Kneel, Alpha: She's Not Forgiving You Yet

Chapter 3:

WREN

"I'm not afraid of you."

Ash held my gaze, as if trying to decide whether I meant it or was simply saying what I thought he needed to hear.

"I've seen worse," I continued. "Prison has a way of changing your definition of terrifying."

Something in his expression eased.

I glanced at Kara. She was still asleep, the medicine was finally lowering her fever. Watching her chest rise and fall steadily loosened the knot that had been sitting in mine since she collapsed.

I stood and stretched my aching shoulders.

"Besides," I said, looking at him now, "you've saved my life twice now. I've decided your debt is cancelled."

His brow lifted slightly.

"You don't owe me for the medical supplies anymore," I said while he just stared at me in silence. "You can stay here until your memories come back. I won't ask you to leave."

The words surprised me almost as much as they surprised him.

"I know I told you to go once you recovered." I shrugged. "I've changed my mind."

He didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he looked around my tiny apartment before his eyes settled on me again. "Thank you."

Somehow, it felt more genuine than any grand speech could have.

A comfortable silence settled between us until he spoke again. "The black market..."

“What about it?” I asked.

“I think I’ve been there before.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“When we were there..." He rubbed a hand over his forehead. "I kept feeling like I'd walked those halls before. Like I went there looking for someone.”

“Do you remember who?” I asked curiously.

He shook his head. “No.”

I nodded slowly. "That's still progress. Don't force it. Memories don't always come back all at once."

He accepted that with a small nod.

After another pause, he asked, "Why do they call you the Plague Doctor?"

The question landed in a way I never expected.

I stared at the floor. For years, that name had followed me everywhere. It had stolen my career, my marriage, my home, and of all things, my life.

Sensing my silence, he figured I didn’t want to talk about it.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he said eventually. “I won’t force you. Just know that I don’t believe any of that. You saved my life, that’s enough for me to know you’re not what they say you are.”

Those words did something strange to my chest. He didn't even know much about me, yet somehow he had chosen to trust me.

I let out a soft breath. "That was... unexpectedly kind."

His shirt was stained with fresh blood again.

I sighed. “Why don’t we get those wounds treated?”

He obeyed without arguing.

I changed his bandages in silence, trying very hard to ignore how naturally he trusted me. It had been a long time since anyone had.

Three days later, Kara was back on her feet. She insisted she was perfectly healthy despite still coughing every few minutes.

"I'm fine," she grumbled, sweeping the workshop below. "You're fussing."

Meanwhile, Ash's wounds closed little by little, though his memories stubbornly refused to return. Mine, unfortunately, never stopped returning.

Briggs' offer refused to leave my mind. Every time I told myself it was too dangerous, I remembered I no longer had a job.

The motel was gone, Dale was dead, and nobody wanted to hire an ex-convict carrying the title of Plague Doctor. Nobody except Briggs.

On the fourth morning, I made my decision.

"I'm going to the market."

Ash looked up from the chair. “You’re joking, right?”

"I don't usually joke before breakfast."

“You saw what happened the last time,” he half yelled. “Those wolves would’ve ripped you apart if I hadn’t shown up. What makes you think they’ll suddenly show you mercy when you walk back in there?”

I stared at him for a moment.

What exactly did he expect me to do? Sit around all day and wait for a miracle to fall from the sky? There was no other way to survive except taking this offer.

“I don’t have a choice, Ash,” I finally said. “Do you think keeping you alive has been free?”

*

The second visit to the black market felt different. Word had spread about Briggs' shoulder... and about the nameless man who'd put half the warehouse on the floor.

By the end of my first shift, I had treated six patients. When I finally stepped outside to wash my hands, I heard laughter behind me.

"The Plague Doctor's boy toy is waiting."

Another voice snorted. "Nah. That's her trophy husband."

I nearly choked on air.

****

ASH

The market became part of our routine. Wren treated patients while I carried supplies.

The people started acting weird. They would usually stop to look at me. Some kept giving me strange names.

'The Plague Doctor's bodyguard', 'Her kept man', 'Her boy toy', 'Her trophy husband'.

I should have hated every one of them. Instead, I found myself wondering what a husband actually did.

By the time we walked home, one question had refused to leave my head.

"Wren?"

"Mm?"

"They keep calling me your trophy husband."

She hummed absentmindedly while unlocking the apartment.

"Does that mean I'm your lover?"

She froze. Very slowly, she turned to look at me. For one long second, she simply stared. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Ash..." She walked inside and closed the door. "You've lost your memories. So I need to make something very clear before your imagination starts inventing nonsense."

She said we weren't lovers, and that getting attached to her was simply emotional dependency and not romance. And that we were nothing more than just a family, siblings specifically.

Every instinct I possessed disagreed, family wasn't supposed to feel like this.

Every time she smiled, something squeezed inside my chest. I found myself wanting to follow her wherever she goes. And when someone looked at her too long, I wanted them to stop.

Despite everything, one word wouldn't stop echoing my head.

MATE.