Chapter 27 How dare you touch her!

Chapter 27 How dare you touch her!
Tyler’s pov
I despised losing more so than I despised being wrong about anything. Yet there I was, calmly accepting losing to Elsie and being wrong about her.
Whatever rage I’d felt before had dissipated into the pool of blood left behind when I ….
She was strong-willed, even if I’d spent more time doing my best to ignore that very fact. Even as she lay on the bed, eyes shut, she still looked every bit a fighter.
Why had I ever thought beating it out of her was the way? All it did was affirm what I had quietly known all along.
“We never stood a chance from the very beginning,” Topher spoke as if reading my thoughts. “We should have never fought the bond.”
I swallowed down the uncomfortable feeling poking my chest along with the pain clawing at the arm I’d used to strike her. I wanted to stop looking at her but I couldn’t bring myself to. I was terrified I’d look away only to look back up to find another pool of blood beneath her.
My wolf bristled aggressively at the thought.
“Hard to believe she got the best of three Alphas lying there like that,” Tristan remarked playfully but it sounded dry and humorless.
His eyes held the same desperate intensity as Tophers. If I looked into a mirror, I was sure I’d find the same desperation in mine too.
“It was ridiculous to push our mate away in the first place, weak or not,” said Topher softly. He appeared conflicted as though he was finally coming to terms with something he had denied himself for too long.
We were all seemingly going through the same crushing feeling.
“What now?” I muttered under my breath. “A couple of Alphas lost to a small omega slave who had proved she could handle herself.”
“Don’t call her any of that!” Topher bit back defensively with a glare.
I deserved that.
“For now, we let her rest,” Tristan commanded. He reached to push a strand of hair off her delicate face.
I watched quietly as he tucked her in bed and moved to sit on the couch beside her.
“I’ll stay,” Topher declared openly. He took a seat at the other edge of the king-sized bed. His eyes wore an unfamiliar gentle gaze, as if she were his whole world.
I searched for the same anger I had felt before, but it didn’t come. The betrayal of my brothers becoming powerless to a girl didn't hold so much sting anymore.
Why? I understood them. She could have died and somehow that little thing alone was what it took for me to acknowledge I had been pushing too much against something inevitable.
I felt out of place with myself so I left the room despite my wolf desperately begging I lingered longer to watch her sleep.
Will she ever forgive me? I doubted that. I almost killed her. Best she woke up with my brothers and not the explosive alpha that hit her instead of holding her.
“Your anger will be your greatest fuel,” My mother had always said to me. But all I had ever accomplished with it was the ashes of everything that mattered to me.
Mother might have been wrong. I sighed deeply.
My room felt cold upon entry. The emptiness in my chest became more apparent to me in the face of my loneliness.
Sleep, no matter how much I tried to escape into it, wouldn’t let me forget. Every time I closed my eyes, all that played back to me was Elsei lying lifeless in a pool of her own blood and my arms coated in deep red.
As an Alpha used to violence, it was new to me to fear the sight of blood. Elsie’s blood was the only one I never wanted to see again.
Eventually, I did sleep because I woke up to the sound of a lovely serene laugh ringing from Tristan’s bedroom.
Elsie. She was awake.
My body burned with the heat to feel her. My feet pulled me closer to the sound of her voice before my brain could conjure what to say to her.
But when I stepped into the room, I was welcomed by a peculiar sight. Heat crawled up my insides and I exploded. I was about to bolt through but I paused, fearing another incident.
“Who are you and how dare you touch her?” The receptor of my rage this time was a curly-haired boy who was just touching Elsie’s head as she sat awfully close to him.
He jolted up from the seat placed by the bed with a flustered face. The bandages in his hand dropped on Elsie’s lap.
“A-Alpha Tyler,” he stammered as he flusteredly rushed to pick up the bandage from her thighs.
No way in hell. “One more finger on her and you die!” I growled, barking at the idiot who didn’t know his place.
It was taking everything out of me not to run a fist through his torso leaving his insides pooling on Tristan’s beat carpets.
“Can you calm down or do you plan to send him to the hospital too?” Elsie scoffed with a pointed look.
I swallowed, balling my fists to hold down my irritation. “What is he doing in an Alpha’s room?” I gritted out.
“He’s changing my bandages on decree," she simply replied, not glancing once at me.
My wolf whined as my insides curled with discomfort. I wanted her to look at me even if just once.
“You want me to believe Tristan would leave you alone with another man?” I bit back before I could stop myself.
It was hard getting used to her disrespectful attitude and I was already doing so much to hold myself back. I was still an Alpha. I had my pride to uphold in front of the pack albeit it meant nothing to her.
The boy in question stood still holding his breath like he hoped it could make him disappear. Good. Very good.
“Everyone in the pack knows Gerald isn’t particularly attracted to my kind,” She laughed, snorting so loudly. As unrefined the sound was, it strangely pleased my ears. It meant she was okay enough to make jokes.
“Your kind?” I tried not to seem confused. The entire conversation was growing very aggravating.
“Women S-Sir,” The boy managed to let out.
I tilted my head in silence. He was gay. Well, that certainly enlightened things. Still.
“I don’t care whatever way you bend, you’re not touching my m—“
“Guest,” Tristan interrupted, strolling casually with a bowl of what appeared to be soup. He strode to Elsie who worked her fingers around the bandages wrapped around her head.
“Leave,” Topher ordered coldly.
The boy wasted no time scrambling away. Tristan placed the soup beside her on the bed before striding to stand beside Topher and me.
A numbing tense silence followed as we all watched Elsie eat her soup.
“We lost,” Tristan stated.
Elsie finally looked up at us with her captivating brown eyes. “Oh.
guess that answers that. I didn’t dream of the kiss.”