"Zara..." A pair of soft, warm hands enclosed my jawline, then tilted my face in the direction of a soft, sweet voice.

I cracked open my eyes and saw a pair of yellow-hazel irises bored into me, framed with brown lashes. Her auburn-colored hair was pulled back in a tight, high bun like River's but a few stray strands framed her face. A smattering of light freckles spread across her fair-skinned cheeks. Instantly, a calming sensation radiated from her palms into my cheeks, which relaxed the crease in my forehead and tension in my jaw.

"I'm Rose, a healer in training," her voice caressed each word, coating my ear like honey. "I'll sit with you until you'd like me to stop. River too. We're touching your bruises and scars to help them fade faster, alright?"

"Sure..." I took a deep breath and allowed a yawn to escape, stretching my sore throat.

I had no idea what time it was, with no windows in my room. As she ran her fingers over my neck, my eyes shifted away from the gentle tingling on my skin to a bright flash of color on the table next to my bed.

"Those are pretty." I lifted my head and smiled at a large vase of multi-colored roses.

I've never seen roses like these before.

All the colors in a rainbow swirled over the delicate petals, they were painted on with delicate strokes. Each stood out with its striking unique color but blended beautiful with its adjacent colors.

Rose's mouth tugged up at the corners. "They're rainbow roses from our pack garden. Would you like me to read the card with them?" The sparkle in her eyes fed my interest, so I nodded.

She reached over and pulled out a white slip of paper from within the vase. Her smile widened as she read, "Dear Miss Zara. I am so sorry to hear what happened. Please accept these as a token of my admiration. Scars are proof that we can overcome any adversity. With concern and warm wishes for a speedy recovery... Future Alpha Torak."

She chuckled, folded the note over in her fingers, and placed the white slip of paper on the table next to the vase.

"Admiration? Speedy recovery?" I echoed, my heart warming at the gesture. Another part of me wasn't sure how I felt about his reference to scars.

Rose provided me with more insight, "I'm sorry. Torak is the cheesiest werewolf I know. Even passed out, bruised, swollen, and bleeding everywhere, he was quite taken when you arrived. He'll chase any female with a tail, but you sure caught his attention."

Oh. That... doesn't sound like a compliment.

"Great..." I coughed.

Nothing she said in those sentences that interested me, but then she continued in a softer voice, "My brother has a few scars. I'll let him share with you but he can sympathize."

"Your brother-" Grounding my palms, I started to push myself up. River stepped into my bed space and gently guided my shoulders back down. Rose nodded.

Rose... She's Torak's sister. And a healer?

She looked younger than me, only fourteen or fifteen. But, as the alpha and luna's daughter, I had so many questions.

"Werewolves age slower than humans, and healers even slower," she replied as if she sensed my thoughts. "I'm nineteen."

"Is Torak also a healer?" I assumed the answer was no, since I hadn't seen him here. But I was half-naked since the wounds wrapped down the entire length of my back, so I wasn't sure if his absence was a courtesy.

"Him?" Her eyes rolled. "He has some... influence over others, but he is no healer."

River's snort, which she covered with clearing her throat, didn't instill more confidence in me.

"I see." I flopped down and wondered if his 'influence' was similar to mine over unmated males.

By the tone of her voice, I assumed that, unlike mine, Torak's 'ability' was intentional. "I'm so sorry to meet you under these conditions, Rose. If you see your brother then please tell him thank you."

I gazed at the flowers and felt the corners of my mouth tug up at the first sense of happiness I felt since arriving. While my eyes roamed over the beautiful colors, I realized that today was my birthday.

My smile faded.

I was now eighteen and spent my birthday in the hospital. And I was nowhere closer to finding my mate than when I was still trapped in my father's home.

Despite that, it was nice to see the flowers. I always received birthday flowers. I used to think that they were from my father, but one of his pharmaceutical company assistants arranged their delivery. I would have never found out unless she hadn't gotten sick one year and the flowers didn't arrive. She still sent them in subsequent years though.

He sure outdid himself on a gift this year.

My teeth clenched, pinching tension into my cheeks.

At least he didn't try to make a public announcement. The punishment was enough of a teachable moment.

"Zara..." Rose exercised her soft, kind voice. Her ear-pleasing tones were hypnotic. My eyelashes fluttered as her sweet voice lulled me to sleep.

"Rest. We'll talk later."

Two days later, I was released from the East's infirmary. I could have left sooner but stayed one day longer as a favor to one particular traveling companion.

Idris had taken his security detail very seriously and stayed here twenty-four/seven. He stood outside the door during the day and slept in one of the extra beds. He snored like a chainsaw but I didn't have the heart to kick him out.

Turns out his dedication has nothing to do with me.

Rose gave me the nicest birthday present I could have wished for as she slipped me into a perfect nap. Falling unconscious aside, I couldn't remember the last time I slept so fully, peacefully, surrounded in darkness and without a single dream.

My amazing sleep was also short-lived.

I awoke from the sounds of a loud crash and clanging metal near my recovery room's door. My back arching, it throbbed as if my skin was on fire. I twisted my head sideways but saw a pair of legs and a large pair of muddy boots at the door. White cap medicine bottles, sealed bandages, and other medical supplies littered all over the floor.

"C-can I help you?" Rose's soft voice echoed off the tile floors.

Whoever's legs stuffed in those boots, they flashed fast over to her. By the position of her feet, lifting off the ground with her toes touching, the visitor pinned her to the wall next to my bed. My eyes stretched to their corners, straining as I saw a male figure trapped her between his arms.

I couldn't see his face or Rose's expression from my angle but heard his breaths panted in her face. His shoulders heaved and the muscles in his arms flexed as his fingers curled into tight fists against the wall on either side of her face.

He's attacking her!

"Rose!" I choked out, then flinched to sit up but my body quickly froze with pain. Flopping down and gritting my teeth, my eyes lifted back up.

My lips parted to scream for help when he opened his mouth and released a low growl.

"Mate."

"Huh?" I grunted.

You've gotta be kidding me.

I blinked, as if I hadn't heard that word. With soft, melodic sounds, Rose giggled. He closed his hands around hers, lifting them over her head and pressing into the wall.

That's actually... a pretty smooth move.

His head dipped low and his nose nuzzled her pale, slender neck. Without a doubt, he whispered sweet, sensual nothings into her ear.

With a slow breath, my torso lifted up, then I flopped down with a puffed exhale.

I didn't have much time to be envious though, since after a few awkward seconds of further whispers and giggles, he turned and looked straight at me.

At the sight of his dark brown eyes, almost all black, mine stretched wide "...Idris!?"

"Hi, Zara." He smiled, dropping his eyes. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up."

"I'd ask what you're doing here, but..." I sighed softly in relief and settled back down into bed. I bent my elbow, formed a makeshift pillow under my head, and forced my lips into a polite smile.

Everyone deserves love but damn, they're so young!

My lips rolled inward and I pressed them together. Idris was eighteen, Rose nineteen and looked fifteen. Although, to be fair to both, they knew their wolves longer than I'd known Lumi for.

"I did want to come see you, Zara." His eyes drained of yellow, pooled into solid black, then his irises returned to their dark brown color. "But I couldn't escape this scent that's been driving me crazy since we got here."

"Sorry." Rose's fingers flew to her lips. "It's probably my cherry chapstick."

Of course she wears that.

I fought an urge to roll my eyes but did succumb to one that I introduced them to each other, "Idris, this is Rose. She's Alpha Stephen and Luna Rashida's daughter, sister to future Alpha Torak. And Rose, Idris, he's... uhh, a warrior from the Northern Territory."

"Thanks, Zara," Idris' lips curled up and Rose cupped a hand over her smile.

Idris's smirk dissolved, he shifted his feet, and a frown creased his forehead. "Cole sent me here on security detail."

"Here? Why?" I caught sight of a fresh scratch above his eyebrow. Also, a small bruise had formed on his right cheek.

"Are you all right?" I pointed to his wound. He nodded, so I pressed, "What happened?"

"Let me take care of that." Rose bent down and picked up the tray of medical supplies that she'd dropped.

Idris smiled, bent down to help her, brushing his fingers over hers a few times. She paused, smiled, and swooned at the contact.

"Thanks," she whispered, her cheeks flushed pink.

Seriously?

They went from teenage crush-type sweet to cavity-inducing in thirty seconds.

Rose stood up and steered him to an empty bed. One he sat down, she stepped between his knees, flipped off the lid of a bottle of alcohol, and dipped a soft cotton cloth in the bottle.

"Might sting a little, sorry." Idris' chiseled face melted when she placed one palm on his cheek and pressed the cloth into his cut with her other hand.

"Rogues." He didn't flinch as Rose dabbed alcohol into his cut. "They attacked right after your father, well..."

"Had me whipped." I sighed. "I didn't know, I blacked out."

"We got you out, but the rogues took the prisoner."

I frowned with conflicted emotions about the rogue. Part of me felt sympathetic. He wasn't a pleasant personality, but he didn't deserve Lucus' torture or whatever worse my father would have done.

The other part of me was confused at one person earning so much attention.

There has to be more me angering my father about Lucus, or one rogue being important enough to draw him and so many warriors out of his packhouse.

My lower lip rolled under my teeth, which held it. "Are Cole, Elena, and Raina alright?"

Idris nodded and disappointment flickered in his eyes as Rose retracted her hand. She stepped away from him and grabbed a bottle of the white liquid they slathered on my back from the medical tray. He smiled once her hand returned to his cheek and his dark eyes stared as her other hand's index finger tapped the cream into his wound.

"I think you'll survive," she whispered to him, then leaned closer and blew on the moist liquid. His eyes shifted, his pupils dilating black into his irises again.

"I always thought scars were attractive anyway." Rose's head swiveled and she winked at me.

Cute but... enough of this.

Like Cole and Elena, again I felt like a third wheel distraction. By my count, I was on at least my third third wheel - Elena and Cole, Lucus and Aspen, now Idris and Rose.

Speaking of Elena...

'Elena?' I reached out to her with a mindlink, even though my brain felt a little fuzzy. No response was returned.

'Cole?' Again, silence greeted me.

"Idris?" I noticed he still leaned against the wall.

He didn't respond since his attention had been diverted gawking at Rose while she placed some of the spilled medical supplies away in a cabinet.

"Idris!" His head snapped toward my direction. "Can you give Elena a message for me? If you see her, can you have her visit me? It's... umm, important."

"Sure," he nodded, his eyes fixed on Rose. "She's been in the library since we got here. There's some big reaping ceremony at the end of the month."

"Thanks." I rolled away from the new lovebirds with a sigh.

Of course she's in the library.

I smiled at the thought of how excited she must feel, buried inside the largest library in the country.

She's probably sleeping overnight there, using the books as a pillow.

And she'd better be reading, not doing anything naughty with Cole.

The next day, Rose came into the infirmary with a beautiful smile radiating her face. "How are you feeling?"

I looked over her altered appearance. Instead of tied back in a bun, the top half of her hair was pulled back with clips but the rest fell in loose waves halfway down her back. Her eyes sparkled and a faint pink blush tinted the apples of her cheeks.

Smiling at Idris positioned outside the infirmary door, my eyes dropped to her lips. If I didn't know better, then I assumed that her swollen, pink skin meant that she'd gotten her first kiss. And by the sparkle in her eyes and beaming smile, I also assumed that their kiss was a heck of a lot better than mine with Lucus.

As her soft voice hummed, she carried a large box in her hands. My eyes darted to the blue and white Lykaios label on the outside, and I flinched at my father's pharmaceutical company name. The family name.

Some family.

No matter how physically far away I got, the distance wasn't enough. After his abandonment of me, his influence and his control found me. As the skin over my scars hardened, anger also grew and hardened inside me. I was glad I didn't have many visitors because I worried that I inherited my father's cold demeanor.

"Physically, good," I admitted, sitting up against my back and breathing through the uncomfortable position. "What's in that magical white stuff?"

"Homegrown ointment." She smiled and placed the box down on a nearby medical cabinet desk. "Some modern burn relief and scar fading medicine ingredients, mixed with some aloe and local herbs we grow in our greenhouse. It also has hormones added in, to help your natural wolf healing kick in stronger."

"You have a greenhouse?" My eyebrows lifted, although I wasn't sure if I wanted to know where the hormones came from.

"Yup, for the infirmary. My mother's idea. No offense to your father's pharmaceutical company but we prefer only his vaccines -" She pointed to the box. "- with our medications."

"I'd love to see it, if I could." I folded my hands over my lap.

I had no reason to keep laying in bed, but River insisted that I stayed for the rest of today. By the wink she sent me when We both knew my presence was here because Rose liked the presence of my security detail.

"I'll have my brother show you." Her yellow-hazel eyes twinkled. "He's been asking about you quite a bit."

Oh, him.

Wallowing in self-pity, I lost sight of why we were here. As far as I knew, Torak hadn't visited. Raina placed her pack's medical supply order. Elena stopped by once a day and Cole once, to retrieve Elena. Whenever I pressed about what they were doing, they changed the subject.

Now is as good a time as any to ask about Future Alpha Torak.

"Can... You tell me about him?"

"Tell you what..." She tossed the now empty box on the floor and smiled. "You tell me about Idris, and I'll tell you about Torak."

"I don't know much." I smiled. "He's a very sweet guy. His wolf is light gray with a white stripe down his back. My wolf attacked him in a training exercise. I was surprised when he wanted to come with us but now I see the reason why."

The idea that Idris was her mate was still hard for me to believe and left me with questions for Elena. Since Rose was the daughter of Alpha, then why was her mate Idris? He wasn't a future alpha and I wasn't sure if Rose was supposed to be a future luna.

It's like Days of Our Wolves. So confusing.

"He's one of their best warriors," I added. "He's a good protector."

"Oh?" Her voice was relatively flat but with a curious undertone as she sat down behind the medical desk. "We don't... engage in much violence here. Except for the future alpha challenges, we're a bit more scholarly. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I felt a bit of excitement seeing him guarding outside the door."

"Future alpha challenges?" My eyebrows drew together.

"Yes." She nodded while a grim expression shadowed her face. "Once a month, an eligible male within the pack can challenge Torak for his position."

"Really?" I stared at her, my mouth gaping open.

All the history books Elena had read with me suggested that it was hereditary, like the eldest male assumed the alpha position unless challenged by a sibling. I couldn't help but think about what other potential information presented in those books wasn't true.

"My father's idea." She rolled her eyes. "He did it to make Torak stronger."

"He has to fight every month?" My jaw dropped and I gaped at her. For the most scholarly territory, forced fighting seemed a bit brutal.

"No, no." She shook her hands. "An eligible male can challenge once. If he loses against Torak then he can't challenge again. One challenge per month is allowed, given so many eligible future Alphas to go around, and not all of them want to be Alpha."

"This will all stop once Torak either finds his mate or turns twenty," she added. "Whichever happens first. Unless beaten in a challenge, he'll assume the future alpha position."

"But... why?" Challenging Torak made no sense.

"Again, Alpha Stephen's idea. He thought it would better prepare Torak for being able to physically protect his pack. Err, our pack," she corrected.

I must've stared at her for a full minute of silence before she added, "He'll kill me for this but Torak's always been more fond of chasing females than fighting males."

"Well, I don't know much about mates." The corners of my mouth lifted as I groaned at the idea of dealing with a playboy. "But now I don't know if it sounds like I'm his type."

"Believe me, he's interested." Her eyes sparkled.

With no interest in any of those details, I smiled and averted my eyes. My fingers traced absent patterns on the bed sheets that covered my lap as I searched for any sense or sign he was my mate.

But like before Lumi, my head feels full of... nothing.

"So..." Rose smirked. "Do you want incriminating personal information or embarrassing pup stories about him?"

"Both." I grinned as she pretended to roll up her white coat sleeves.

"Zara!" Elena had the worst timing.

"Speaking of scholarly..." I winked at Rose, who laughed and stood up.

"How are you?" Elena narrowed her eyes at me, tapping her foot as my sloth-sleep lingering in the infirmary ran her patience level dry.

I pulled back the sheets and slid my legs out of bed. "Please tell me we can go." My toes tingled on the infirmary floors and I slid them into a pair of nearby slippers.

"Yes." She grabbed my hand and tugged me to stand up.

After my sole activity over the past four days was leaving my hospital bed for the bathroom, my knees wobbled the first few steps. Over my shoulder, I threw one last thankful look at Rose as Elena steadied me and led me out, then winked at Idris out in the hallway.

After my eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, I gasped at the view outside. The infirmary was a separate building. We walked up a concrete path, and my eyes lit up at the packhouse ahead of us. A tall, beautiful manor stood on a red brick foundation. The expansive white walls and rounded turrets were accented with coral-colored roof tiles.

Soft, lapping sounds from a nearby lake and chirping birds set a peaceful backdrop. While the Eastern packhouse was no castle, the structure looked like a beautiful, historic manor.

And no death-tempting cliffs to fall over.

All the landscape here followed gentle slopes to the large, peaceful-looking lake with two artificial fountains that rippled the water.

"I think I'm okay." I released my grip on Elena and we walked side by side. My cheeks relaxed under the sun that warmed them, pulling a smile across my lips. "It's pretty here."

"Yes." Her frown dissolved my smile. "It's good we got here early but we have more work than I thought. I've been in the library the past four days, researching at the request of Luna Rashida."

"Luna Rashida?" I glanced ahead of us.

Wide stairs led up to the front entrance as we walked away from the lake. Elena nodded, her eyebrows still squeezed together, and she mindlinked me.

'Yes, and while I'm very grateful that we made it out alive, it'd be a lot easier now if the books I brought from your father's library weren't currently living at the bottom of the Northern sea.'

'Oh.' I'd forgotten about our abandoned books.

I also thought she brought them for reading material in the car.

'Fortunately, Luna Rashida has ten copies of every book ever published. It's a lot to dig through. You'll see tomorrow.'

'Great...' I tried to hold a neutral face at the idea of being buried in books for the next three weeks.

She stopped and grabbed my arm. 'It's more important than you could guess. We'll talk in private later. Clean up for dinner. Everyone's dying to meet you.'

Seeing the serious look in her eyes, I swallowed.

No pressure.

As we followed the pathway from the infirmary to the packhouse, we passed a large glass and iron structure. Almost as large as the entire Silverback packhouse, its peaked glass ceiling was made from rainbow mosaic colors.

"Is that the greenhouse?" I whispered, gazing at its beautiful simplicity.

Elena nodded, picked up her pace, and rushed past. I paused and gawked for another moment, then hurried my steps to keep up with her.

With clicks of her boots on the terracotta tiles, Elena led me up the packhouse's set of wide stairs. After we nodded and smiled at the security guards on the top step, my lips parted at an entranceway arched over a set of large, black painted doors that wore the Yellow Sun pack's Sigil.

My eyes searching the sigil, a brown wolf clenching a green medicine flask in its jaws, I wondered about the pack's name. The wolf was outlined in a black rectangle. A yellow circle for the sun hung in the upper left corner.

Elena smiled, sensing my hesitation while I examined the Sigil. 'Yellow sun rises in the East. While they're the pack of healers and scholars, they weren't very creative in naming the pack.'.

"I see.' I ran my fingers around the recessed black rectangle. The metal shape felt warm to the touch from the sunlight cast upon the entrance.

'No sense standing out here staring at the door.' Elena grinned at me then pushed the doors open. 'Let's go.'