Thalia's POV
Internally, I froze.
But I couldn't let Ronan see that. So, I went ahead and continued walking up the stairs to where the maid was, and when she didn't move out of the way, I asked her,
"Are we going to stand here all day, or are you going to take me to the pack healer?"
She blinked rapidly, shifting her gaze to Ronan who was probably still standing where I left him, to me.
From the look that she gave me, I could tell that she wanted to ask a couple of questions.
However, that was neither the time nor the place for that.
In fact, I don't think that I was even going to answer her even if she was able to get the right time and place to ask her questions.
I mean, who was she to ask me anything?
It's not as if I had any kind of obligation to answer her.
She didn't say anything, much to my relief. Slowly, she turned around and walked into the pack house and I followed her closely behind.
I didn't want to show my face to Ronan since I knew that he would know that he had one over me.
There was no comeback that could outdo his.
Especially with the fact that he didn't just reach for anything to say. He said something that was the actual truth.
He was the reason why I no longer had my wolf, and he was also part of the reason that I was going to see the healer.
My mind was so preoccupied with thoughts that I was literally just following the maid on autopilot.
Was Ronan wrong?
Absolutely not.
Even I knew that my days as the Luna of the Obsidian Howl Pack were numbered, especially since I didn't have a wolf.
I still considered it a miracle and a glitch in the matrix that the judges of the Luna trials would even pick me as the winner, knowing that I was wolfless.
I hadn't even gotten through the first day, and I had already crossed paths with the elders of the pack.
Making a good first impression had been thrown out of the window immediately the moment that the female elder and I had a few words to exchange.
As I looked down at my wrist, that was throbbing and had turned color to a much deeper shade of purple, I knew that my problems in the pack had only began.
If I was going to survive them, I needed to make sure that I keep my chin up and not allow anyone to look down on me.
That was easier said than done, since I was an outsider, and knew that I was going to get that 'outsider' treatment with much more coldness from everyone else.
"What does he mean?" The maid finally broke the silence and asked.
This brought me back to reality and made me realize that I was still following her and we were walking down a hallway that I didn't recognize.
Looking around, and even looking behind me, I tried to see whether she was talking to someone else.
And that included the guards that were following us earlier.
I noticed that they were nowhere to be seen, and that it was just me and her in the hallway.
"Pardon me?" I excused myself, waiting for her to repeat her question, just to make sure that she had even opened her mouth in the first place.
"Is he the reason that you don't have your wolf?" She asked, making me certain that I didn't hallucinate the first time.
I would have much liked if she had asked a normal question,such as,
'What does it feel like to become Luna?'
But no.
She had to go straight for the hard hitting questions. And I didn't feel like she deserved any answer from me.
I mean, it's not like she was going to do anything if don't answer her.
And that's why I decided to ignore her.
Perhaps she was just going to shut up and keep walking, just like we were doing before Ronan showed up.
Instead, she didn't just shut up, and neither did she stop there.
"He is right. Without a wolf, life will be unbearable for you in this pack. I'm sure I don't need to show or explain it to you.
You've already seen it first hand."
Once again, I didn't bother to engage with her with the hopes that she would just shut the fuck up.
The last thing that I needed was another person whispering in my ear and telling me that I wasn't going to survive in the pack and capacity that I was in.
"That's why elder Serenya became..... aggressive...." She went on.
And that's when I knew that I had enough of her talking.
I wasn't going to stand there and fight my demons in my head and also have someone whispering everything negative that could happen in my other ear.
That wasn't just going to happen.
"Shut the fuck up Maria! Or whatever your name is!" I finally snapped, making sure that my tone was unquestionable of how fed up I was with the shit that she was saying.
She was silent for a couple of second, probably surprised that I had snapped at her. And when she opened her mouth again, she only made me want to rip out my eardrums right there and then.
"My name isn't even Maria. It's..."
"....like I give a fuck what your name is!" I cut her off, wondering if the only thing that she could have thought of talking about in that moment was the fact that I had gotten her name wrong.
And that's when I felt like I was starting to lose all the composure that I had from the moment that we had walked away from the event.
"From the moment that Alpha Kade ordered you to bring me to the pack healer, you've been so passive aggressive with me it's as if I'm making you miss your own birthday party.
Here's some newsflash, whatever they were cheering on as we walked to this pack house could be nothing more than just a stupid announcement that Kade had made to get the people forget the altercation between me and the elders."
I literally stopped her and forced her to look at me in the middle of the hallway before I continued talking,
"I'm supposed to be there, celebrating how I've managed to break the chains of bondage that bound me to Alpha Ronan for years.
However, instead of doing that, I'm here with you looking for the pack healer to see what he or she can do about my bruised wrist!"
She was silent for a few seconds before the continued.
"This might be boring for you, but that can't compare to what it's about to become for me.
If you see me smiling knowing that my life is about to get ten times harder in this pack, not only with the elders but also Alpha Kade, it should be a clear enough sign that life with Ronan wasn't just unbearable.
It was hell on earth.
Now, unless you want to keep making an assumption like everyone else that I don't know what I've gotten myself into, I'd advise that you shut the fuck up and keep walking."
I immediately felt like a huge burden had been lifted from off my chest and I could breathe easily.
If that was not enough to get her to keep moving and stop trying to think that she knew me better than I knew myself, I was going to fully crash out.
Luckily, she was smart enough to know when to stop, and that was the best moment for her to come to that realization.
In no time,we were moving once again, this time in the much needed silence that I wanted.
It didn't take long for us to reach a door that was at the end of one of be hallways, and on the door there was a plaque mounted with the inscriptions 'Sanatrix'.
With the little knowledge that I had gained from going through some of the books in Ronan's library and from the lessons that were taught in the Luna trials, I immediately recognized that the writing was in Latin.
And if I were to take a guess on what it meant, I went for the word 'healer'.
The maid knocked on the door, and after a few seconds, the door knob twisted, and the door was opened slowly.
My nostrils were immediately hit with a very strong concoction of scents.
There were so many scents mixed up to form a very heavy scent to the point where I couldn't single out an individual scent.
The person standing on the other side of the door was an old woman, frail and her back lurched forward, she raised her eyes to look at us.
"Paula, what are you doing here? I don't think I was expecting you." She said.
'So her name is Paula.... Kade was way off.' I said to myself.
"I know, but I'm here at the command of Alpha Kade." Paula responded.
The old lady's eyes widened as she shifted her gaze, and was staring me down.
"Alpha Kade.....well then, what's his request?" The healer asked.
But before Paula could answer her, I realized that she was staring right at my hand and was looking at the bruise.
"Well, that's not good." She immediately commented as she grabbed me by my other hand and pulled me gently into the room, with Paula following closely.
"Aren't you the contestant that was almost drowned?" She asked me as she offered me a seat.
"Yes....and I'm also the contestant that also won." I answered her, realizing that she wasn't updated on that.