Born of Blood

Chapter 28

Merula stared at Scarlet.

Her body trembled, warring within itself for shelter, to hide from sight of the predators that roamed  around her. She contained her own predator, that much had been made clear with her Wolfs actions those few hours ago, but the Flesh was not as undaunted as her beast. To the human, everything was dangerous, even Merula as she sat still on the floor of the opposite wall from Scarlet and simply observed. She was nude, the hospital gown she had been wearing was found after an investigation, left in the bathing room of the hospital wing. They had tried to identify the trigger for the shift, especially one that erupted with a Wolf so filled with rage, so filled with the need to protect something that wasn't obvious to the rest of the world. All they could find was her hospital room, the blanket pulled to the side to show she had gotten out of bed, and her gown on the floor of the bathing room with a trail of blood (and human teeth) that led to the door.

It confused the hierarchy, there was no signs someone had disturbed the girl, no signs she had attempted to run a bath, no signs of anything at all to disturb her in such a way to force a violent shift.

Merula knew better.

She had worked for years to earn her degrees in trauma therapy, and she was good at her job- she did not feel cocky in saying so. Working mostly with mundane children- their world was so complex and terrifying compared to the simplicity of the mountain pack of Sendöw- she had discovered many things along the way they never truly taught in her education. She had learned of people in a child's life lessening the trauma of the young, that their matured minds could not interpret the ferocity of incidences like the imaginative and moldable brains of a child could, and though majority of the time it wasn't on purpose in some instances it was. Orion had given her an idea of everything that had happened since his first meeting of Scarlet, in that snowy field in Malkún's territory all those weeks ago. And though Orion was not purposefully negating the possibility of the trauma she had endured in her life, he was placing her mental status on the back burner to prioritize his balance as Alpha.

She understood why, Scarlet had created a mess for herself in many ways. Being bonded to Alpha Orion meant a lot to the Werewolf community who had whispered of him for literal centuries like the mundanes equivalent of the Boogie Man. He was the threat that got children to bed on time, the leverage that it took for an ally to dominate another over territory. He was the fear, and the sadness, of the Werewolf world, the truth everyone had to experience in the time between turning of age to mate and finding their own bonded.

What if they never found her, and ended up like Alpha Sendöw?

Only, he had found her now, and she had attacked him without mercy, without rational thought a dying animal such as herself should have had. She appeared a battle-torn Rogue, attempting to challenge and murder the Alpha of a powerful and primal pack, and that would entitle her to an introduction that would not be well received. Scars in Sendöw were not something to condemn, they were something to celebrate. It represented the strength of a Warrior, the loyalty of the pack to its people, but Scarlets skin- as Wolf and Flesh- did not represent the pride Sendöw had grown to see in its people. It represented a threat, she was an outsider who had threatened their leader, the protector over their lands for so long it was the only man they knew could protect them. She had injured him, marred his skin with new scars, and he had defended it vehemently, even bringing in his Leads to punish the pack instead of the 'Rogue'. Merula had grown up in this pack, she had been as wild as they- and at times still was, though she would never let her Mate hear her admit to that- and she could feel in her heart the confusion and rage they would hold towards Scarlet, the bruised ego that she came before the people.