Claimed

Chapter 13: Trial Part 1

Ben's POV:

All the tension that faded away with Red and her pack was nice for as long as it lasted. We could at least be thankful the current tension wasn't because of us.

Red claimed to be fine. Maybe I didn't know her well enough to know she was lying, but her guys did. Looking at them made it obvious this wasn't okay. Red may have had a dangerously good poker face, but I could see it in the others. They were nervous.

She told me she wasn't up for training because she needed to sleep. But then I opened the window and her scent was right there. I leaned out the window and saw her sitting on the balcony outside her room, knees to her chest, staring ahead blankly.

"Hey."

She looked over, giving me a smile that was a lot less convincing than the ones I saw earlier. "Hey."

"Wanna go for a run?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, I um... I am trying to sleep. It wasn't working. Thought maybe looking at the stars would calm me."

"Does looking at the stars help calm you usually?"

She laughed humorlessly and nodded. "Yeah. It's what kept me going most my life. I look up there," she said, looking up, "and I imagine our Goddess looking down at me, telling me not to give up."

"I bet she is."

Red nodded but said nothing else. She looked sad. After the day we had when she was smiling so much, I was hoping that sad look in her eyes wouldn't come back.

"Want company?"

"You don't have to sit with me."

"That wasn't an answer," I said, reaching back for a shirt and tugging it on before bracing on the window sill and hopping to her balcony. I sunk down across from her, resting back against the banister. "Are you okay?"

"Fine."

She used that word a lot. I needed to try a question she couldn't answer with 'fine'.

"What are you worried about for tomorrow?"

She rested her chin on her knees and gazed up. The way she was now was so different from the usual. Fierce was how I usually saw her, but right then... She just looked like a harmless, innocent woman taking comfort in the stars.

"Basically all of it. I haven't seen my family since I left. Or as they'll say, deserted them," she said, rolling her eyes. "And my ex-mate..."

I blew out a breath. "Oh. Yeah. Him and his..."

"Girlfriend," she finished when I hesitated. "You can say it. I won't break."

"I imagine it still hurts, though."

Her next intake of breath was a lot shakier. "It is what it is."

"You don't have to pretend that things don't hurt, you know."

Her gaze shifted to me and she furrowed her brows. "All right Ben, I'll make you a deal. I won't pretend it doesn't hurt. I'll tell you all the ways that every aspect of tomorrow is eating me alive, all you have to do is tell me why you don't sleep at night."

I broke eye contact this time. "Point taken. You could just say you don't want to talk about it."

"That bad, huh?"

My chest constricted. "We all have our demons."

"And yours haunt you every night."

I shrugged. She sighed.