RANK

Chapter 26

Five days later...

Nya didn't want to be training and although Alpha Vince would be completely alone he demanded that she go. She gazed around at all the faces lined up around and you could see that she wasn't the only one whose head wasn't there.

Beta Bent announced a couple of days ago about their Alpha's impending death. The Darks were furious and wanted revenge immediately. Some couldn't control their rage, changing form and nearly beginning a rampage, but Beta Bent put a stop to it. He told them their moves will be more calculated, and no one was going to die in vain. The devastation then crept in, but Beta Bent wouldn't have that either. He knew his brother wouldn't have wanted it. He told everyone to let this strengthen them and nothing else and then they were all dismissed and expected to be what wolves are, strong. The feeling was so glum. Where the trees were always dancing in the wind they had stopped, and where there was always sunshine, it was now hidden behind massive clouds. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Once training finished, she hurried home. She ran right upstairs and stopped in front of his bedroom door. He didn't want her in there with him. He kept kicking her out each time she checked in and she was sure this time would be no different. She turns the handle and enters.

He was laying on the bed with his head propped on pillows, his eyes shut, and his hands rested on his stomach. He used to hear her before she even reached for the doorknob.
The spider veins had spread all over his chest, arms, neck, and a part of his jaw. You couldn't even tell he was inked all over.
She shifts her attention to the nightstand where there was a glass of water she left for him earlier. He didn't touch it. He hadn't touched any water yesterday either. A clear bad sign.

It was a complete inner conflict. She didn't want him suffering but she didn't want him to die. She glanced back to his face and noticed that his eyes had opened and set on her.

"You wanna know how I'm doing, right?" He clears his throat and sits himself up to lean on the headboard. "I could feel the blood clotting in my veins, and my organs deteriorating and healing repeatedly. Good to know?"

She bites her lips and bows her head. She guessed she deserved that.

"No one standing over me is going to change- Ah..." he grabs his side in obvious pain and he was right, what was she standing over him going to do about it? She starts backing out when "wait..." he calls out.

Her feet glued themselves. "Do you need something?"

He breathes deeply trying to catch a breath. "Come here."

She floats near and he extends his hand. She inhales sharply as their palms touch. His temperature felt like a simmering pot and his grasp was so much slacker than he had ever held her before.

"Lay with me for a minute." He pulls her onto the bed. She could hear his heartbeat as her cheek settled on his chest, and it was frighteningly slow. Three seconds would go by with one beat happening. He curls his hand around her waist, kisses the top of her head lightly, and exhales. "It's important that you keep training."

"Wait..." She started panicking. Instantly it was like he was speaking his last words to her. She could feel it in her bones. Like he knew that the next time she walked in he wasn't going to be moving.

"Bent is going to look after you."

"Wait please..." She rises and looks into his soft gaze. "I don't... I can't. I mean... You... no one needs to look after me."

His hot fingertips caress her cheek. "I want to tell you something."

"Now?"

He searches her features with intensity. "You're not here because of your glitches... and this," he reached around the back of her neck "is not a scar."

Her brows join. "I don't understand."

The corners of his mouth curl subtly. "Nya... I've-" *cough cough cough cough cough* he heaves over the side of the bed and vomits blood into a garbage bucket. She didn't have a clue of anything better to do so she rubbed his back. It was then that her attention fixated on the source. A tiny red dot that was the puncture wound. That small hole caused this invincible alpha to wither away. She wished with all her might that it would heal, that somehow he would be strong enough to overcome this.

The feeling of a sneeze rises taking over all other senses. Her eyes glow and unexpectedly so do her hands. A soft neon blue. She looks down at them in shock. What was happening to her? But then instinct kicked in. She glances back at his wound and she connects the dots. She gets on her knees behind him and puts her glowing hand over the hole as he hangs over the bucket. Her finger magnetized.

"Errrr!" He growls. "What are you doing?!"

"Stay still." She orders.

Slowly the blue glow pulls out the bane. His color started returning to normal and all the black spider veins started disappearing, reviving his tattoos. She pulled every single bit out, sucking it into her own. Then the glow flickered out and left her looking at her palms as if they had become alien.

"What did you just do?"

She looked up and Vince was standing with his glare beating down on her. "I think I pulled it out."

He grabs her upper arms and hauls her to the edge of the bed. "You couldn't have..."

She relished for just a second his strong grasp. "I did it... and..." she scans from his chest and arms to his face. "You're better."

He squeezes her tighter. "How? How did you do it?"

"I don't know... I just... it was like an urge."

"You shouldn't have..."

"But... why?"

"Where did it go, Nya?" He yells. "It's lethal!"

She didn't blink, she didn't flinch. "Aren't you happy? You're better now."

"How can I be when?" He cups her jaw. "Are you feeling okay?" He checks her for a fever.

"I feel fine." Relief was like adrenaline, food, water, air, and sunlight for her right now. Nothing else mattered, nothing else was needed. He was his normal color. He was at his normal temperature and the feel of his grasp was back to normal. An involuntary smile appears on her lips and a small tear leaks out of her eye which she wipes away quickly. "Better than ever actually."

"Wolves are not healers, Nya." He swallows.

"What are you trying to say?"

His eyes searched her like he wasn't sure.

"You're okay now, right?"

"I'm more than okay. "But my worry is, are you?"

"I told you-"

"You're fine, I got that, but I'm not buying it. I need to figure out what you just did, how you did it, and how to reverse it."

"But-"

"But nothing Nya, that is not a pain I ever want you to feel and a state I never want to see you in."

"I'm not in any pain."

"At the moment, and you're not ever going to be in any." He moves urgently, picking his phone off the bed.

"But I'm just a low-ranked nothing. You're the alpha of all alphas. Who cares about me. I know what you're thinking, low self-worth, but on the grander scheme-"

"Nya..." He scolds. "Shut the hell up." He presses a few buttons and puts the phone to his ear.

~~~~~~~

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