Ava’s POV
“Stay here!” Cameron growls over his shoulder as he follows Darius.
I hesitate for about a second before I hop up and go to the door, watching him turn the corner for the stairs and following after him.
When I reach the top of the stairs, I can hear raised voices in the dining hall, see people running towards the doors.
My stomach feels like I swallowed a rock as I make my way slowly down the stairs.
Who was it this time?
The closer I get to the dining hall, the quieter it seems to become.
I reach the door and look inside. All I see are backs as they seem to gather around something in the center of the room.
The heart thumping hard against my chest, I walk slowly towards the crowd. Everyone is head and shoulders taller than me as I try to peer around them.
Someone notices me trying to see and moves aside, I squeeze through gaps until I reach the front of the crowd and gasp in horror at the sight, placing my hands to my mouth.
Cameron was kneeling beside a man who I recognized as one of the first Lycan’s to arrive, but I have no idea what his name is.
His entire body has deep gash marks all over, causing blood to pool onto the floor.
He’s naked, except a tablecloth someone seems to have used to cover his private areas.
Remarkably, he’s alive, his hand reaching out for Cameron’s and his lips barely moving, but whatever he is trying to say, apparently Cameron can hear him, since he’s nodding.
“Let me through! Move!” An older man that I’ve never seen before pushes his way to the center, a large brown leather bag in his hand.
He makes his way to the man on the ground and looks at Cameron before kneeling down and opening his bag.
He rummages around and pulls out a clear glass bottle with a black tar like substance inside of it, which he pours just a tiny bit into the man’s mouth.
“This should speed up the healing process from the attack.” He puts it on the floor and pulls out another bottle with a deep green liquid, he pulls out gauze and splashes the green liquid onto it, then starts dabbing at the deepest wounds.
I watch in fascination as the skin starts closing together again.
Wow. We have medicine to help the healing process, but nothing that works that fast.
“Let’s get him in a bed at the pack hospital.” The man, who I am assuming is a Lycan healer, instructs some men around him and they gently lift the no longer bleeding man off the floor and carry him out of the hall, the healer following behind them.
I watch them leave before looking back over towards Cameron, who is glaring at me tight-lipped.
Ah.
He points a finger up towards the ceiling.
I know what that means, he wants me to go back upstairs, but I want to stay. I want to know what happened.
Everyone around me is talking is hushed, worried tones, I want to stay and talk too.
“Ava!” I turn and see Lily, her heels clicking loudly, as she hurries towards me.
She reaches her hand out to grab mine as she looks down at the bloody floor and gasps, putting her other hand to her mouth, and looks at me with wide eyes.
“Oh no! Who was it?”
“I’m not sure, but he was a Lycan, and I think he will be okay.” I glance towards Cameron who is still watching me while listening to Darius speak quietly at his side.
“They brought their own healer. He had some pretty impressive medicine that he used.”
Lily nods as she stares at the bloody floor.
“Oh gosh, Ava. This is so scary!”
“I know. We will be fine though, just make sure you stay close to someone if you leave the packhouse.”
“Good advice that you need to follow as well.” Cameron is walking towards us.
I grab his hand. “Are you okay?”
He looks tired, and worried, which makes me feel really worried.
He nods.
“I’d feel a lot better if I knew you would listen to me, Ava. I give you instructions to make sure you stay safe, and if I can’t trust you to follow them, I have to worry about you on top of the Red Night pack.”
I bite my lip as I feel my face flame, glancing around me to see who all just witnessed Cameron scold me.
Lily is the only one paying attention, curiously watching the interaction, not even bothering to look away.
“Okay…I just wanted to see what happened...”
Cameron looks exasperated as he looks down at me.
“I’ll fill you in later, always, but I have responsibilities beside just your safety Ava, and you are making it hard to maintain those, since you seem to be forefront on my mind, especially while you are running around outside the packhouse without proper security. I have an entire territory that is under attack now, I need to deal with it. So, I need you to go upstairs, and wait for me like I already told you to. Now.”
I drop his hand.
I can feel several eyes besides Lily’s watching us now. Even the conversations around the room have stopped to listen.
I want to die from embarrassment. Why would he talk to me this way in front of so many people?
I don’t trust myself to speak. I nod, turn away, and pull on Lily’s hand to come with me.
Once we reach the hallway outside of the dining hall, Lily speaks.
“Ava, that wasn’t very nice of King Cameron to talk to you that way in front of so many people!”
I shrug my shoulders.
“I would just die if Caleb did that to me.”
I bite my tongue.
“You can always come stay in my room, I wouldn’t mind not being by myself. Besides, you have to make sure that King Cameron learns not to treat you that way, show him a lesson, make him sleep by himself.”
I look at her as she nods impressively.
I wonder if that’s what’s happening between her and Caleb. Is she showing him a lesson by sleeping in a separate room? I wonder what he did to upset her.
“Uh, thanks Lily for the offer…but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll just talk to Cameron later about it.”
She looks crestfallen. “Oh! Are you sure? I thought it would be fun to share a room, we could talk about the commitment ceremony and about what you are going to do for yours too.”
My commitment ceremony? I hadn’t even thought about that.
“How about we do that now? I don’t have anything to do, we can go to your room and talk.”
“Oh! Um…yes. I just have one thing to do first, and then we can.” Lily becomes very interested in smoothing her skirt.
I look at her suspiciously.
“What do you have to do? Maybe I can help?”
“Oh, no! No, I mean, it’s more a one person thing.”
I raise my eyebrow at her. “Is it?”
She flushes a light pink on her cheeks.
“So, I’ll see you later? I can meet you in my room in about an hour.”
“Lily….”
“Hm?” She doesn’t make eye contact with me.
I can’t bring myself to say anything.
“Nevermind. I’ll see you in an hour.”
She walks away.
As she walks, I remember my bags outside the backdoor entrance. I decide it’s safe enough to open a door and grab something by myself, so I head down the hallway.
As I reach the door, I bend over to grab my bags and a movement catches my eye.
I squint as a figure comes out of the trees from behind the packhouse.
Rachel.
What is she doing out there?
She’s slipping what looks like a phone into her small shoulder purse and flipping her hair back. She looks behind her and I look too as another, bigger figure comes out.
Chris.
Scary guy.
He looks unhappy. Or, actually, that could just be how he permanently looks. The only time he looked happy was when he took me down in training.
Asshole.
I watch as they make their way towards the side of the packhouse, most likely going to the front entrance.
I watch them disappear out of view and head back inside and up to Cameron’s room, wondering what they were doing sneaking around the woods.
Knowing what I do about those two already, it can’t be anything good.