Running From A Wolf

Chapter 14

Two men sat anxiously beside a girl lying on a hospital bed. She was dressed in a white robe and her hand was attached to a glucose drip.

The girl was fatally pale. Her thin fingers shook constantly while her skin dripped with sweat. Her cracked lips shivered with incomprehensible whispers. Her chest rose and fell as she panted heavily.

"What happened?" A loud bang came from the door. The two men jumped with shock.

A beautiful girl barged into the room, her wide blue eyes panicked. She was dressed in her pyjamas and her black hair was messily tied into a bun, like she had been sleeping before she ran to see them. Her terrified gaze stuck to the bed and she ran towards her unconscious best friend

"Wh-what happened to her?" Kristine's voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. Her clammy fingers almost touched the shivering body on the cot, but she reluctantly pulled her hand back.

"Kelsie has been like this since today morning." Frayer stood beside her and gently pulled her back. "She was completely fine, but she suddenly fainted. We don't know why."

Frayer was also spooked. While the troublemaker did seem a bit weak and cheeky, he never would have expected her to end up this way. His heart clenched with discomfort.

'Did I trigger her when I tricked her in the morning? Would she have been fine if she wasn't so scared that time?' Frayer's thoughts haunted him, but there wasn't much he could do about his guilt.

"Then why didn't you call me earlier!" Kristine glared at him, her tears staining her cheeks.

Frayer dipped his head to hide his shame. Internally, he blamed himself. He had just wanted to scare her into action. He hadn't expected her to have such a severe reaction. She had passed her physical examination before her application was approved. Just barely, but she did. So why did such an accident even occur?

"Tell me about her," the second man walked to Kristine. "Does she have a medical condition? Something that isn't listed in the files?"

Ryan Stodon tried to hide it, but his heart pounded fiercely. Every time he glanced at the innocent face on the bed, she seemed so vastly different from the fiery girl who argued with him. Such a difference was unheard of. The face was still covered with that ridiculously scary makeup, but it could not hide the obvious sufferings of her frail body.

"Coach Ryan," Kristine narrowed her eyes.

"Ryan Stodon," Ryan held out his hand.

"Kristine Fort. Nice to meet you. You're her Expert?" Kristine warily placed her palm in his.

"She is a cat shifter," Ryan cut to the main point. "As her Expert, I have to know more about her species, but the information we have on cat shifters is almost negligible."

"They are reclusive," Kristine agreed. "And endangered. Most feline shifters do not leave their community."

Ryan sighed. "I was hoping to have this conversation with her once the training started, but now we have no choice." He firmly held Kristine's gaze. "Is there something I should know?"

Kristine blinked. Ryan's black curls were messed up and his sharp eyes were slight haggard, yet he cut a very stunning figure. If they weren't in this situation, Kristine would have already stripped him naked in her mind, several times over.

She forced her thoughts to get back on track. "She does have frequent nightmares and insomnia. Then her body collapses for a while. These episodes make her almost sickly. She refuses to get it treated. But it has never been this serious for over a year now!"

"She gets such episodes?"

Kristine rubbed her arms to stop the goosebumps. "The last time she went through something of this level, it was during the first month of our friendship. She almost died back then. I only broke down her door because I thought she was drunk. If I hadn't gotten to her in time... " she shuddered.

Ryan's calm eyes turned colder. "She was like this ever since you met her? How long ago was that?"

"Seven or eight years ago? She had just moved into the city."

Ryan nodded slowly. "Is it related to her family?"

Kristine stiffened but didn't answer. Ryan just glanced at her suspiciously, then turned back to watch Kelsie.

This girl, what happened to her? Why is she in this state?

Before he could answer, a soft whimper sounded from the bed. Ryan, Frayer and Kristine froze for a moment, then rushed to Kelsie's side anxiously, looking out for any signs of movements or discomfort.

Unfortunately, except for vague mumblings and occasional whimpers of pain, Kelsie did not wake up.

•

In the administrative block, Alpha Aaron sat in his large office, overlooking the staff garden from his floor length windows. His dark brown eyes stared into the distance, towards the infirmary. His brow was furrowed, his lashes lowered in contemplation.

A knock sounded on his door before it was pushed open. His assistant, Tristan, stepped inside, shivering slightly at the unnatural chill in the room. Either the air conditioning system in the building was excellent at maintaining the internal temperature on such a hot day, or the dark blue, off-white and slate grey palette of the office worked too well at adding a layer of coolness into the large room.

Aaron casually turned around in his seat, his eyebrows raising at the panicked look on Tristan's face. His gaze narrowed down to notice the sealed file in Tristan's hand.

Tristan Rogers had been assigned to assist Aaron from the moment he had learnt to talk. They had spent their childhoods together, attended classes side by side, then aced their ways through college. There was no one Aaron trusted more than this nerdy looking man with wire-framed spectacles, which was why he had assigned him to gather all the information that was available about Kelsie Kiara.

It was indeed a rarity for the mighty Alpha Aaron Thorne to take any interest in a woman, especially if the woman was still underage. Even he felt slightly uncomfortable at the thought of Kelsie being just a few weeks away from her eighteenth birthday.

He should have walked away the moment he discovered her to be a feline shifter. Felines and lupines had a very long and disastrous history of being enemies. Yet, the pull he felt towards her was anything but ordinary.

Something about her called out to him, which shouldn't have been possible. Not between two shifters of different species.

Aaron blinked, pulled out of his thoughts when mm Tristan slammed the file on his desk, panting like he had just run a marathon. Tristan's blue eyes were wild with anticipation and terror, a surprising combination. Aaron frowned, waiting patiently for Tristan to calm down.

"Alpha, we just got word from the headquarters."

Now that caught Aaron's interest. "What is it?"

"The elders... They sent me a missive."

Aaron gritted his teeth, annoyed. "You know that I hate to be kept in suspense. What did they say?"

Tristan's fingers shook slightly as he pushed open the file's binder, revealing a long letter. "Well, a lot of unnecessary gossip, actually. But there was a significant change within the ancestral halls of your mansion."

"Change? Did mother decide to remodel the house again?"

"No," Tristan could barely contain his excitement, his eager grin almost making him appear like a child again. "The family crest. It fell!"

"The family crest... fell?"

Aaron tried to hide the disappointment in his eyes, but Tristan didn't miss the scathing glare his boss directed at him. He cleared his throat, flushing. Aaron sighed and turned back to the window, staring out desolately.

"Alpha, the Family Crest hasn't fallen in decades. Even when someone tries to pry it off, or when the walls shake during the pack battles, it stays strong on the wall, our ancestral power binding it firmly to the foundation of our lands."

Aaron glanced back, unimpressed. "And?"

"The only times when it does loosen enough to detach, or fall, are when the pack's command is born."

"The birth of the pack's command? Someone had a newborn in the pack?"

"No!" Tristan groaned, frustrated. "It means, that your other half is born! Your mate!"

Aaron snapped his neck back in disbelief. "My mate is born? She was born? My mate is a baby?!"

Aaron wanted to smash his head against the wall. Why was his luck so terrible? First, he was cursed by a seer during his early years to never have his wolf mate, then he watched his father get slaughtered right before his eyes, he was forced to give up on his dreams to take over as Alpha of his pack, and when his family finally arranged a potential match for him, he began to feel attracted towards his fiancee-to-be's best friend, who wasn't even eighteen yet.

And now, now that he had made up his mind to be patient before he set out to court her, his pack elders sent word that his mate was just born?!

"Alpha!" Tristan hurriedly stepped forward, trembling at the darkening expression on Aaron's face. "You've misunderstood!"

"For f**k's sake, Tristan," Aaron barked, "sometimes, you really get on my last f*****g nerves-"

"She's matured!" Tristan blurted out before Aaron could throw the file at him. "She's an adult. Her wolf as matured!"

Aaron paused. "So, you're telling me that my mate has probably just become an adult?"

"Yes, if what the elders say is true." Tristan dabbed a napkin at his forehead. "Shall I fing the names of all the she-wolves in our realm who have turned eighteen recently?"

"No," Aaron hesitated, his mind flashing with the image of a snarky little white kitten, who was just as adorable in her human form as she was in her feline form. "Not yet."

Tristan froze. "But Alpha, the sooner we find her, the sooner we break your curse-"

"I said, no," Aaron repeated coldly. "I will tell you when the time is right."

Tristan nodded reluctantly, but Aaron was lost in his thoughts again. He should have felt elated that the Moon Goddess had indeed blessed him with a mate after so many years of promised solitude, but his chest ached uncomfortably as he glanced at the distant infirmary building, his eyes pathetically eager for another glance of his little wounded kitten.