Under the Devil's Claws

Chapter 6

LAYLA:

Slowly, my eyes drift open. And the first thing I am met with is a bare white ceiling up above me. I find myself flickering my eyes repeatedly before attempting to sit up from where I am possibly lying. One thing I know is that this is not my room and I just might not have an idea where this is.

A groan escapes my lips while sitting up. It was a result of an excruciating pain that just shoot through my back. But still, I manage to get my body up, fighting through the pain in the best possible way.

First, I look around as I try to make sense of the environment. But I am first met with a pair of eager eyes looking directly at me. I could sense the desperation in those eyes, and when I look at the face of the owner, I realize how unfamiliar the owner is.

“Who are you?” the words escape my lips before I could even caution myself. It was the right thing for me to ask because of how strange it was that I was in the presence of someone I have no idea about.

“I’m Derek,” the stranger says, looking really calm as he continues staring at me. I notice for sure how non-threatening he is which is why I haven’t made a move to get out of here yet.

“Do I know you?”

“I guess not,”

I try not to give him a once-over to avoid the clue that I might want to be checking him out. Men think differently most times.

“Then what am I doing here?”

He has been sitting all along and so stands up from his seat. “I saved you,” he responds before he starts to walk away from where he is positioned. I watch him make his way to the doorway which was a little distance away from here. Definitely the entryway of the room.

But I am not done with my questions so I throw him another, “From what?”

“From getting killed...” The tone he uses in responding sounds like he is annoyed with me and I sure was expecting him to be due to how bugging my questions are. Except I am not to blame because anyone in my shoes would do the same when he finds himself inside a room with a stranger that he has no idea about.

He gets to the door and then handles the knob. After that, he starts to speak to someone who is outside the room but I cannot hear any word he says. I guess he’s whispering as their kind never attempts to speak too loud before passing across a message.

I cannot even wait to think about what is going to happen next because what I do know is that I am getting myself out of here this instant. So first thing first, I need to get off this comfy bed.

Once I take the sheet off me, I slowly shift my body to the side but I can still feel the pain shooting through my back. When I finally get to the edge of the bed, I make a move to put a leg down because I realized how impossible it would be to get down the right way.

“Hmph,” I whimper when it proved difficult to even get the leg down. I guess I must have attracted the stranger because his voice reaches me soon after I do so.

“Hold on for a while. You won’t get down that way,” was what he told me.

I look from my legs to him and then back to my legs, already trying to decide in my mind what I need to do next. “Why wouldn’t I?”

His brows are raised in my direction as if I just asked the most ridiculous question of all time. “You do know you are injured, right?”

“I know,” I affirm.

“So does that answer your question?”

It sure does but I choose not to tell him anything just yet. To be honest, I’m still surprised that I have not made a move to get away from here because knowing me and my paranoia, I shouldn’t even be near a stranger at all.

“Who were those that attacked you?” he suddenly asks me.

“Why do you want to know?”

“To know if it was worth saving you,”

Annoyance flashes through my expression, and all of a sudden, I am irritated being around here. “When do I get to leave?” I ask, and as if on cue, a knock is heard on the door.

I stare at him but he has his gaze on the door. “There goes your cue to leave,” he says and then adds, “Come in.” this time to whoever it is outside the room.

Although I am a bit confused about what he means after he mentioned that, I still have to look in the direction of the doorway. The door opens immediately after my gaze lands on it and that is when a face pops into the room.

“Caleb?” I say, realizing it is my best friend who just came into the room. I am instantly relieved to see a familiar face.

Caleb starts to make his way to me and I try to force a smile in his direction. Although I notice that he looks to be in pain. The scratches on his right arm are enough to tell me that he has gone through a lot.

Soon as Caleb gets to the bedside, he looks in the direction of the man in the room with us and says, “Thank you,”

I do not even attempt to look at the man to see how he would react to Caleb’s regard. Because the next thing is that I am asking Caleb a question that would see to me getting out of here.

“Do I get to leave now, Caleb?” was what I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s why I'm here,” and he reaches to grab my hand which he puts across his shoulder while positioning himself by my side. With his strength, he gets me off the bed which came with less pain. But it didn’t stop me from whimpering.

“Before you two leave, I need to know what happened out there. Who were those wolves that came after you? Because I know for sure that they are not members of this pack,” the man named Derek questions both Caleb and me soon after we make the first step in leaving the room.

“Yes, they are not,” Caleb quickly says. “There is a history between us and them which I would like to go into details about but can’t now. If you would permit me to first get her back to our quarters, then I will surely get back here to do that,”

“What I would first like to know is why a human is on pack territory? How did she even get here in the first place?”

“Excuse me?” I say out loud, preparing to lash out at him. But Caleb is not ready to let me say my mind to the man who thinks he can just run his mouth at me the way he wants.

“Stop, Layla,” Caleb cautions me. I could notice from the way he did speak that there was a huge reason for him to stop me before I started to say my mind. I would have to find that out later because I cannot stand being in here for more than a minute.

“Let’s just go,” I tell Caleb while supposedly glaring at the man who remained neutral as he kept staring at me.

The next second and I am being pulled by the waist out of the room. And it wasn’t until I was finally out of the room did I stop fuming. I cannot recall the last time I felt that annoyed at someone.

I cannot bring myself to say anything to Caleb yet because of how infuriated I am. More infuriated that he had to stop me from saying a piece of myself to the man who oozed nothing but arrogance.

The question might be why I was easily triggered that he questioned my being here despite being unrelated to their kind. It was just the way the stranger had put out the words. Felt more like he was using the privilege of supposedly saving me to ridicule me at the same time. And I hated being in that kind of situation.

“You shouldn’t have stopped me from speaking my mind to him,” I eventually say and it results in a sigh from Caleb.

“I did the right thing. You would have gone overboard by doing such without knowing who he truly is,”

“Not like I care about his identity,” I say with a scoff. But then I ponder on his words for a little while and after making a bit of sense out of it, not in the wrong way, I proceed to ask, “Who is he?”

“He’s Derek,”

“I know. Like, who really is he?”

“He’s the son of the alpha,”