Chapter 57 CALM ACCEPTANCE
SEBASTIAN’S POV
Pain.
That’s the first thing I feel when I open my eyes.
It is a sharp, disorienting ache starting from behind my eyes like I’ve been roughly woken from a deep sleep and was faced with bright sunlight.
My head is throbbing and I can't even form a coherent thought.
I'm breathing hard in gasps as I squint and try to will the pain away.
The second thing I feel–
Is weight.
Heavy and overwhelming warm weight.
I blink rapidly with my vision swimming, and realize that it's not a trick of the light or my eyes playing tricks with me but Alpha Ragnar is actually on top of me.
My heart slams violently against my ribs.
“R–Ragnar?” I choke out.
His hands are gripping my wrists and pinning them above my head.
His face is mere inches away from mine with his eyes blazing with strong emotions.
This time, it's not with desire, it's anger.
It's shock.
And with something close to horror.
He freezes the instant I speak.
“Sebastian?” His voice cracks in confusion.
Panic floods me from my head.
What is going on here?
What has happened to cause him to have this reaction? And to look at me in this way?
I try to pull back from his grip, my confusion spiraling wildly into crazy theories.
“What–what’s happening? Why are you–?”
He releases me immediately, even stumbling back like he’s been burned by me.
I curl in on myself, as my heart starts, my breathing goes shallow as I try to understand why my head feels all fuzzy and wrong.
Like a hollow barrel with only air blowing inside it.
Also, I can't for the life of me figure out why my body aches like I’ve been fighting for hours after running a marathon.
I can’t remember anything.
I try to send a mental probe of enquiry to Alisander, trying to see what happened but he blocks the link immediately.
“You were yelling,” Ragnar says hoarsely. “You–”
I shake my head, dizziness still washing over me. “I don’t remember yelling Alpha Ragnar.”
My chest tightens painfully.
The room feels wrong.
It feels all charged up and hyper.
Like something violent just passed through here and left its shadow behind.
It feels like we were in an argument and it looks like it was about to turn violent.
I sit up slowly, clutching the blanket around myself and feeling a bit better as the fabric feels warm on my skin. “Did I… do something wrong Alpha Ragnar?”
He exhales as his face twists with guilt flashing across it so fast.
“No,” he says almost immediately. He catches himself quickly before continuing. “No.”
Silence stretches between us thick and heavy as I contemplate how I should go about my next question.
What were we just arguing about?
Which topic was he so passionate about that would result in him pinning me to the bed?
“Alisander? Damnit Alisander what just happened?!” I mentally call out in my head to my now silent wolf who's pretending to be dead.
My skin prickles with a hint of fear.
I feel exposed.
I feel small and confused.
Like I’ve woken up in the middle of a desert, stranded without knowing how I got there.
“Why do I feel like I missed something important?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer my question
“Ragnar?” My voice wavers.
For the first time in my Omega life, I refer to him as Ragnar instead of Alpha Ragnar out of my own impulse.
He drags a hand through his hair as he starts walking around the room, even pacing around.
From the tense knots in his shoulders, I can imagine the level of agitation rolling off of him in waves. “You need to rest.”
That makes my fear spike. “Why?”
What was he not talking or telling me about?
He stops, turns to me and faces me fully.
He really looks at me this time.
And something in his eyes softens as he takes in my slightly hunched and scared demeanor.
His eyes look at me protectively with something resembling guilt twisting his appearance.
“Earlier on, I was shocked by news of a lot of Alphas coming to my pack and long story short, they ambushed me with a proposal that I could not refuse.”
He sighed before sitting back on the bed. “Sebastian, there’s a challenge coming,” he says quietly.
My stomach drops even though I don't know why.
I mean this doesn't sound like it'll concern an Omega from the pack like me so what was he antsy and looking guilty?
“What kind of challenge?”
One look at his face tells me everything I need to know, and at the same time, tells me nothing.
The room feels colder to me.
I pull my knees to my chest with dread curling deep inside me as Ragnar starts slowly narrating the past few hours and what they'll mean to me very soon.
“I'm really sorry Sebastian, I tried to stop it.” He apologized after he was through with the story.
But I was still curious.
This was not enough reason to let that coward all but vanish into my mind and refuse to speak to me.
What was he hiding?
I hope he doesn't think that he's free from my queries just because he did all of ‘that’... as like a distraction just so I wouldn't be conscious to question his motives and his change of mind all of a sudden.
“How about I stop the challenge?”
Hmm? I raise my head in surprise at his question.
Why would he do that?
“I could claim something happening to you and just cancel it for you at least.”
“No one is dumb in this pack Alpha Ragnar, much less in rival packs trying to bring you down.”
“And we're wolves,” I continue. “We rarely ever get sick so there's no excuse to get out of this.”
And with my heat already passed, I now have no valid reason to not participate in the challenge.
Somewhere deep in my mind, far away that my mental probe can't reach–
Alisander goes silent too.