The Alpha's Healer: Fated Mates, Forbidden Bonds

8 - The Path to Freedom

Lucia



The pack would be left in chaos if Ragnar and Kaelen fought.

And as much as Lucia resented most of the werewolves, she would never wish that on them.

“If you get Kaelen’s blessing, then I will consider it. Consider us. Consider…courting, whatever that may entail.” She told him after regaining control of her faculties. “But right now, I’m not sure if I want to risk my life to bear children for a pack that has pointedly excluded me. You should consider that as well.”

Ragnar’s eyes gleamed at her, golden and undeterred. “Point taken. But, I could give you the position and respect you deserve, sweet bird.” He leaned in again, a large hand wrapping around her to pull their bodies against each other. Floral softness melting into musky hardness.

“Even if I have to bleed for it.”

Before Lucia could process Ragnar’s final, chilling words, a presence descended, cutting through the heavy air like a sharpened claw.

His scent, usually a comforting anchor despite its underlying power, now hit Lucia like a physical blow – sharper, more acrid, laden with raw fury and a suffocating possessiveness she felt in her very bones.

Kaelen was striding out of the deeper woods, the one path that led back to the late Alpha’s lodge, and in his hand, clutched tight, was the familiar, leather-bound volume of his father’s journal. The cover on this one was slightly different.

So, she realized, he had found another one and was removing it from the lodge before Lucia could find it. The annoyance from their last argument about the journals prickled in her veins, hot and uncomfortable.

What was in them that he felt the need to keep them from her?

Kaelen did not look at her; his eyes were fixed on Ragnar’s hand on her lower back, still holding her close.

“I commanded everyone to stay away from Lucia until I could ensure her continued safety. Did I not?”

Ragnar must have sensed something she could not.

His hand dropped from her body as if burned, and he stepped back.

He straightened, his casual stance replaced by the rigid posture of a Beta prepared for confrontation.

Kaelen stopped a few feet from them, his body radiating controlled power, his jaw tight. He didn't speak, but his posture, the subtle flex of his shoulders, broadcast his displeasure. He was a storm front, silent but imminent.

Lucia opened her mouth, a sharp, sarcastic retort already forming on her tongue – something about him being so concerned about her presence now after days of 'house arrest.' But her gaze snagged on Ragnar.

She remembered the rules, the unspoken hierarchy. Undermining the Alpha, especially in front of his Beta, was a dangerous game she couldn't afford to play, not when Kaelen was already walking a knife's edge with his own wolves.

Her scathing responses would have to wait until they were alone.

She swallowed the bitterness and chose her words carefully.

"I was merely thanking Ragnar for his protection during my confinement," Lucia stated, her voice even, devoid of the sarcasm she

wanted to inject. She kept her gaze fixed on Ragnar, the safer option, avoiding Kaelen's furious stare.

Kaelen’s head snapped towards her, his eyes narrowing to slits. The very air around them seemed to crackle with his sudden fury. He didn't even look at Ragnar, though his Beta was a living challenge a few feet away. All his focus, sharp and intense, was on her.

"Your scent is disruptive, even now," Kaelen growled, his voice low, raw, utterly devoid of the warmth that sometimes, rarely, escaped him. "It's a chaos I can ill afford. The pack is on edge. You need to return to the cottage and stay with my mother. Now." His eyes blazed, demanding obedience, as if she were a disobedient pup. The grip on his father's journal tightened, the leather creaking faintly.

The dismissiveness of his tone, the blatant command without a hint of question or concern for her experience, ignited a slow-burning resentment in Lucia. He wasn't seeing her, only the effect she had on his pack.

He may not be directly turning his back on her like that day in the clearing all those years ago, but the effect was still the same.

"I've been confined for five days, Alpha," Lucia retorted, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper that bristled with her own burgeoning defiance. "The chaos, as you call it, seems to have happened around my confinement. Perhaps you should look at your own pack's control, not mine."

It was the wrong approach. Meeting Kaelen’s displeasure with defiance would only ignite his Alpha instincts, but the frustration of recent days had stripped Lucia of her usual capacity for handling him. She wasn’t ready to stop.

"Or are you simply blaming me for your own inability to keep your wolves in line?"

Kaelen took a step closer, his body radiating heat, his presence overwhelming, and she lowered her gaze. "That is enough," he hissed, his face an unyielding mask of rejection. "You are under my protection. Your place is there, in the cottage. Where you are safe." The last word was almost a snarl, revealing the raw possessiveness beneath his Alpha command. "You will not defy me, Lucia."

Kaelen’s claim on her felt more suffocating than usual. Perhaps because it came too quickly after Ragnar’s offer of freedom.

Lucia merely stared at him, her chest tight. He wasn't interested in a discussion, or her feelings, or her growing fear of being nothing more than a dangerous asset. He was an Alpha, demanding obedience, asserting his will.

He looked at her not with love, but with the cold, hard logic of a leader trying to manage an unpredictable element.

I hate you when you’re like this.

She didn’t say it out loud, but he must have sensed something, some of the fury leaking out of his posture.

Ragnar shifted beside them, cleared his throat subtly, but neither Lucia nor Kaelen acknowledged him. The air was too charged, too volatile.

Lucia forced herself to nod, a slow, stiff movement of her head. "As you command, Alpha," she murmured, but her eyes, when they met his, were cold, distant, and utterly devoid of the warmth or understanding they once shared.

“Alpha,” Ragnar spoke, holding her back when she turned to leave. “Surely there is no harm in her being in the lodge and exploring the upper woods. I will stay and guard the path until she is ready to return.”

Lucia’s eyes prickled with tears as she paused, hardly daring to believe her ears.

It was the first time someone had ever spoken on her behalf.

Kaelen stared at Ragnar, his expression unreadable. “Very well,” he finally said, and Lucia stared at him in shock.

“Go,” he told her, and she rushed past him before he could change his mind, running up the path to what felt like freedom, the wind whipping her hair.

She needed to find a way to the city, with or without Kaelen. The question was, how? And then, a thought, like a sharp, cold wind, pierced through her anger: Even if I have to bleed for it. Ragnar’s words echoed in her mind. He was willing to challenge Kaelen for her. And perhaps, for a trip to the city too.

A dark, dangerous plan began to form, a desperate, rebellious flicker of hope. She would not remain ignorant. She would not remain caged.

Even if she had to bleed for it... She'd be the one holding the knife.