Alpha King's Healer

15

         The rioters had found us. I knew it wouldn't have taken long; they could smell our trail easily. It was just a matter of time. I grab Celeste's wrist and pull her down an alleyway. Some men slowly follow us. They didn't need to run like we were. This was their playground.

I could hear them yelling out mockeries.

They talked of selling our jewelry, selling us as bargain pieces for food or money. They talked of killing us to send a message to king Martell. They laughed at the ways in which they would kill us, rape us even.

All of this is due to King Martell focusing his money on himself and all his fancy stuff, rather than feeding his people who are struggling to make ends meet. He turned his people into starving, desperate, and angry monsters that would go so far as to rape a child just for having relation to him.

We round a corner. I shove Celeste first since the men are behind us. In an instant, Celeste is pulled sideways into a slim, dark pathway between buildings. I turn to follow after her, but I stop when I see her in the arms of a girl. The girl held Celeste against the dirt covered building side, her hand over Celeste's mouth to keep her from screaming. The dark-haired girl turns her attention to me. As she brought her finger to her lips to tell me to be quiet, I noticed the beauty mark on her right cheek.

The girl from the market.

She releases Celeste, only to grab hold of her wrists. She starts dumping an elixir on the princess's wrists and dabbing it behind her ears as if it were a perfume. I smelled the maple syrup and mugwort; the same elixir I was asking her about just half an hour ago. She sniffs Celeste. Her wolf couldn't smell her anymore. Satisfied, she throws the bottle to me and starts pulling Celeste further into the slim passage. She was masking our scents from the shifters and bringing us to safety.

As she sneaks us into a building and right on through to others, she grabs loose cloths and drapes them over our heads and dresses. Once we are inside the last connected building, we stop for a moment. She peeks her head out the doorway. When she turns to us again, she shakes her head. She nears Celeste and rips her necklace off of her.

"Hey!" Celeste protests.

I grab Celeste's arm, stopping her.

"It's not much of a disguise," the dark-haired girl places Celeste's necklace into a lidded vase on a table by the doorway, leaving no trail behind for anyone to follow. "But it will have to do," She judges.

She turns to me. Her eyes land on the pearl bracelet Demios had gifted me. I rip it off and hand it to her. To my surprise, she pockets it. I feel my brows furrow together.

"It will be needed later. No time to explain now," she claims.

"If we are to trust you, you must tell us your name," I insist.

"Colette, " She answers. "But my friends call me Covey."

Covey had brought us to a brothel, of all places. She said she is the owner, but that didn't make me feel any more at ease in this foreign business. I had never been, or even seen, a brothel before. They aren't particularly common amongst the wolves. Brothels were for the outcasts, the lonely souls whose mate died or rejected them.

Sometimes, even for the men who seek only pleasure and not their mate bond. I never assumed that was a common occurrence, but after all, I'm a woman, I do not partake in things men do.

Men get away with less than a slap on the wrist. Us women, we are truer to the bond. It seems we have more to lose. We have a higher chance of being rejected if we lost our virtue.

Perhaps that is why she knew we would be safest here until the King's men find us. No one dares enter a brothel. No one would dare think two court ladies would be hiding here. At first, I didn't like that Celeste was here in such a dirty place with her little wondering eyes. However, a day had passed already since the riot, and I believed I was starting to like these women.