Lyra's POV

"How was your training going?" That question almost made me drop my fork, I thought he had gone for the hunt.

"It's been going well." I said trying to sound cheerful but in the end it only came out as a neutral.

"Is that so?" He said, taking more of his attention away from his mail and over to me,

"I'm sorry I haven't been able to pay much attention to you lately. The council has been on my neck and-"

"That's not a problem..." I said quickly, touched that he even cared about that. Being a loner was my regular pastime.

But I would be lying if I said I hadn't hoped things would be a little different here, it's not like I even had any greedy ambitions or anything. Just a friend or two would have been fine for me.

However hierarchy was a very important thing here in this pack and I was in a strange state where I was neither at the same level as the maids and yet I could not dare to say I was the same as the high ranking ladies without finishing the fortification rites.

Whenever I tried to talk to any other woman what I would get was either a disgusted glare or an amused chuckle as if I was trying to communicate with some sort of ridiculous circus act.

But the real joke was the training I was going through.

It had already been 3 days and I was all but ready to just wave the white flag and quit. Only yesterday I nearly drowned in one of the pack lakes because lady Aurora was checking how long I could hold my breath underwater.

That wasn't as difficult as she assumed it would be for me, she looked surprised when I came out after seven whole minutes and was just as frustrated as when I passed every other test she threw at me.

The thing was that I was used to being pushed to my physical extremes, that was how I survived in my other pack. I've heard my face forcefully dipped into a tub by pack members because there was no one to stop them and nobody to care what really happened to me.

I wouldn't be alive today if I had been crushed on that weight of their torture, compared to what I've already been through lady Aurora's pettiness was all but child's play to me but I wasn't exactly indestructible it still hurt after I did that my lungs were still burning afterwards and I clawed for air to inhale into them and cool them down.

Karl looked at me intensely, then he released a huge breath and his hand crossed the table softly placing them on mine and I could feel my inner wolf winced in joy.

"All right, I'll take your word for it but if there's anything that becomes too much for you to handle, just know that you can call on me anytime, okay?" He said, as he a placed a necklace on the table beside me.

"Thank you..." I said inspecting the necklace it was the most beautiful thing I had ever received though there wasn't much to compare it with since I hardly ever got gifts from anyone.

"But what is this?"

"Just insurance." He said with a smile that seemed a little forced. I decided not to dive any deeper on that.

One of Karl 's warriors came up to him whispering something in his ear then he stood up instantly.

"Enjoy the rest of your breakfast Lyra there's somewhere I'm needed right now. We'll see each other soon..."

After saying that he left the dining hall but I didn't feel so sad and miserable as I had before I sat down to eat with him. It was so touching. I had been interested like an animal for so long that the thought of someone treating me normally confused and scared me a little bit.

But it was a nice fear, I wouldn't mind feeling this way for now if it meant that I could be happy someday.

I continued to eat because I would need all the strength I could get to handle whatever other crazy test was waiting for me. I was almost done with my meal when my stomach began to hurt. It wasn't strange for my stomach to be hurting these days a little bit because I was actually eating real food and it was taking a little while for me to adjust but the pain didn't stop, it continued to escalate until I clutched onto my stomach.

Suddenly it felt like an invisible dagger coming out of my stomach over and over again.

The more I tried to ignore the pain the worst it go for me I was not able to ignore it anymore, eventually I found myself on the floor feeling like I was going to throw up and yet my body didn't even give me that relief I heard to rush over to the bathroom shoving my fingers down my throat until there was a reaction and I threw up a little.

The pain receded a bit and a lot of it still remained forcing me to crawl into bed when I should have been preparing for my next test but I would basically collapse before getting there so I just thought I would rest and explain everything to Lady Aurora. She was very short and impatient with me but definitely she would understand this.

I closed my eyes and the next thing I woke up to was her shouting.

"Are you incapable of doing anything right? Why are you 30 minutes late?" She shouted

"I seriously don't know what he sees in you." She said it to me and unable to hold back I just responded.

"I don't know but it's definitely something he couldn't find in you." I snapped, tired of her constantly belittling me.

I didn't even mean to say it because the words had come up because of piled up frustration, she didn't respond, she just stared at me and smiled in the more cruelest way.

“ Meet me down in the next twenty minutes” She said and the way she said I knew I was doomed.