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Instead of asking the Alpha King why he was summoned, Alphose only walked ahead of him and opened the gates for him to walk through. He did, with the unconscious womanin his arms.

The gatekeepers and sentinels on-duty bowed their heads to them as they walked towards the entrance of the tower, and walked through it.

In his bedroom, he finally laid the girl on his bed. "Tell Marian to change the sheets after she awakes." He instructed curtly.

Marian is an older wolf omega, in charge of the tower's cleanliness. Alphose nodded his head, "Yes, I will do that." he paused, and added gently. "Can I ask what happened?"

Wolfariane walked towards his wardrobe and began taking off his clothes, "She vomited and fainted. I think it's because she had to run for her life, a few hours ago. Tim chased her."

"Damn. In cougar form? He would have killed her."

"I reprimanded him for that, so he or anybody else wouldn't do it again." He spared her a glance, "The female is in my custody till she is out of here. They don't need to go about chasing her."

Alphose winced inwardly. He refers to her like he doesn't know who she is, but he does know. The knowledge is in his eyes whenever he looks at her.

"Her condition is getting worse, Wolfariane." He let out softly, his eyes watching pitifully as the girl takes short, fast breaths. "I can smell it, the stench of death. I know you can too... Something needs to be done about it. And fast."

Naked from the waist up, Wolfariane began taking off the rest of his clothes. He didn't reprimand Alphose for using his name. Only a few of his Alphas get to use it occasionally whenever they want to get 'personal' with him, and Alphose is one of them.

"She will wake soon. Straighten out everything on your schedule, so you can find time to journey back to New York City to get her meds. She needs her meds."

"She needs you." He corrected carefully, knowing that he is threading the most dangerous ground, "She is dying. Even the stupid meds are not saving her."

"We will all die one-day." A dark shadow crossed his eyes. He blinked and it was gone. "Eventually."

"She is your mate." Forbidden words spoken softly in the silence of the room, "Not only that, the mating compatibilities between the both of you is very high, she already carries your scent faintly even though you have not had intercourse with her."

Wolfariane knows that too. He said nothing. Instead, he withdrew his towel and wrapped it around himself. "I am not mating a human, not even to save her own life." He stated firmly, "If I am dying, I will not mate a human to save my own life either."

He shook his head, his resolve as solid as granite. "I made it known that I will not mate, even before I knew about her. I have no intentions of mating anybody. Not a changeling. Not a human. I don't want a child either. Ever."

Alphose flinched on the coldness of his voice. For the umpteenth time, he wondered what happened in that cage eighteen years ago?

Before-Capture, the young Alpha King was different. He was like every other changeling out there... longing for a mate. Daydreaming about being a father.

But, a lot changed After-Capture. Everyone knows it wasn't easy for him, especially since he lost his mother a week afterward but no one knows the main details of what happened in that laboratory after those evil beasts in the form of humans focused all their experiments on him.

No one knows the extent of the damages they did, but Alphose can feel it. Big. Ugly. Dark.

He is the closest Alpha to him, so he can feel it whenever his guard is down. Like now.

"You are trying to protect her against yourself." The words tore from him without thinking.

"Protect her, protect Nalaila, protect my people, they are all the same." He glanced out of the window to the light darkness of early night, "She has no idea what she is up against. If she does, she will be happy she is dying."

"What happened to you in that lab, Wolfariane?" He asked, "After other werewolf changelings 'failed', what happened to you?"

As usual, his answer was the same. "I don't want to talk about it."

Alphose can still remember the ones the Alpha King had been able to tell him on the night his mother was buried...

Some nights he'd howled all night long. Raging. Out of control.

Other nights the females scream all night long. The females he was drugged and forced to breed like an animal.

The Changeling females are brought out bleeding and half-dead.

The human females came out dead. Shredded into pieces.