her hands were gentle. More gentle than I had ever been handled. I hated that I noticed.

She smeared something cool and numbing over my jaw. Then my shoulder. She examined my ankle, clicking her tongue under her breath. “How did you incur these injuries?" She asked. "It looked like you were bound too tightly."

No s**t. Ace didn’t move or speak. But I could feel his eyes glaring daggers at the doctor the whole time. Like a wolf watching another animal near his territory. Anytime the doctor would touch me in the inner of my thigh or any sensitive area, he would tense, and then clench his jaw. When the doctor wanted to inspect my thigh which he almost slit, he growled.

"Don't touch her!" He said without thinking. The doctor's eyes snapped towards him, "I mean, be careful with her." He responds gruffly, looking away.

The doctor continued working in silence for a few more minutes, then reached for a syringe.

“It’s a mild antibiotic,” she said, showing me the vial. “To prevent infection from that cut on your thigh.”

I flinched, but nodded. She found a spot just above my hip and pressed the needle in quickly. I barely felt it.

When she was done, she packed up her bag but didn’t leave right away.

She stood, her eyes meeting mine with something I couldn’t name. After a hesitant glance at Ace and then at me, my eyes widened. My heart thumped loudly in my chest as I wondered if it was going to be about the pregnancy. Ace didn’t need to know. Sh—she wasn’t going to rat me out...was she?

Ace turned towards her and parted his lips to speak, but almost immediately, his phone rang and he stepped out to answer the call. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

Her gaze at me softened the moment he stepped out and she leaned closer before whispering huskily. “Your pup’s aura is strong– Too strong and I'm scared you can't hide the pregnancy for so long."

My throat dried up and I was at a loss for what to say. I knew I was pregnant, she had told me before, but no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t wrap my head around how it happened.

My hand instinctively hovered over my stomach. “How… How soon until others notice?”

The doctor didn’t answer immediately. She glanced at the door, then back at me, and I could see the caution in her eyes.

“With the kind of blood your child carries,” she said quietly, “the aura will flare very soon. Especially around others of his kind.” Her eyes flicked to my stomach, “The father will sense it first.”

I looked at her desperately. “Can’t it be hidden? Concealed somehow?”

She hesitated, lips pressed into a thin line.

“It’s dangerous,” she said finally. “To try to suppress a pup’s aura… it can affect the mother’s body. Her mind. Sometimes even the baby’s development.”

I swallowed hard.

“How dangerous?” I whispered.

She was about to say something when—

"What did you just say?"

I froze.