Chapter 6 ALPHA AND PARIAH

Beta Eliam suspected something was wrong with the look in his leader's eyes. "Alpha, have you... lost your eyesight?" he asked, hesitant but visibly anxious.

"Yes, I have temporarily lost my eyesight due to wolfsbane poison," Elyndor admitted honestly. His voice sounded heavy, burdened by his pride. "But my condition has been gradually improving, even though I cannot see anything clearly at the moment."

"If so, Alpha, we had better return to the mansion immediately," Eliam interjected swiftly. "I will call the Shaman there to treat the remaining poison in your body."

"Yes, just arrange it," Elyndor replied shortly.

However, before they could leave, the Beta's keen sense of smell caught something foreign in the air. Eliam sniffed slowly, detecting the sweet scent of a woman's body mixed with lingering traces of intimacy still thick in the area.

"Were you with a woman here, Alpha?" Eliam asked, full of suspicion, his gaze sweeping around that secret room.

The question immediately jolted Elyndor's awareness. "That—"

Elyndor quickly looked around in panic. Behind the faint blur obstructing his vision, he could only catch a few moving silhouettes in front of him. However, his instincts suddenly screamed; he could not sense Luisa's presence nearby.

"Herbalist?" Elyndor called out, his voice rising.

Eliam frowned in confusion at the Alpha, who suddenly seemed to lose his composure. "Who are you looking for, Alpha?"

"Where is that woman?!" Elyndor asked panickedly, ignoring his Beta's question. He moved, feeling the air, trying hard to pierce the darkness, but all he found were vague, shapeless shadows because his vision was still completely blurry.

"Which woman are you referring to?" Eliam asked, confused.

Ever since setting foot inside that dilapidated hut, the Beta had seen no signs of anyone else's presence. His eyes only caught piles of leaves, hanging strings of dried roots, and rows of jars filled with herbal ingredients emitting a pungent aroma that made his wolf's sense of smell nauseous.

"The woman who was with me! Did your men capture her?!" Elyndor exclaimed in panic.

"We don't know who this woman you are referring to is, Alpha," Eliam replied, trying to calm his leader, who was beginning to explode. "We just arrived here, and from the beginning, you were alone here."

"No. That's impossible!" Elyndor shook his head roughly, denying the fact. "I... I was with a woman here. She is a par—" Elyndor's sentence stopped. "I mean, a herbalist."

Elyndor's heart was pounding wildly, no longer just from panic over losing Luisa, but because he had almost let the word 'Pariah' slip out. Damn it. If Eliam and his troops knew that the great Alpha had spent an intimate night with a low-caste outcast wolf like Luisa, his pride would be shattered, and they... they might not hesitate to hunt down and kill Luisa for defiling the Alpha's sacred blood.

Eliam furrowed his brow, catching his leader's strange behavior. "A herbalist?"

"Yes, she is a herbalist!" Elyndor cut in quickly, trying to divert his Beta's suspicion. "She was the one who took care of me and... and saved my life after I was shot with a silver bullet. When the wolfsbane poison made me completely blind, she concocted the antidote that gradually healed my eyes, even though I still cannot see fully yet."

"She is a human?" Eliam asked suspiciously. The Beta's gaze narrowed sharply, catching the glint of doubt and lies trying to be hidden from Elyndor's expression. "Is she a human, Alpha?" he asked once more, demanding an honest answer.

Elyndor blinked his eyes, still shrouded in blurry mist. He exhaled a heavy breath. Realizing that lying to his perceptive Beta would only prolong the matter, he finally gave in.

"No. She is a Pariah. She was exiled by her pack," Elyndor said frankly. His voice suddenly lowered, full of absolute emphasis. "But do not any of you dare to touch or capture her!"

Beta Eliam's eyes widened, and he took a step back in shock.

"You had relations with a Pariah."

"She helped me and saved my life, Eliam!" Elyndor exclaimed.

"How could a Pariah possibly save your life, Alpha?!" Eliam pressed, his voice rising an octave because he was baffled. "Defective creatures like them cannot even save themselves from the laws of nature, let alone save you! And you... you even spent the night with a lowly creature like her?!"

"She truly saved me, Eliam!" Elyndor cut in harshly, unwilling to accept Luisa being belittled.

Elyndor's hand moved quickly, feeling his own chest, gripping his half-open shirt. "Don't you see the scar on my chest? My heart was nearly destroyed by a silver bullet! But that woman saved me. She healed me by removing all the silver poison that was burning my blood!"

Eliam furrowed his brow deeply. He stepped forward, staring intently at his leader's broad chest. "But... there is no scar there, Alpha."

Elyndor's hand movement immediately froze. "Impossible! There must be!" Elyndor began frantically feeling his chest skin, scratching softly as if trying to find damaged skin texture. "You know that scars from silver bullet poison can never disappear for a lifetime! There must be a mark! She truly cut me open and removed that bullet from my chest!" he said with fervent conviction.

Eliam leaned forward again, examining Elyndor's chest very carefully to ensure he had not missed even the smallest line. However, the result remained the same. The skin over the Alpha's heart looked healthy and smooth, as if it had never been touched by that deadly metal.

"You saw it yourself, didn't you, Eliam?" Elyndor pressed, his voice beginning to tremble from overwhelming confusion.

"No, Alpha," Eliam answered softly, the same confusion reflected in his eyes. "There is no scar at all on your body."

"Impossible," Elyndor said, panicking and trying to deny it.

Both of his hands were still feeling his own smooth chest. He could not see, but he remembered clearly how the agonizing pain had suddenly subsided. When Luisa healed him, he knew his wound had closed, but the natural law of the wolf kind never lied; silver poison always left a scar on their bodies.

"Is it possible... she has the ability to erase the scar from that silver poison?" Elyndor murmured, more to himself.

"Or perhaps you are hallucinating, Alpha," Eliam interjected coldly.

Elyndor immediately clenched his jaw, unwilling to have his sanity questioned. "I am not hallucinating, Eliam! That herbalist truly helped me! I felt my chest burning, I was nearly dead, but that woman pulled me back from the brink of death!"

"That is most likely the natural regenerative effect of your Alpha power rising spontaneously without your realization," Eliam argued, trying to remain rational even though his mind was still struggling to accept it. "That is why you could recover so quickly. A Pariah cannot possibly possess such a miracle. That creature cannot even shift, Alpha. How could a failed wolf, rejected by their own moon, possibly cure silver poison?"

Elyndor was immediately silenced. Eliam's words struck his pride. However, deep in his heart, his wolf instinct was completely certain that Luisa had truly saved his life. The woman's scent, the touch of her cold hands—all of it was too real to be called a delusion. It was just that he did not want to argue further about this seemingly impossible matter with his Beta.

"You seem too exhausted, Alpha. We had better return immediately," Eliam said, his tone softening yet firm. "And I hope... you do not make a fatal mistake by involving yourself further with that outcast wolf. If the elders or other packs find out you spent the night with a Pariah, you could face major trouble."

Elyndor remained silent, letting the darkness cloud his mind, which was now filled with confusing bewilderment.

"Forget about that Pariah woman. We had better return to the mansion and thwart the intentions of the concubine and Lord Blackely," Eliam continued, reminding him. "You must receive treatment immediately, because your political marriage to the Alpha's daughter of the Cindermoon pack is drawing near. We must prepare everything perfectly."

Eliam then signaled to his soldiers to help Elyndor walk out first. However, before they stepped outside, Eliam held back one of his trusted soldiers. He whispered a secret order without Elyndor's knowledge.

"Burn this hut to the ground," Eliam ordered in an exceptionally low voice. "Leave no trace that could connect the Alpha to that outcast wolf. We cannot let something trivial like this become a problem later on, because that outcast wolf could become a disaster for all of us, especially Alpha Elyndor."

"Yes, Beta."

Without Elyndor's knowledge, who had lost his eyesight, sparks of fire began to ignite the walls of the herbal hut, preparing to devour the only place that had been the silent witness to the intimacy between the Alpha and the Pariah.