Freya settled and started picking up the grain that would obviously be discarded after her punishment. The grains wouldn’t be needed anymore after her blood-stained hands mess with it.

Alpha Torin was willing to sacrifice a bag of grain that could feed an extended family for weeks just to prove a point. Petty.

As she continued to pick, her knees went numb. The guard standing near the arched entrance didn't say a word. He only watched her with disinterest. But he was watching, and she couldn’t dare to stop.

It dawned on her at that moment that it was either she ends up collapsing picking these, or she quit and run away. The second wasn’t an option, the first would surely be her fate.

Meanwhile, in the throne room, Alpha Torin shoved open the double doors and strode in like a storm breaking through the calmness of earth. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, exposing the carved muscle of his chest, still streaked with sweat from a morning patrol. His black trousers clung to his long legs, tucked into leather boots dirtied from the wilds.

He tore the fur cloak from his shoulders and hurled it across the throne with anger. His eyes were burning glow.

With a sudden roar, he swept his hand across a table to the side. Glasses crashed to the marble floor violently. His fists slammed into the throne’s armrest. He couldn’t tell why he was angry, why he was seething with rage.

He didn’t know what it was. That was what made him furious.

Her damn bloodied hands.

He had made her bleed. He did that. And instead of feeling triumph, he wanted to smash something until his own hands bled too.

The door creaked behind him.

Beta Caleb stepped in. His golden hair was tousled from the wind, the lower half of his face lined with a five o’clock shadow that gave him a touch of wild charm.

He paused, his boots crunching over the broken glass as he looked at the destruction Alpha Torin had made.

“I see someone had a pleasant day,” he said dryly.

Torin’s eyes, like molten steel, didn’t leave the floor.

“You’re not here to comment on my mood,” he growled.

Caleb shrugged. “Then maybe tell me what is bothering you.” He stopped right before him but the Alpha wasn’t looking his way.

“I said don’t interfere.” His voice hardened, as if he could do worse if Caleb questions him again.

The Beta exhaled through his nose and folded his arms, still watching his Alpha. “Still mourning your brother, RaphaeI take it?” he said after a beat. “Grief’s a bastard. Makes us tear at anything that breathes. And of course, we all miss him. He was the heir.”

Alpha Torin still didn’t reply him. He was as stone cold as ever.

Caleb glanced toward the door again before saying carefully, “Where did you take the slave?”

The question hit Torin harder than he expected.

His head finally lifted slowly to meet Caleb’s gaze.

Freya.

The sound of her name, even unsaid, made his stomach clench. He could see her again, those trembling hands of hers, her eyes locking with his in the corridor, her silent flinch when he ordered her to the storeroom. She hadn't even begged. Maybe he would have spared her. Why hadn’t she begged?

He was a mess, because he knew that even if she begged, he probably wouldn’t have hear out her plea. And as much as the thought of her, the bond, disturbed him now, he would still harm her again.

That was who he was.

Caleb stepped forward. “Alpha?”

“Don’t,” Torin snapped with a voic that came out lethally. He finally turned to him fully and his next words amazed Caleb to the bone.. “Don’t you ever ask me about her again.”

There was a bite in his tone. A fury not aimed at Caleb but burning through him nonetheless.

The Beta’s brows furrowed. “Torin…”

“I said don’t” He snapped, this time louder. His eyes flared, and for a second, Caleb thought he might strike something again.

But Torin didn’t.

He turned on his heel and walked past him, leaving Beta Caleb’s mind reeling with unanswered questions.

Midnight soon came. Alpha Torin had spent his day inside, didn’t go out nor attend to any pack member who wanted to see him. His mind was far from anywhere else, except her. Has she finished picking the grains? Is she still picking them?

He tried to shift his thoughts to his dead brother. Even though Raphael’s death had caused him anger and pain, and he had mourned him with violence—by having humans killed, some brought under his lair to become slaves, he still felt that big whole in his heart. Like something was waiting to be occupied and he was denying it.

However, this wasn’t about his older brother’s death.

He hadn't moved in hours.

Freya.

Her name stayed lodged in his chest like a thorn. He had done everything to root it out, tore his study apart, trained until his fists bled against the post, even poured himself half a bottle of mead to dull whatever storm churned inside him.

But nothing worked.

He still saw her.

So when he left his chamber and descended the halls barefoot, shirt untucked and eyes dark with danger, the guards stepped aside without a word as he bursted into the storeroom.

He didn’t offer them one.

Then her mild whispers hit his ears, and he was almost startled to see her frame lying on the floor. Freya lay slumped, her back curved painfully, her fingers still curled over a small handful of grain. The metal basin was nearly full beside her. She had come close to finishing the pickings.

Too close.

“She didn’t cheat. I was watching over her the entire time.” The guard said. But Alpha Torin was far from interested in what he was saying.

“No, Father… he said... don’t shoot unless... unless it will ...” Freya was saying half consciously on the floor. Her voice was hoarse and far away. “The wolf runs fast... you have to breathe slow... or else it hears your heartbeat.” She continued.

“She is hallucinating. She has been like that for a while now. I’m afraid she’s…”

“Enough.” Alpha Torin shut the guard then crouched to the floor level and reached for Freya’s hand, his hairs darting forward, eyes glowing furiously as he accessed her shredded palms that might get infected if proper treatment isn’t given.

The grains spilled from her folded hands as the Alpha straightened it.

Her face was pale and clammy, her forehead damp. Her hair, once dark and orderly, was tangled across her cheeks, matted with dirt. And her fingers... were still twitching, still counting.

His jaw flexed.

Without a word, he slipped his arms beneath her, one around her back, the other beneath her knees, and lifted her off the floor. She moaned at the motion, head falling lightly against his chest, but she didn’t wake. She felt really light in his hand. Something heavy pressed on Alpha Torin’s chest. He felt like he was carrying another part of him in his hands, like it was her right to be there. He didn’t begin to think deep into it as he motioned to leave the store room.

The guards stiffened, unsure whether they should intervene or pretend they hadn't seen their Alpha carry a slave.

“Move,” Torin said flatly, his focus already ahead.

They obeyed.

The hallway swallowed them as he walked away. Freya’s blood smeared across his arm where her wrists lay limp, but he didn’t look at her more than once.

He didn’t stop until he got to the Pack doctor’s part of the Twilight’s territory.

Alpha Torin pushed through, startling the older wolf tending to a pile of salves.

The man’s eyes widened as he spotted him aiming forward with someone in his arms. It was a strange sight. “Alpha? what’s…”

“I need you to treat her. ” Torin cut him off, already laying her gently across the padded cot near the corner.

The doctor blinked, his nose twitching at the scent of blood. “Is she feverish?”

“She is sick, and her hands need to be tended too.” The pack doctor didn’t miss the worry in the Alpha’s voice as he said this. The doctor was quite surprised, and even more surprised as he realized it was Freya whom he treated just a day before.

It was hard not to notice the care on the Alpha’s face. Did he care about her?

“...don’t shoot, Father... he’s only limping...” Freya murmured faintly, still hallucinating. The doctor started treatments on her just then. He could tell that she had been punished and maybe, just maybe the Alpha was feeling guilty.

Yet, the Alpha never felt guilty. This was strange.

“When she wakes, don’t tell her I brought her.” The pack’s doctor nodded respectfully.