The Lycan King's Healer
The Lycan King’s Healer – Chapter 12

Aldrich

As we walked into the lion’s den that was once merely my living room, I tried to focus on other things–the conversation that needed to be made, the argument that would surely break out.

The threat I would rattle both of their bones with. The murderous anger I’d have to stifle.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she looked.

Cathy walked in with her chin high, and she looked like royalty way more than I ever did.

She didn’t even look earthly–she ascended royalty, more like supernatural beauty. The glistening, ruby gown defined her blonde hair, the gold around her neck lightening the green in her eyes.

She hated me, but I would fight wars for her, alone.

My ex-lover and her husband look at us with unmasked surprise. They certainly were not expecting a guest. I smirked at them, placing a hand on Cathy’s lower back. I hoped she wouldn’t bite my hand off for the gesture later. Elias sipped from his cup of tea with a look of approval.

He stared at her with no trace of recognition. “Aldrich,” he said in greeting, his eyes never straying from her. They had a predatory gleam. “New girlfriend?”

I pulled her closer to me, silently hoping she’d know that it is part of the role we should play in front of them. “No, this is my wife, Cathy. You met her at the wedding.”

Cathy, clearly uncomfortable in this close proximity to me, slightly readjusted to step away. I automatically tightened my grip around her waist, turning her to the side to shield Elias’s burning gaze from her.

I saw the fury in Emily’s cat-slanted eyes from across the room. She was silent, but it was silent like a lightning storm. Quiet but lethal. I would not be surprised if snakes started slithering out of her eye holes to bite us in the face.

Walking my wife into the room, Emily purred in a tone oozing with sweet malice. “Hello, Cathy, what’s wrong with your legs?”

“Hello, Emily, Aldrich was a bit too aggressive in bed last night,” she snapped back without missing a beat, “I had assumed you’d understand, but I guess not.”

Elias spit out his tea.

Too stunned to speak, I laughed, and it came out sounding like a strangled cough. My face flushing with b***d, I looked down. “Uh, yes. My bad.”

I pulled her tighter against my chest, quietly expressing my approval. She still stiffened, and secretly pressed her elbow into my lower stomach.

“You’re quite fond of this soft little thing,” Elias mused, smirking. He still stared at Cathy.

The wolf inside of me vehemently agreed, a rumbling laugh in the beast. You want to have s*x with her now, make her unable to walk.

“I am,” I responded instead, pushing back the animal in me. Shut up.

Emily interjected, “So I hear you have not visited the King and Queen, even after all these years,” she inspected her nails, judgment pouring from every word, “rather strange of you to not meet your mother and father-in-law?”

“I have met the Queen, actually” Cathy calmly answered, shrugging nonchalantly, “seems like there’s a lot of things you are not aware of. Like your husband cheating on you.”

I looked down at her in shock again. How did she know that? After being locked away in a cottage for four years, I’d assume it was quite literally equivalent to living under a rock. I contemplated if she hadn’t lost contact with the outside world and perhaps had someone keeping her informed.

But who?

A sizzling jealousy seized me as I wondered if it was Theo’s father. It was like lava, heating my veins. Was she still holding onto him, and that was the reason she was protecting his identity? Absentmindedly, my grip around her tightened, and she jumped at the sudden squeeze.

“Oh, please. Even the King has mistresses,” Emily scoffed, feigning a dignified acceptance of her husband’s infidelity. But she looked at Cathy like she wanted to gut her organ by organ.

“Aldrich doesn’t,” Cathy smiled with the same artificial sweetness, “a man’s charm needs not to be proved by having mistresses.”

I cleared my throat, still a bit awkward accepting my wife’s compliments. My wife who hated me. “Yes, babe, my heart only belongs to you”

It wasn’t a lie.

She seemed to know this, because a pink shade crossed her own cheeks as I kissed her forehead.

“My gosh, how different of a side this is of you, Aldrich,” Elias chuckled, “you’re no different than a lad who just discovered his first love.”

The wolf inside me laughed.

I smiled at him, and still wasn’t lying when I said, “I can’t deny, I am quite fascinated by how she affects me. Even her scent makes me nervous.”

In the past, Emily was always the one to come onto me. She was the active one in the relationship, and I never had to try very hard–there was no adrenaline or nervousness. Perhaps I never rejected any of her advances because I knew her since childhood, and figured it was fated to happen regardless.

There was one summer evening where we were playing tag. It was sticky and humid out, and we were playing in the lavender fields. Flushed after running, we sat down and talked about school that day.

I told her about the pretty girl in my math class, Lily. “She has hair that looks like sunshine and I like her smile,” I told her innocently.

Emily did not react like I thought she would; instead, she got really mad for a moment. She frowned, an ugly expression my mom always told me to never use. But then it left her face and she smiled at me. She even laughed.

“Oh, silly, Aldrich!’ she sang, “you are not going to be with Lily.”

Confused, I asked why not.

Emily giggled, picking a piece of lavender from the grass. “You see this, Al? The stem and the purple part are attached forever– the purple won’t grow without the green,” she said confidently, then placed the lavender in my lap. I looked down at it, puzzled.

“I am the green and you are the purple. We are supposed to be together forever.”

Throughout our adolescence, instances happened like this, the degree merely deepening with age. Lavender metaphors turned into dates, dates turned into k****s, and k****s turned into promises of eternal love. Sure, the love was there.

But this excitement, this blushing nervousness, was never existent with Emily.