Revenge of the Alpha Princess

Not The First Runaway

**Mia's POV**

There's something transcendent in a way you don't expect about someone being kind to you when the world hasn't been lately. Something breathtaking in a way that doesn't let you breathe. Whatever pain I had been holding back and pushing through to get as far away as possible, it all came crashing down the moment a stranger showed me kindness. It felt like my body couldn't handle it, couldn't put it anywhere among the pain of everything that I was already too full of.

It was about four minutes before three consecutive knocks sounded on the old wooden door, and I could hear the footsteps leave pretty quickly after. I still waited a moment before I opened the door and brought the cart in, quickly locking the door and deadbolting it behind me.

I managed to get through a shower where I sat for most of it, letting the boiling water wash away the grime for a good couple minutes before I even touched the little bottles of body wash, shampoo, or conditioner. They smelled faintly like artificial lemon and it took almost the entire box she had given me just to get the woods off my skin, but by the end of it I almost looked like a person again.

I managed to comb through my hair with the little brush she'd left, even if the conditioner didn't help with the thick knots I'd accumulated the last three days. Looking at my face in the mirror, the bags under my eyes were dark, even against the deep bruise around my left eye. My skin was dull, almost sallow from days of not bathing or eating. Red splotches covered my cheeks from crying, and I just looked... Awful.

There was nothing royal about the state of me. Even with that being the point now, it was hard to look at myself, with my body bruised and scratched, even if it was already starting to heal and I'd had the blood finally washed off. I had never looked like this, not even when I'd been training to fight and protect my people. Maybe it was the emotional toll of it, something no one had prepared me for. Maybe it was just the lack of sleep.

Either way, truth was I looked like s**t. No way around it. I looked like I felt, and my exhaustion was only making it worse. At the very least, however, I had a hot shower, I wasn't covered in several days worth of grime. The bed covers were cheap and scratchy, but the moment they folded over me I was enveloped in warmth.

I don't think I had ever been so grateful for sleep.

—

By the time I woke up again, the moon was high in the sky. The sound of knocking on the door sent my heart into a frenzy, beating against my chest in panic. "Sugar, after the state of you yesterday I really feel I need to check on you. Are you in there?" The voice was vaguely familiar as the woman who had been behind the desk, but I still slid the door open with the latch still on, just in case.

The relief in her eyes was instant, but there was a hint of pity as she noticed the lock stopping me from opening the door any further. "I am so sorry to bother you, hon, but really... Well, I thought you might've died in there. You sure looked worse for wear when you came in last night, and I know you ain't left all day neither, just like I told you." The thick drawl of her voice is unfamiliar to my ears. I reached forward to see if I could feel a wolf in her now with some sleep, just in case, and sensed nothing but mortality.

My smile was small, but I offered it to her as I took the latch off the door. "I was just tired," I excused myself, shrugging. I was still in Landon's clothes, and by the way her eyes flickered to my shoulder, I could tell the jacket had fallen loose and exposed the stains. But there was no fear in her eyes, no judgment, no distrust. There was a deep sadness instead, something I couldn't place hidden behind the green pools of her eyes.

Her red hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and her face showed clear signs of age right around her eyes. "Well, this is for you," she stepped away from the door, turning to pick up a box I hadn't seen against the wall. She must have sensed my wariness, because she smiled at me. "You look hungry, kid, and you can't go around wearing just those clothes in this town." My stomach growled loudly as if in response, and Ana's smile curved up further on the right side. "Can I come in?"

It was the hesitation that gave me away, the way I froze in response to a simple question. Her eyes grew sad for a moment, before she nodded again. "Ya know, I've run this hotel for damn near twenty years. You're not the first runaway I've seen, or the first one covered in blood. I'm sad to say it, but I know the look in your eyes. I met my husband the same way you met me, and he offered me the same deal I offered you last night."

The words didn't make sense in my head, but Anais took my silence as a reason to push forward. "His name was Eric, and I got all these from him." A lift of her shirt revealed scars on her abdomen, stab wounds healed over with time. My mouth dropped open involuntarily and she nodded. "Yeah, honey, we all got stories. Thing is, someone was kind to me once. Buy a night, get a night half off. Next night, when I hadn't left, he brought me some food, some clothes. Sometimes, all it takes is a helpin' hand."

I met her eyes, and the sad look in them almost consumed me. I understood what she was trying to do, what she was saying, but my story was not hers. It wasn't the one she presumed to know, to relate to. She once again took my hesitation as confirmation, and set the box down in front of me. "You don't have to invite me in, honey, but you really should eat somethin'."

She turned to go, even got a few steps away, before I stopped her. She helped me that night, to bandage all the cuts and scrapes I still had, ones Niylah was too exhausted to heal anymore. She put Tupperware upon Tupperware container in the mini fridge, all the home cooked meals I still didn't feel I deserved. She helped me to roll the legs of the pants up to fit my shorter stature. She cared.

All the while, all I could think was the trouble I was putting her in, the danger I was bringing to her. Even Niylah whimpered at the thought, knowing they would still be after me. I had crossed several state lines, but it wouldn't be enough.

As long as I was alive, I would always be a threat.