Chapter 40 THE HARD WAY

Chapter 40 THE HARD WAY
CHAPTER 40. THE HARD WAY

IRIS'S POV

Kaelen doesn’t look even remotely intimidated by the sudden intrusion. He slowly turns his head to face the girl standing in the threshold, his broad shoulders shifting underneath his jacket. If anything, his expression hardens into a portrait of pure, unadulterated irritation. The air in the room, which had been thick with a heavy, suffocating heat just seconds ago, suddenly turns to ice.

"What do you want, Davina? Don't have enough manners to knock?" he asks, his voice cutting through the silence like a jagged blade.

The sharpness of his tone makes her flinch on instinct. The aggressive confidence drains from her posture for a split second, and she stares at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. She looks at the Alpha as if she never expected him to address her with such blunt, public hostility. Then, her gaze slithers away from him, tracking across the bed until it snaps directly onto me.

I blink rapidly, a cold dread pooling in my stomach, and quickly look away to stare at my hands. There is something profoundly terrifying about the way she is looking at me. Her golden eyes are twin pits of malice, burning with a deep, seething hatred that feels like a physical weight pressing against my chest. She looks like she wants to rip my head clean off my shoulders.

I can see the way her lips tremble, a tiny, frantic vibration she can't seem to control. Her shoulders hunch forward as she clenches her fists tightly against her sides, clearly struggling to compose herself, to lock the beast back beneath her skin.

"Um... Davis," she stammers, her voice cracking before she forces it back into a steady, urgent register. "He—he went into the mood again. The pack has been trying to calm him down for the past hour, but he’s completely lost control. And you know you’re the only one who can bring him back from the edge, Kaelen. He’s not responding to anyone else."

Despite the urgency of her words, her focus never shifts. She continues to glare at me with a lethal intensity, a silent promise of violence that makes me want to shrink into the pillows and hide.

Kaelen lets out a long, heavy sigh, his tensed features looking completely exhausted. He closes his eyes and shakes his head in deep frustration. "So, let me get this straight. If I am not physically found in the pack house, you guys are completely incapable of handling basic pack business on your own? Is that really what you’re trying to tell me right now, Davina?"

She swallows hard, the muscles in her throat tightening, but she doesn't offer a reply. Instead, her chin lifts defiantly as she gestures toward the bed. "What exactly is going on here, Kaelen?"

He snaps his focus back to her, his jaw set in a hard, unyielding line. "It is absolutely none of your business."

He pushes himself off the mattress, his massive frame rising with an ominous grace. I look up at him, my heart hammer-hooking against my ribs as a sudden spike of pure fear hits me.

Is he seriously going to leave me? I wonder, my fingers twisting frantically into the sheets. I really, really do not want to be left alone in this room with this girl. She looks like she would murder me the second the door clicks shut.

Kaelen steps into Davina’s personal space, his shadow completely enveloping her. "She’s one of us now," he declares, his baritone voice echoing off the high ceiling. "The Council has entrusted me with the task of taking care of her. I am responsible for ensuring she gets acclimated to what she has become."

Davina frowns deeply, her golden eyes narrowing to thin slits as she scrutinizes his face. "I don't get it. What do you mean, 'she’s one of us now'? That’s impossible, Kaelen. Unless she was bitten by a vampire, you can't just magically turn a random human into a werewolf. It defies the old laws."

Kaelen lets out a low, amused chuckle that sounds entirely hollow in the tense room. "She has always been a supernatural, Davina. Right from the very beginning. I guess her and her friends tearing through the portal and materializing in our world was no coincidence after all. It was all because of her latent power."

He looks over his shoulder at me, his expression softening for a fraction of a second before he turns back to the intruder. "Her friends have already been sent back to the human realm, but she has to remain here with the pack. She is incredibly ill right now because her physical form is having a hard time trying to contain the raw energy expanding inside her soul. So, be nice to her. We have been explicitly tasked with her survival."

He doesn't wait for Davina to process the information. He walks past her, his heavy boots clicking against the dark wood as he reaches the entrance. "Just keep her company for like fifteen minutes while I go deal with Davis. I’ll be back as soon as I can."

My eyes go wide with pure panic. Um... what the fuck? The thought is a scream in my own mind.

I throw the sheets aside, intending to lunge out of the bed and run after him, to grab his wrist and beg him to stay. But Kaelen is already gone. He steps across the threshold and pulls the heavy oak door shut behind him, the latch clicking into place with a definitive, horrifying finality.

I am frozen. I slowly sit back down on the center of the bed, my knees trembling beneath my pajamas as I look down at my lap, nervously fiddling with my fingers. The silence in the room is suffocating, thick with an predatory energy that makes the small hairs on my neck stand on end. I can physically feel Davina’s gaze washing over my skin, burning into the side of my face like hot grease.

Slowly, reluctantly, I lift my head to look at her.

Davina adjusts her stance, her heels clicking against the floorboards as she folds her arms tightly across her chest. She stands at the edge of the rug, her eyes traveling up and down my form, scanning my flushed face and disheveled hair with a clinical, icy disgust.

"Great," she sneers, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness as she steps closer. "So, you’re a supernatural now, right? Is that the story? And let me guess—now you feel you have the audacity, the right, and all the power in the world to lounge around in his private bed. Isn't that what this is really about?"

I blink rapidly, my breath coming in shallow hitches as I try to find my voice. "No... no, it’s really not what it looks like. I promise you. The—the Elder... Cyphros... he ordered Kaelen to bring me here. I wasn't feeling good after the chamber. I passed out."

Davina lets out a harsh, bitter scoff that cuts through my defense. "Cut the act, young lady," she barks, her tone dropping to a dangerous, low rasp. "Just cut the pathetic act."

She takes three deliberate steps forward, her movements predatory and fluid as she closes the distance to the bed. "Do you honestly think I don't see right through your filthy intentions?"

She stops at the very edge of the mattress, glaring down at me. I watch in terror as the gold behind her pupils suddenly ignites, burning with a fierce, unnatural luminescence. Her upper lip twitches, curling back slightly to reveal a pair of sharp, white fangs that slowly extend over her lower lip.

I swallow hard, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead as I bite down against my bottom lip.

"I see right through you," Davina whispers, leaning over the wooden footboard. "Don't think for a second that just because you have this delicate look, you can play the innocent victim with me. I know exactly what you are."

Before I can move, she places her knee on the mattress, beginning to climb into the bed. The weight of her body shifts the blankets, her golden eyes locked onto mine like a wolf cornering a rabbit.

My heart is thumping a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "Look... please, I don't want any trouble," I stammer, pressing my back against the carved headboard.

"Oh, you’ve already started it, sweetheart," she hisses, her fangs catching the dim light of the lanterns.

I snap my head away, avoiding the terrifying intensity of her gaze, and look down at the dark sheets between us. A heavy, agonizing silence descends upon the room, broken only by the sound of my ragged breathing. Davina doesn't strike. She simply hovers there on the mattress, observing my every micro-expression with a calculating, icy detachment. Her eyes roam across my shoulders, my neck, and my hands, searching for something.

"It’s strange," she murmurs after a long minute, her brow furrowing into a deep, suspicious scowl. "I don't quite sense any actual supernatural energy radiating from your skin. The air around you feels... empty. Or is this just some sort of elaborate ploy?"

She leans in closer, her voice dropping to an accusatory whisper that makes my blood run cold. "Are you collaborating with the traitors? Do you have something to do with the Blood Witches? Tell me the truth, Iris. Only a witch is capable of ever creating a breach through the portal that separates our worlds. And the fact that you were able to stumble into our kingdom all of a sudden, bring your friends along, and now you’re suddenly declared a supernatural... it’s really beginning to sound a little bit suspicious, don't you think?"

She reaches out, her long, sharp fingernails hovering just an inch from my throat, her fangs gleaming. "Do you have anything to say about that, or should I just let my pack figure it out the hard way?"