The Alpha's Villainess

Chapter Sixteen

I never fully understood what happened next. Everything came in flashes, recalling only snippets of the events that occurred.

I remembered the feeling of shifting, of being on all four paws as I ran towards the clearing. I remembered the men that fought. It was two against one, a battle soon to be lost despite the bodies littering the area around them. The sole man stood alone and had already taken substantial injuries. Yet he seemed determined to fight until his last breath.

Then... blood. I remembered blood, so much of it everywhere, the taste of flesh in my mouth as I joined in on an impossible battle. Why? Why was I doing this? But I didn’t stop. Their weapons flashed in the sunlight, shining against the silver blades and claws that fought back against me.

Then I remembered the silence. The eery sensation of everything becoming still around me, with an unimaginable pain that quickly followed behind it. The feeling of blood leaving my own body. Just like that time back in my kitchen. The night I lost my life. I could recall it so vividly.

And yet I invited it this time. I willingly put myself in this situation.

A choice which somehow filled me only with comfort, as if I’d done the right thing.

I’d done it for... gold.

Golden eyes. The most mesmerising colour I’d ever seen. They looked down at me as I laid on the ground. A colour I could lose myself in.

So much warmer than I felt. A burning that promised sanctuary from the chill that started to set inside my body.

I wanted it. To reach out and feel it for myself. To sigh with relief when it granted me respite from the pain.

But before I could move, it was then all snatched away from me.

...My vision went black.

.......

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you awake?”

My eyes snapped open as I heard a woman’s voice.

“Miss, can you hear me?”

“What...,” I tried to say, but quickly fell into a fit of coughs.

A glass of water was quickly brought to my lips, a hand helping me to sit upright. “Please don’t push yourself,” she said kindly.

I drank from the cup greedily, downing it in one go, and felt immediately refreshed. The thirst had been bad. The dryness in my throat had been burning, as if I hadn’t drunk anything in days.

When I was finished and handed her back the glass to refill, I took a moment to look at my surroundings.

I was in a hospital. Still not a modern one, but there was no mistaking it this time. Not just a random girl’s bedroom, but an actual sterile environment with medical equipment. The lady by my side appeared to be some kind of nurse.

Where the hell was I?

“Your injuries have healed nicely, but you were unconscious for several days,” she said, handing me another filled glass. “You were lucky to make it to us in time. The doctor said you were barely alive when you were brought in.”

I downed the second glass of water and cleared my throat. “Apologies, but... where exactly am I? I don’t remember what happened.”

And as I tried to think back on the last thing I recalled, the flashes then came rushing into my mind. Assaulting me all at once as the memories flickered.

Paws. Men. Blood. Blades. Pain.

I frowned and held a hand to my head in confusion, trying to piece it together. Only, none of it was making any sense. Had I fought in some kind of battle? But... why?

There was something else too. Something I was forgetting. A colour that was stuck in my mind, but I couldn’t quite remember what it was.

“The Aeredale Empire,” the nurse answered, breaking me from my thoughts.

I slowly processed what she’d told me, seeing if I was maybe missing something, but, truthfully, her answer didn’t seem very helpful. It was like answering with the state name instead of the town. I already assumed that I was in the Aeredale Empire since leaving it would have taken weeks on foot. Even though I did walk a long way, I knew I hadn’t gone that far.

“No, I mean like... what pack is this? What’s the name?”

Now it was her turn to look confused.

“Pack...? We don’t belong to any single pack here. This is the heart of the Aeredale Empire. We pledge loyalty only to the Alpha King here.”

“The... heart...?”

...Wait...

If they only take order from the King... didn’t that mean....

“The Capital,” she clarified. “You’re in Aeredale’s Capital.”

...Oh God.

I had to leave. Now. If Aurora found out I was here and thought I followed her, she was going to kill me. She’d promised to make me regret ever showing my face near her again. I really didn’t want to wait around and find out what exactly she had meant by that.

The best-case scenario was that she was too wrapped up in finding her new mate, Victor, to notice my arrival. The Capital had to be a big place, right? Who was to say that I was even anywhere near her. If I just snuck out now, maybe I could leave here before she was made aware.

“I need to go,” I told the nurse, quickly jumping out of the bed. “Thank you for your help, I appreciate it. Really. But unfortunately, I need to be leaving....” I scanned the room, looking for a pile of torn up fabric somewhere, but couldn’t see any. “Sorry... where are my clothes?”

She seemed startled by my sudden urgency and stood up to try and calm me down, but I kept moving around to search. “We threw them out. The clothes you came in with were destroyed and covered in blood. But we arranged for a dress to be provided. It’s in the drawers over there.”

She pointed to a wooden cabinet and I beelined for it. “Thank you.”

“But w-wait, miss, you can’t leave,” she insisted.

I ignored her and pulled out a blue dress and undergarments from the drawer, immediately starting to change into them. I would have felt weird getting dressed in front of a stranger normally, but I had much bigger problems to worry about.

“Miss, please, I’m serious. You can’t go.”

“I have to,” I answered as I was finishing up with flattening the skirt piece down. Thankfully, the dress was much simpler than the clothes Scarlett had in Easthaven, but I was still cursing the author and whatever obsession they had with overly complicated fantasy attire. Wearing the clothes here required learning an entirely new skill set just to figure it out. “I’m... needed elsewhere.”

Yes, I was needed anywhere else that wasn’t the Capital or Easthaven - if I valued my life.

However, as I moved towards the door, the girl then ran in front of it and barricaded me from leaving.

“No, you can’t go,” she repeated firmly. “I have strict orders to bring you to the audience hall upon you waking up. You have to come with me.”

“Orders from who?”

And her reply then made me freeze in place, realising just how much worse the situation really was.

“The Alpha King,” she answered.