Chapter 43 Eat
~Lyra's POV~
A heavy and unsettling smell forced its way into my senses and dragged me back toward consciousness. My eyelids fluttered, and when I finally managed to open them, I found Kaitlyn staring at me with an expression that held pure worry.
The healer Taren had introduced to me looked tense, almost as if she expected me to vanish into thin air. Her eyes searched my face with a desperate intensity that made me wonder what exactly she was afraid of finding.
“Lyra, can you hear me?” Her voice echoed in my ears, soft but anxious.
“Mm…” I let out a weak moan. My throat felt dry and unused, and I struggled to pull my voice out of whatever darkness I had just crawled from. “What… why are you here? What is going on?” I asked, blinking several times because my mind felt foggy and empty. I could not remember anything at first, and the uncertainty clawed at me.
“You fainted,” she replied, and I immediately caught the tiny tremble of relief in her voice. “How do you feel now?”
“Weak,” I whispered. The word barely captured the heaviness in my limbs or the sluggishness in my thoughts. My entire body felt like soaked cloth, too heavy to lift properly. A dull and persistent tension coiled inside my skull, refusing to let go. “I have a slight headache too.”
“That is expected. You need to eat something to regain your strength,” she said. She reached toward a plate resting on a trolley beside her.
The moment I saw the trolley, everything that had happened before I fainted came rushing back into my head like a violent wave. The memories slammed into me so hard that I frowned instinctively.
“No. I will not accept any food unless Taren is the one serving it.” My voice was firmer this time. She had barely lifted the plate before I shut it down.
“Taren?” she repeated, baffled. “Why Taren?”
“Because he is the only person I trust with what I eat. Tell your alpha to either release him or allow me to join my ancestors in peace.” I spoke without fear and without hesitation. Punishment or no punishment, I was not going to swallow anything unless it came from the one person I trusted.
“Thank you, Kaitlyn.” A deep voice sounded from the far side of the room.
My heart dropped for a moment before confusion took over. I turned slowly toward the voice and saw him pushing himself away from the wall. Kael began approaching the bed with a steady and controlled stride.
“I will take it from here. You can return to what you were doing earlier,” he told her.
“Yes, alpha.” Kaitlyn bowed, placed the plate back on the trolley, and left the room quickly. The door reopened a moment later and I caught a glimpse of Elder Rowan stepping outside as well before the door shut again.
“Hello, sugar.” Kael’s voice slid across the room and wrapped around me, and my eyes widened. Shock gripped me, because I had no idea why he had called me that. I wondered if he had somehow gotten drunk or lost his mind in the short time I had been unconscious.
“What was that?” I asked before I could even think to hold the words back.
He smirked, slow and deliberate, as if he enjoyed watching me come undone. “I never got the opportunity to tell you how wonderful your lips tasted.”
My breath stopped. For a second I genuinely wondered if I had woken up inside a hallucination. Why was he smiling so casually while saying something like that?
“I wished I could kiss you forever.”
I stared at him. My heart thudded loudly, but it was not from flattery. It was from incredulity.
“If you are saying stuff like that just to make me eat, then I'm sorry but it will not work. You can't force me to eat if I do not want to.”
My stomach had been complaining loudly, screaming for food like it had been abandoned for years, but my stubbornness stood like a wall. I would not touch a single grain until Taren was released.
“I could make you eat whether you want to or not, but that is not why I am here. I meant every word I said about wanting to kiss you forever. However, I am here to make a deal with you” he said, his smirk fading.
My suspicion rose. “Where is Taren? Have you killed him like you said?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.
“He is still in the dungeon,” he replied simply.
“Then I am not making any deal with you until you let him go,” I insisted. I turned my face slightly away from him as if even looking at him could break my resolve.
“He will face trial tomorrow and if he is found guilty he will be beheaded,” Kael said, and my head whipped back toward him instantly. His expression did not shift. If anything, his calmness made it worse. “I caught him myself and I still have the evidence of the crime. You know what the outcome will be. You know how this will end.”
My heart plummeted straight into despair. My eyes burned and tears threatened to spill.
“Why?” I whispered. “He has not done anything wrong. Why do you want to kill someone who only tried to help his pack survive the void wolf?”
“Shhh.” His finger pressed gently against my lips. The touch was minimal, almost like a breath, but it still sent a shiver spreading across my skin. He removed his hand moments later. “As much as I could condemn him, I am also the only one who can free him. But I will only do that if you cooperate with me.”
“What do you want?” I asked without a moment of hesitation. I would do anything for Taren if it meant saving his life.
A faint frown tugged at Kael’s brows before he smoothed it away.
“Simple. Eat.”
My confusion grew. “That is all?” I asked in disbelief. It sounded too easy, too convenient. All I needed to do was eat and Taren would be released?
“That and be happy,” he added.
That stunned me even more.
“Be happy? I cannot fake happiness,” I told him because he clearly did not understand how emotions worked for me.
“Aren’t you happy that I want to release him?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Good. Hold on to that happiness for a while. Do it so you don't collapse again.”
His voice held a low undertone of anger that he was clearly trying to contain, and that made my confusion deepen.
“I do not understand. What are you talking about?”
“You will not understand,” he said. He reached again, picked up the plate, scooped a spoonful of food, and brought it toward my mouth. “Open your mouth.”
“I can eat by myself,” I said, turning my head slightly away from the spoon.