Chapter 107 A HUNDRED PERCENT HUMAN
ANDREA’S POV
The exhaustion of being awake and on edge for so many hours was beginning to wear on me, but as Kade sped through traffic like a madman, the adrenaline kept me awake, alert, and even more on edge.
I kept alternating between hoping that the woman at the factory was Nora—because that meant we’d found her—and hoping that the woman wasn’t Nora—because I couldn’t stand the thought of my friend bruised and battered.
While he drove, our hands were intertwined, and we regularly gave each other reassuring squeezes.
Finally, we got to the factory, and after the guard saw me in the passenger seat, the gates were opened.
Nico and Gina were already waiting for us at the entrance.
When I got out of the car, I pulled Gina into a brief hug. She’d been running point on the business while I was back in Italy and had been sending daily reports. She was doing great, and it gave me enough headspace to worry about the other problems in my pack.
“What happened?” I asked. “Is it Nora?”
Nico shook his head somberly. “No, she isn’t Miss Nightshade.”
Kade deflated next to me, and I squeezed his hand. “It’s okay,” I told him gently. “We’ll find her.”
He forced a smile and nodded.
I turned back to Nico and Gina. “So, who is she?”
They shook their heads.
“We don’t know,” Nico said tightly, and I sensed tension in him as we walked.
“After she passed out at the gate, we brought her in to lie in the medical bay,” Gina said. “Fabio is pre-med, so he was taking a look at her injuries. But then she woke up and lost her head at the sight of him. She won’t let anyone near her since then.”
“And you said she asked for me specifically?”
Gina nodded. “Her exact words were, ‘Help, Alpha Andrea. Help me too.’”
I frowned. “‘Too?’ You’re sure she said that?”
Gina nodded.
We stopped in front of the door of the medical bay, which was reserved for onsite injuries and served as a mini-clinic for the staff living onsite.
The door was closed, but I could hear the unmistakable sound of whimpers and sniffs.
I knocked gently on the door.
Instantly, I heard the thud of something hitting the door. “Go away!” a strangled female voice cried out. “Stay away from me!”
I noticed Nico stiffen at the sound.
I sighed and leaned forward. “It’s me,” I said loudly but gently. “Alpha Andrea.”
There was a long pause.
When I didn’t hear anything else, I spoke again. “I’m coming in, okay?”
I glanced at my escorts. “Just me.”
They nodded, and Kade clenched his teeth. “Be careful.”
I smiled softly. It was cute that he was worried about me against a woman who, from what we’d heard, was in no position to take me.
I opened the door slowly, careful of my movements so I wouldn’t spook the already spooked woman.
My eyes widened when I took in the room before me. The nurse’s desk had been upturned, and the mattresses were out of the bed frames. Everything was piled up in a corner, like a sort of shield.
And behind that ‘shield,’ the woman was huddled, hugging her knees to herself as she shook.
I took a hesitant step forward—and then froze. I sniffed hesitantly, and it confirmed what I thought. Her scent was bland and dull—like all human scents.
What was a human woman doing in my factory, looking for me?
“My name is Andrea,” I said gently. “I heard you were looking for me.”
A whimper came from behind the ‘shield,’ and I moved closer. With slow, steady movements, I pushed the table aside and then removed the mattresses till there was nothing between me and her.
I tried my hardest to keep from exclaiming when I finally saw her.
She couldn’t be older than her early twenties and had light brown hair that hung in matted clumps on her bony shoulders. She was wearing a shift dress that had once been white but was now a mixture of dirty green, musty gray, and the reddish-brown color that could only be described as old, dried blood.
She was all stick and bones, hugging her knees to herself. Bruises and scratches trailed all over her arms and legs, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she had gone through.
“Hi,” I whispered, unable to keep the emotion from thickening my voice.
She looked up at me then, her wide green eyes appearing twice as large in her face, accentuated by her sunken cheeks.
When our eyes met, something niggled at my mind. She looked... familiar.
But I’d never seen her before, I was sure of it.
“What is your name?” I whispered.
She whimpered again, a soft, terrified sound that immediately jogged my memory. The hair color, the green eyes, the tattered and dirty clothes...
She looked exactly like the older version of Ceecee, the little wolf pup I had saved with the antidote.
Could they have been related? How could that be? Ceecee was a werewolf, and this woman was a hundred percent human.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said softly, allowing my voice to take on the same tenderness it had when I had dealt with Ceecee. “It’s okay.”
“I-I know,” the woman said, her broken voice barely above a whisper.
I smiled softly.
“Th-that’s why I c-came,” she continued. I kept quiet, letting her talk, grateful that she was doing so. “I saw y-you. Y-you helped her. You helped them all.”
I had a vague idea of where she might have seen me. Especially if she had seen me helping people—the press conference.
So I asked, “By ‘her,’ do you mean Ceecee?”
The woman gave a stiff nod. “My s-sister.”
The information stunned me. They had to be half-sisters. Maybe one of her human parents mated with a wolf to have Ceecee.
“What’s your name?” I asked again.
“B-Bella.”
I smiled softly. “Beautiful,” I said. “Like you.”
That earned me a weak smile.
“If it’s okay with you, Bella, I’d like to put the room back together so you can lie on a proper bed.”
She blinked and then nodded.
With that, I stood up and tidied the room as best as I could, returning everything back to its place. For someone who looked like a gust of wind could blow her away, it was impressive that she had managed to rearrange the room in the first place.
When I was done, I went back to the corner Bella was huddled in and reached out to her. She flinched at first but eventually let me help her up.
I gently led her to a bed and made her lie down on it. She immediately curled in on herself but faced me.
I sat on a stool facing her. I eyed her body, all those scars and bruises.
“Who did this to you?” I whispered.
Bella closed her eyes, and a tear dropped from her cheek onto the sheets.
I swallowed. “Was it... werewolves?”
Her answer was the tiniest nod I would have missed if I hadn’t been staring at her intently. I wanted to press, but she was in no shape to answer any questions.
“It’s okay,” I told her in the same soft tone. “You’re safe now.”
Another tear fell as she closed her eyes.
I repeated those words again. And again.
Until her breathing evened out and I knew she had fallen asleep.
I pulled the covers over her bony shoulders, tucking her in tight.
When I stepped out of the room, only Kade and Nico were waiting for me.
They both straightened at the sight of me, and before I could say anything, Nico asked tightly, “How is she? Is she okay? Did she tell you how she got hurt? Can I see her?”
I frowned, surprised at the intensity of Nico’s questions. I remembered how he seemed to be affected more so than usual by the situation since I got here. “She’s... fine. Are you okay?”
Nico clenched his jaw and rubbed a hand down his face. “No,” he said on an exhale.
“What’s wrong?” I asked my Beta.
The look he gave me was pained. “I think—” He shook his head and clenched his hands into fists. “No, I know it.”
“Know what?” Kade asked.
Of all the revelations the day had contained, Nico’s was by far the most shocking.
“She’s my mate.”
