Claimed by the Alpha Who Raised Me

Chapter 6: Will You Abandon Me Too?

Elowen's POV

That evening Kael came back to the healer's ward 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, and a flicker of guilt crept through me for every bitter thought I'd had about him that afternoon.

"Finish it," he said flatly, and the guilt evaporated.

He pulled a chair to my bedside and sat down with his arms crossed and watched me eat the way someone might watch a task being completed, not with warmth but 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. It was 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. The sound was so loud in the quiet room that I wanted to disappear, and 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 and set it back on the table without a word. His fingers brushed mine in the process and his eyes lingered on my flushed cheeks for a second longer than necessary before he looked away.

I grabbed the satchel he'd brought and slipped into the washroom before my face could get any redder.

When I fled Moonhollow I'd barely brought anything with me, which was why the clothes Maren had bought were all I'd had, and those rough fabrics were what had caused the rash that was still burning across my chest and shoulders.

After my shower I applied the healing salve Stellan had left for me and then opened the satchel to look for my pajamas.

I froze. These weren't the pajamas I'd asked for.

The fabric 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, like it had been freshly washed and folded with care. He'd thought of everything, even down to replacing the clothes that had hurt me, and he'd done it without saying a single word about it.

I pressed the fabric against my cheek and stood there in the steam of the washroom for longer than I should have.

When I came out Kael was gone from my room, but I could hear his voice through the door. He was in the corridor with Stellan, and even though they were speaking low enough to be private I caught enough to understand.

"She saw it happen," Stellan said. "Her parents dying right in front of her. The shock alone should have broken her. The fact that she's still functioning at all says more about her strength than anything else."

There was a pause and I heard the faint scratch of Stellan flipping through pages.

"The meat aversion, the fear of darkness, the insomnia, those are all normal responses to what she went through. She's cooperative and she's got a gentle nature. If you're patient with her she could recover in a year or so." Another pause. "The rash is healing well with the salve. Keep applying it and it won't scar."

"Thanks," Kael said, and I heard him stand.

I scrambled back to the bed and pulled the blanket over my head because I'd thought he'd left and I didn't want him to know I'd been listening at the door.

Footsteps came into the room and the door closed behind them, and then a chair scraped against the floor and everything went quiet.

Five minutes passed, then ten, and he didn't move and he didn't speak.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I pulled the blanket down just enough to peek over the edge with one eye, and there he was, sitting in the chair beside my bed with a thick stack of documents spread across his lap, signing them one after another with a steady focus that shut out everything else in the room.

He looked different when he worked, less sharp and more settled, like the cold edges he carried around all day finally had permission to soften. The lamplight caught the angles of his face and the scars on his hands moved with each stroke of the pen and I found myself staring again without meaning to.

He must have felt it because he turned his head just enough to meet my eye over the edge of the blanket. "Afraid I'll run off?"

I ducked back under the covers and felt my face burn, but after a few seconds I peeked out again because I couldn't help it. "Will you abandon me too?"

Kael was quiet for a beat. "What use are you?"

It wasn't cruel the way he said it, more like a genuine question from a man who measured everything in terms of function, so I sat up a little straighter and tried to match his tone.

"I can be useful. Don't underestimate me."

He turned his chair to face me and I caught the faintest trace of interest in those amber eyes, like I'd said the one thing he hadn't expected. "Oh?"

I thought about it seriously because this felt like a test I couldn't afford to fail. "I can cook for you."

His eyebrow went up. "Can you? Don't burn the kitchen down."

"Then…" I hesitated, pulling the blanket up to my chin while I worked up the nerve. "I'll take care of you when you're old."

It was hard to tell if his mouth moved or not, but his tone stayed dry even as the edges of it softened just barely. "If you don't sleep soon, we'll see which one of us ends up taking care of the other."

I lay back down and pulled the blanket to my nose and watched him through the gap above the fabric. He went back to his documents and the steady scratch of his pen against the parchment filled the room with a rhythm that was quiet and constant and strangely safe.

I don't know when my eyes closed. I just know that the sound of his pen was the last thing I heard, and for the first time in weeks I didn't dream about blood.