Claimed by the Alpha Who Raised Me

Chapter 4

Elowen's POV

The door opened before Kael could reply to my request and a nurse stood there, tray in hand with a loaded syringe.

He let go of my hand and stepped back.

“You’re in good hands now. We will talk later.”

“Can I ask for a favour?” I said hurriedly, just before he left.

He didn’t reply but his standing there said enough.

"Sable is alone in the cabin. Could you feed her?"

“She’ll be fed,” he replied in a flat tone and left.

Minutes after the nurse injected me, two men came in, both having similar eyes to Kael and I did not need to be told these were members of his family.

“Hello Elowen,” the taller of the two said, “I’m Stellan and this is Ronan, we’re Kael’s cousins.”

Ronan pulled up a chair and sat down, and the warmth that came off him was so different from Kael’s cold distance that I almost didn’t know what to do with it. This was the first time I’d met anyone from the Thornveil side other than Kael himself, and it was hard to believe they were even related.

“Don’t be nervous,” Ronan said, and his smile faded into a quieter kind of warmth. “Your mother was deeply respected among us.”

The sting hit my nose before I could brace for it. “You all knew my mother?”

“Of course. Back when we were pups running wild through the packhouse hallways, your mother was always the one covering for us when we got caught.” He leaned back with his arms crossed, his eyes warm with memory. “She had this way about her. Everyone else would scatter when the elders came looking, but your mother would stand right there with her chin up and talk her way out of it for all of us.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Later she married your father and moved to Moonhollow. We lost touch over the years, but none of us ever forgot her.”

He paused and studied my face with a gentleness that made my chest ache. I could tell he was seeing her in me.

“Don’t worry, Sere.”

Nobody had called me by my middle name in months and it made my heart race in a good kind of way.

“We’ll look after you now.”

I lowered my gaze and felt my lashes trembling with the effort of holding it together. Nobody had said anything that kind to me since Aldwin, and hearing it from a stranger who spoke about my mother like she still mattered to him was almost worse than hearing nothing at all, because it reminded me of how much I’d lost.

It took me a moment to find my voice and when I did, it came out barely louder than a whisper.

“Was my mother also close with him?”

“Him meaning Kael?” Ronan asked.

I nodded.

Ronan’s expression shifted, and for a second the easy charm dropped away, leaving behind a sincerity that told me he meant every word.

“Of all the Thornveil siblings, Kael and your mother were the closest. They were mischief and chaos. Inseparable. That’s probably why she chose to entrust you to him.”

He said it like it was supposed to be comforting, like that piece of information should make me feel safe and chosen and grateful.

But all I could think, sitting there in that clinic bed with the phone cooling in my palm and the rash still burning beneath my gown, was that Kael was the one my mother had trusted most in the world, and he still couldn’t be bothered to stay.

That evening, Kael came back to the clinic carrying a leather satchel over one shoulder and a covered bowl in his other hand.

He set the bowl on my bedside table and pulled the cloth off, and the smell that rose from it was light and warm, a simple vegetable and egg porridge that didn’t trigger any of the usual panic in my stomach.

“You made this?” I asked before I could stop myself.

He gave a bored expression, his tone flat as he replied, “if I ever bothered to cook, it wouldn’t be something so simple. Now eat and make sure you finish it.”

He pulled a chair to my bedside and sat down with his arms crossed, watching me eat the way someone watches a task being completed, with the kind of focused attention that made it clear I wasn’t putting the spoon down until the bowl was empty.

The porridge was good, even a little sweet, which surprised me.

But there was far too much of it for a stomach that had lived on thin gruel for two weeks.

I got halfway through before my body started to push back, and by three quarters, I was chewing each spoonful like it was a punishment.

“Have mercy,” I said with my cheeks full and my eyes watering. “I really can’t eat anymore.”

He looked at my flushed face for a long moment, and I could tell he was deciding whether to push it.

Then he tipped his chin toward the bedside table. “Put it down.”

I set the bowl aside and let out a breath so heavy with relief that a hiccup escaped right after it.

Flustered, I grabbed the nearest cup of water and gulped it down to try to stop the next one.

Kael reached over and took the cup from my hand, setting it back on the table without a word.

His fingers brushed mine in the process, and his amber eyes lingered on my flushed cheeks for a second longer than necessary before he looked away and handed me the satchel.

“What’s this?” I asked, my hands still by me, my eyes on the satchel.

He tossed it on my lap, “a change of clothes. Unless you prefer to sleep in the scrub.”

I hid back my smile at his thoughtfulness.

I grabbed the satchel and slipped into the washroom.

After my shower, I applied the healing salve Stellan had left for me and opened the satchel to see what he had brought me.

A pair of pajamas.

My brows narrowed slightly as I looked at the fabric inside which was far different from the cheap and rough fabric Maren bought me that had caused my rash.

It was soft and finely made, the kind I used to wear back home before everything fell apart.

When I held the shirt up to my face, it carried a faint clean scent, the kind only new clothes had.

I smiled again, looking at the door like I could see through it to see him, thinking to myself.

Maybe he wasn’t completely made of ice afterall.

He’d thought of everything, bringing me food and even replacing the clothes that had hurt me, and he’d done it without saying a single word about it.