Belonging To The Alpha King

Chapter Six

'Ash' jumped at the sound of the creaking door being pushed open. He barely managed to shift back into his wolf form while half asleep. Rosà stepped through the wooden thing that was supposedly her 'door'.

Smiling with no real smile and circles so dark under her eyes you wouldn't believe that she slept at all the previous night, she greeted him kindly.

"Hey Ash!" He wined sadly, seeing the state she was in. Trotting over to her, he pulled on her sleeve, dragging her over toward the 'bed'. Rosà went along with no complaints, feeling so tired she could fall asleep standing up.

"Thanks boy. I'll feed you when I wake up." She barely managed to say over a yawn as she practically threw herself onto the creaking surface. Seeing how she basically fell asleep before she even hit the not so soft sheet, he concluded that she would not make good on her promise

Rosà awoke with a deep yawn forcing its way up her throat and through her entire being, reminding her of the deep sleep she somehow managed to fall into, as well as the smell of freshly made broth. It was not exactly of the same quality she made it,  it just smelt and looked different, she suspected it to taste better as well.

She looked around while scratching her head, wondering when she made the broth. While looking around, she saw Ash with an empty bowl beside him so she just assumed she was the one who made it and didn't remember, seeing as the wolf couldn't have made it himself. She chuckled softly at her silly thought.

Ash' had never prepared a meal for someone else before. He never had to, it was always done for him just as he -or his guest- would start to feel hungry. That didn't mean he didn't know how to.

Thinking back, he could remember how the elders and his mother would scold him to do things for himself and explain to him the benefits of not having to have to rely on others and being able to help himself when there was no one around to do so. He smiled at the memory. The problem was that there wasn't much to go off of.

He searched around in the crumbling cupboards for anything edible. All he found was the ingredients used to make the much too watery broth. Setting out what little ingredients he found, he went to work, preparing the same broth that would taste somewhat different.

As he'd just finished eating, he heard Rosà stir. As quickly as he possibly could, while feeling heavy and sleepy from a full stomach, he shifted into his beast form and laid back down.

Peeking open one of his unusually bright icy blue eyes, he observed as she awoke. She turned her head about the room in confusion after inspecting the broth then looked at him and simply shook her head with a tiny smile -probably thinking she prepared the meal- and hungrily devoured the now luke-warm broth.

She finished the broth in record braking time, she down it so fast, with such eagerness, that one would think she hadn't eaten in days. Hoisting herself from the creaking mattress, she dragged her tired body towards him.

He closed his eye as she petted his ruffled fur into one direction; his aching body, and poorly wrapped injures didn't allow him to groom himself properly), before grabbing the bowl beside him and stepping into the 'kitchen' to return the bowls. As soon as she returned, she placed herself right back onto her cot and fell back asleep with a content sigh on her lips.

'Ash' was never the type that liked to be crowded. It left him feeling vulnerable and exposed. So being in a crowded market area- if the incredibly small space that was arguably the size of Rosá's hut that was packed with people carrying shopping bags, some empty and  some overflowing, moving from one yelling vender to the next proved to be anything but-, especially seeing as he was in the form of an unusually huge wolf trailing behind a frail and innocent looking girl, made him overly sensitive and a little agitated. Just a little. He had to remind himself multiple times, to not lash out at any of the people that stopped to stare and whisper after them for Rosá's sake.

The girl walked with an unusually chipper skip in her usually slouchy steps with a soft melodic tune sliding smoothly from her lips, ignorant ( most likely by choice, or maybe it was because she was still yet to come down from the high of receiving quite the generous pay after working harder than she had ever done before) of the now eerily, almost silent market that was just a second ago, bursting with life. The small space was now filled with soft, fearful gasps and murmurs. The words were whispered rather softly, as if the huge wolf would mercilessly sink his no doubt overly large and sharp canines into any one of them that dared even breath too loudly. Not that he wouldn't, if given the chance. Maybe the stares were getting to him a little.

'Ash' inwardly scoffed at the blatant weakness the overconfident species were showing to an obviously weakened creature, just because his species were higher on the food chain; though he doubted that the idiots even noticed the sloppily wrapped bandages he wore. He had a rather harsh hatered for human kind.

He trotted so close to the overly hyper girl, that one would think he was joined to her somehow, never to venture too far away from her side. He did not exactly feel like letting her wonder around in a place like this one, getting all kinds of scents mixed with her addicting one, he had enough of dealing with that experience whenever she would come home from work way too late.

Rosà giddily danced from one stall to the next, checking fruit, vegetables and the like, all while receiving stares filled with surprise, fear (mostly aimed at 'Ash') and he noticed, disgussed. He concluded that she received the latter everytime she would come to this human infested place.

As he had started paying closer attention to the people around them due to his realisation, he started picking up on the fact that most of the whispers were not really words that vocalised their fear, but words of insult aimed at Rosá's frail back like sharpened daggers.

Sorry this chapter took so long. I had to take a while, but ITS HERE!!! As I mentioned in my announcement, I'll be taking quite a while to update the chapters.
Thanks to those who stayed and have been waiting!!