"Hop on my back, my beautiful. I'll carry you to our table. I'm sorry it took an entire day to find a nice place for me and you to sit," the King said and the Alpha wasn't sure if that was a good idea.
The King himself was covered in blood; fresh blood. His long gray hair was now filled with patches of blood, his robes were bloody, and he looked like shit. His arm was scratched, and seemed to have a deep wound.
There was a fresh cut on his face, more precisely, it looked like someone had tried to claw his left eye out. That didn't bother the King though. His legs were wobbly, from fighting for too long, and he was slowly fading in and out of consciousness.
However, he hoped that his beautiful mate wouldn't be worried about him. Besides, the Alpha hated him, so it was a good thing, right?
"Have you seen your state? Which back am I to hop on? What the fuck happened to you?" Alpha Park asked and the King chucked amusedly.
It was almost like the Alpha cared for him, but that wasn't supposed to happen.
No one needed to care for him. He was dangerous, he was cruel, he was sinister, and the very evil that needed to be cleaned out of the world. So, he wasn't expecting empathy.
"Are you doubting my strength?" the King asked and the Alpha just stared at the King with a bored face.
"Are you doubting my strength?" the Alpha mocked before the mockery turned into anger and he sighed frustratedly. This wasn't what he had signed up for when he had wanted to come down for breakfast; which he was planning to use to negotiate his release. Perhaps he could make a run for it, right?
"Even when you mock me, your voice is angelic, my beautiful. I could listen to you all day but I need to get you out of this mess. So come, Jiminie. Hop on my back, let's get out of here," the King insisted the Alpha declined.
"So, you can drop me on the dead bodies? No, thank you. You lead the way, I'll follow. It's not like I can get out of here on my own," Alpha Park said and the King sighed.
He knew his Erasthai was crazy and stubborn, but then there wasn't much he could do, especially when he was sleepy himself.
"Fine. Follow every step I take," the King said, and the Alpha nodded. He hated what he was seeing but frankly, there wasn't much of a choice at the moment.
"You're insane. People really were right about you and your craziness," Alpha Park said as he followed the King. A few steps forward, the King flattered, making the Alpha see for himself the extent of the damage that had been down to the King.
The Lycan King's back was torn, like he had been in some torture chamber the entire time. There were whip marks on his back that weren't healing, and they looked so thick and deep.
The fabric on his back was torn, and Alpha Park could see that some of the fabric had been etched into the wounds.
'What happened to you?' the Alpha asked as he watched his mate struggle to get up.
He considered leaving him there given the circumstances, but there was something about seeing King Agust in pain that made the staring Alpha angry. It riled him up, and he wanted vengeance, for a man he hated with all of him.
The raw anger was so intense that he hadn't even realized he was slowly growling as he followed the Lycan King.
"Killing someone from the back is a cowardly move, my Jiminie. If you want to kill me, do it from the front. Face me while at it, and make sure I know it was you who killed me, my beautiful," the King said as he stumbled a second time, making the Alpha confused even more.
"Fuck this," Alpha Park said before he walked past the King, making the Lycan King think that his defiant Erasthai was going to try and make a run for it.
However, when the Alpha walked back to him and turned his back to the King, Agust wasn't sure what to make of it. Perhaps this was kindness, but no one had ever been kind to him.
Everything he had gotten, his entire life, always had a price, and he was still paying the price of some of those things. So, it was just pointless for him to have hope, much less with an Alpha who was determined to see him gone.
"What are you doing?" King Agust asked and the Alpha stared at the man as if it wasn't obvious the Alpha had hunched so the King could hop on him.
This was madness.
Of course, the King knew, but he couldn't decide for himself. He couldn't do it, because he was always the protector, the strong one, the man who did the heavy lifting. He couldn't be a burden to the man he was mated to, he couldn't.
"I'll carry you out of this mess to the breakfast table. The longer you keep stumbling and falling, the longer my stomach gets emptier, and I don't want to lose consciousness from hunger, seeing as you are in no position to teleport us.
"How pathetic," Alpha Park said, with so much scorn in his voice. However, there wasn't anger and spite for the King, something that the King could tell for the moment the beautiful man walked past him and came back.
The alpha was trying to put on a show of spite and disappointment when in reality, he was worried sick for the man with him.
"I'll find my way. Don't worry. I have lived here for six hundred years. I know my way to every place," the King said, ignoring the Alpha before him. He forced himself to move to the side and walk on the path he was slowly making for the both of them.
"Let me help you, Xiao Xiao. I won't say a word of it to anyone. I won't judge you. You're hurting… please let me help," the alpha said and the King just snorted like this was some sick joke.
He could tell that the Alpha already knew that his name was truly Ming Xiao Zhu, and that he was trying to use that against the King. But then King Agust had lived way too long to not see this coming.
"Nice try. Come on, let's get out of here," Agust said and Alpha Park sighed frustratedly, as he walked a few feet before the King, who was not going to relent.
Each time, he made a stop and tried to help the King, but the man refused. He wasn't sure how many more hallways were left or even how many staircases, but he knew for a fact that the Lycan King was in no position to help himself.
"It breaks my heart seeing you like that, Agust," Alpha Park whispered as he walked slowly before the King.
However, the King had stopped in his tracks.
He hadn't intended to hurt the Alpha again, and seeing as he wasn't even in a position to nurse a broken heart, and didn't know where to start, the King stepped on one of the bodies, removed its spine, and decided to use the spike as her walking aid.
That way, he would be faster and his Erasthai wouldn't be heartbroken. He couldn't be the reason for this man's pain.
"Don't cry for me, Jiminie. Don't hurt me, my soul. I am fine. See?" the King said, even though the Alpha could hear the whimpers of the man before him. He could see how stubborn the King was and he had given up trying to push the King to let him help.
"I'm not hungry anymore. I'll just go back to my room. Could you please take me there?" the Alpha said, and that was the final nail on the hurting King's coffin.
He had promised his Erasthai breakfast and yet he had delayed the entire day, and now he couldn't even find his way without whimpering like some weak Lycan.
"Jiminie wait—" the King said but Erasthai wasn't having any of it.
Instead, he walked past the King in the opposite direction and tried to follow the path that they had used to get to where they were.