Chapter 46 - Healing the Broken Alpha
Lenora
I felt uneasy, shifting back into my human form around this stranger. Nudity was nothing for werewolves, but there was something about this man, the way he stared at me, the way the shadows kept shifting behind his gaze, I felt like a hundred eyes were watching me, not merely one simple minded man.
But I couldn’t tend to his wound in my wolf form. And whatever, or whoever the man was, he had saved my life.
I shifted, and watched the man’s expression closely. If I saw any sign of lust, I was ready to run again, even if my poor, shaking legs couldn’t carry me far. But the man didn’t seem to notice my naked form. He gripped his arm and rocked back and forth, whimpering like a child.
Moving forward, I scuttled like a crab, and he flinched, like he thought I was the one who might hurt him. I was still breathing hard, and my whole body was shaking, I couldn’t have hurt him if I wanted to.
When I reached for his arm, he yanked it away with a slight, threatening growl, showing me his teeth while he cradled the arm against his chest.
“It’s okay,” I said soothingly, “I just want to help you.”
His lower lip jutted out a little but this time, he let me touch his arm. When my finger tips connected with his dirty skin, I felt a strange, dizzy sensation, like the earth underneath me was moving. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and forced myself to focus on the jagged wound. “It’s not too deep,” I said, turning his bicep slightly to get a better look. “I don’t think you will need stitches. It’s already stopped bleeding.”
The man stared at me with wide eyes, and I found myself staring back, unable to look away. I blinked hard. “We should clean it though, and maybe put a bandage over it. I don’t have any medical supplies though. I don’t suppose you have a first aid kit?”
His lips quivered into a crooked smile under the beard. The smile at least, did not resemble River’s so much. He reached out with his good hand and touched a piece of my hair that was dangling in front of my face. “Nice… Lady,” he said, very slowly, as though articulating the words took a lot of effort and concentration.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m your friend. My name is Lenora. What’s your name?”
“Dar…dan…os,” he sounded out the syllables carefully, tapping his chest with each part. I couldn’t help but notice his long, broken and dirty fingernails.
“Dardanos?”
His smile turned into a wide, almost grotesque grin. “Dan!” He scrambled to his feet, his injured arm forgotten, and turned in a circle like he was doing a little dance. “Dan!”
I stood up too, unsure of what I should do with this wild man. Being near him was arousing all sorts of confusing feelings in me. He seemed at once innocent and harmless, but then, there was a darkness around him too, a darkness that made me feel sick to my stomach.
His happy smile faded as he watched me, his green eyes seemed to flicker, like they were mere windows, and someone else was watching me through the glass.
“I can feel you,” the voice that spoke through the man’s lips was no longer slow and careful. It came out almost as a hiss. “Your soul calls to me…” He took an unsteady step toward me, like a drunk staggering.
“Dan?” I took a frightened step back.
“Go! Go away!” Dardanos voice changed again, squeaking like a panicked child. He clutched his long hair and pulled at it. “I…can’t… I can’t!” He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned.
I wanted to help him, but at the same time, he was scaring me. That raspy, hissing voice had burned into my ears, and there was something terribly familiar about it. I turned and began running again, back down the hill, away from the madman. But I couldn’t return to the pack house. No doubt Asher was there, just waiting for me like a fox in the henhouse.
I tripped over stones on the bank and splashed across the river and headed in what I thought was the direction of the road. I didn’t dare look back to see if Dan was following me. I tried to shift back into my wolf, but she had retreated somewhere far in the back of my mind, and she would not come forward.
She left me stumbling, alone and naked in the forest, without her protection. Twigs caught and pulled at my hair, and overgrown blackberry canes tore at my skin with sharp thorns, leaving long bloody scratches in their wake. I had fallen several times, and my skin was now covered with dirt, blood and pine pitch. I was almost as dirty as Dardanos.
I had left my clothing in tatters somewhere near the packhouse, so I had nothing to cover myself with.
I don’t know how far I went, sometimes running, sometimes barely crawling before I heard the distant sound of a motor, and the whir of tires on pavement. I almost cried with relief as I made my way down a steep hill, into the overgrown ditch at the side of the road. When I heard a car approaching I crawled out of the ditch to the shoulder of the road, and sat on my knees, waving my hands desperately at the black vehicle speeding toward me.
It was a dark SUV with tinted windows, the kind that alphas liked to drive. The kind that River drove.
There was a sound of squealing tires, and the smell of burning rubber and hot brakes as the fast-approaching car skidded to a stop just feet away from me. My eyes watered, with relief, with anxiety, blurring my vision. I did my best to cover breasts with my hands and to squeeze my thighs together to hide my sex as I heard shouting and the slamming of car doors.
“Lenni! What the hell?”
Someone threw a jacket roughly around me, and the slightly boozy scent hit me before the blurry face cleared in my vision.
I blinked, and my voice came out hoarse and weak.
“Jenson?”