REWRITTEN 12/1/18

Reyna lurched up with a loud gasp from her death-like sleep. For a few moments, her eyes were wide and unseeing as her mind slowly processed what had happened. With a mind of their own, her hands began to tremble as she realized that she was no longer in the prison. Those shaky hands slowly reached towards her face, barely touching the skin as she realized it wasn't a dream. 

She was alive.

But how? When she had been laying on the cold ground with hypothermia, Reyna wasn't sure which breath was going to be her last. Looking down at her arms, she could see an IV in her arm. Each breath she dragged in tickled her nose and she realized there was an incubation tube in her nose. Just as she reached up to drag it out, a voice stopped her.

"Don't," he said. Reyna's hand froze inches away from her face. It started shaking again but she didn't notice. 

"Don't?" she rasped quietly. Her voice was practically gone. Her eyes slowly trailed from her hospital bed covers to the tiled floor. From there they crawled up his body before settling on his forest green eyes. She wasn't sure what he saw in them, but it was enough for his eyes to droop in shame. 

Good. She couldn't stop the burn of satisfaction at how distressed he was by his actions. Let him feel every wince and every ache that she felt. The trauma of her experience was too fresh.

"Stop looking so upset. You did this," she pointed at the bandaids on her arm where her skin had cracked from the cold. "You! Not me! Get out of here!" Her breath heaved in and out and Reyna started to feel lightheaded. She fell back into her pillows, exhausted.

Elias reached for her, perhaps sensing her weakness, but she slapped his outstretched hand.

"Leave! You've done enough!" she screamed. Her voice cracked in the middle of her sentence.

"Alpha Elias, maybe it would be best if you leave." said a voice at the door. It was the same doctor who had treated her when she had fainted. He looked nervous as he said those words and rightfully so. As soon as he had uttered them, the usual Elias that Reyna was beginning to know was back, his anger widening his shoulders and darkening his gaze. 

Without another word, he stormed out like a petulant child and Reyna let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The doctor began checking over her vitals. 

"Hey doc," Reyna asked as he fixed her IV drip, "How long have I been out?"

"About a week. You were in terrible condition." 

Reyna gulped. "Wow," she muttered weakly. She had been healthy as a horse for her whole life and within the span of a week, she had been to the hospital twice.

"Doc?"

"Yes?" The doctor's fingers stopped fiddling with the machine.

"What's your name?"

"Oh!" he had previously been lost in his task, but he looked back up at her in surprise. "Forgive me, Luna. I am Dr. Stevens." He bowed, and Reyna giggled at how the old man was bowing at her. 

"It's no big deal. I just feel like if things progress the way they have so far, I'm going to be seeing a lot more of you." Her earlier cheer instantly evaporated. She could tell that Elias was more upset about the state she was in, rather than what he had done for her to end up in that position. Talk about being out of touch with reality. A hand on her arm dragged Reyna out of her head and she looked up at the doctor. His eyes were full of pity and concern, a combination that mildly irked the proud girl.

"A pack is no place for a human." Reyna's irritation increased.

"I can tell, Dr. Stevens!" she snapped, waving an arm over her bruised and battered form. 

"No, no that's not what I meant. I'm just trying to say that I want to help you... help you leave."

Reyna froze. She had definitely not been expecting that. 

"You are not equipped to handle pack life especially with such a powerful wolf by your side. He knows almost nothing about human fragility and he could accidentally do some irreversible damage to you. From a doctor to a patient, it is in your best interest to leave this pack," he finished hesitantly.

Reyna frowned at his choice of wording. Physical strength was not the only measure of strength. While she had been unconscious she had heard people talking around her. She shouldn't have been able to survive that long in the prison with the condition she was in, but she had. All for revenge, a dark part of her mind whispered. Not revenge, she mentally corrected, but to be free of the weird toxic bond that kept getting her in trouble.

Even when Elias had been in the room with her, her anger had mildly diminished. She wanted no part of a relationship that could manipulate her feelings when she was completely justified in her rage. Reyna realized she had been silent for too long and now Dr. Stevens was looking at her with a worried expression. 

"I want to leave to but Elias," she shuddered at how her heartbeat had sped up at the mere mention of his name, "he would never let me leave. Never." A tear snaked down her cheek. "I don't want to give in to him, but the weird bond thing turns me into a puddle of goo whenever he is around. It's just... if I ever want to leave him, I would have to..."

"-break the bond. I may know something about that," Dr. Stevens interrupted with a thoughtful expression on his face. Reyna jerked up in surprise and the bond in her chest writhed. She grabbed her chest in surprise, her long and unkempt fingernails crinkling the paper.

"What was that?" the door to her small hospital room banged open and Elias stormed in. "I felt- I felt something through the bond." His eyes were swinging around the room, looking for someone to blame until they fell on Dr. Stevens.

"You! What did you do to my mate?" With his superior speed, Elias crossed the room in seconds and grabbed Dr. Stevens by the throat. The poor, old doctor could do little more than gape like a fish as Elias held him to the wall. 

"Stop, stop, stop!" Reyna yelled from her bed. The door to her room was still open and to her mortification, she could see people stopping in the hallway and looking in. She hadn't seen her appearance yet but judging from the bad taste in her mouth and the bush that had replaced her hair, she was looking much worse for wear. Tremors ran through her body as she maneuvered it from the bed for the first time in days. She had definitely lost a lot of weight. The bones of her knees protruded and Reyna felt like her stomach had caved in within itself. Taking each step like she was a newborn foal, Reyna clutched her IV pole as she dragged herself closer to Elias.

"Elias!" she yelled, and his massive hand that had been squeezing the life out of Dr. Stevens stopped. His eyes, which had turned gold, bore into hers and Reyna used all her strength and dignity to remain standing upright. Slowly, his eyes still locked on hers, he lowered Dr. Stevens onto the ground and the man crumbled to the floor, his breath wheezing in and out of his damaged throat.

Once Dr. Stevens was safe, Reyna spoke again. "Dr. Stevens didn't do anything to me. You did! You hurt me and I panicked as I remembered it. That's all!" Her words were intended to hurt him and they did. Part of her felt smug and part of her felt sad as his eyes flickered back to sad green. 

Why, oh why did her life have to be such a mess?

To anyone who read this chapter before I revised it, I sincerely hope you prefer this! Please vote and comment!

xx Katreadsabook