Alpha King’s Lost Luna by Aubrey Pepper

Chapter 17 Healer’s fear

ASHER

Once the healer left, I leaned back in the armchair in Alpha Gareth’s meeting room and released a sigh. My head was aching, as if I had a million hammers, pounding at it at once. I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers.

It was difficult to say whether the headache was from the mysterious disease worsening or the lack of sleep. I barely got a full night’s rest these days, and it was, beginning to take its toll on my entire body. It was simply too difficult to rest when there was so much plaguing my mind.

And now, there was someone else to consider, someone I couldn’t get out of my

head.

Cas sandra Keller.

Even though she was gone, her name ran circles in my mind, over and over, as if it were a song rather than a name.

Ca ssandra Keller, a nobody healer from a long-forgotten Pack on the border of

Wegalla.

Over the past few conversations I’d held with her, I knew there was something special about her, something weirdly familiar that drew me in in unexplainable ways. As much as I wanted to dismiss those feelings, I knew they couldn’t be ignored.

Had I heard her name before? Or known someone with a similar one? Was her face similar to one I’d seen before? I couldn’t place it anywhere in my memory, but perhaps she just reminded me of another subject… It was so hard to say.

Either way, I couldn’t figure it out.

Deep down, I knew there was no need to bring the girl all the way to Anemond with me. My son was nearly healed from his encounter with the viper and was going

to make a full recovery. And she had been right- she could easily conduct her research here and report her findings to me in the capital city.

But I wanted her to come with me.

her petite, lovely figure drew me in. Since yesterday, I’d fantasized about the way her slender hips curved and how much I wanted to place my hands on them and draw her to me in an

I hadn’t taken any interest in any woman after

this woman that

out and interrupted my

few I actually trusted. Despite being the king of the realm, there were few I could trust in

me for as long as I could remember. He had been my bodyguard since I was very young, and was the only

older man of nearly fifty, with deep-set blue eyes, and hair that had turned prematurely white. He was broad and muscular and reminded me of a kinder

the empty room, he stopped in front of me and

healer’s bags are all packed,”

her belongings while we spoke,

I wondered, and I pinched my nose again as my head continued to pound. I closed my eyes again and

on the kitchen table,”

her assistant before

my eyes flew open.

read it?”

it had to be suspicious if even Lancel found it

“It seems that the healer was preparing to leave this Pack for good. She planned to leave her clinic to her

repeated back.

and he lowered his voice slightly.

I frowned. “Really?”

“I may be reading into the matter, but I think she may

afraid of Anemond.”

repeated

nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”

up from my

afraid she might struggle to take on the responsibilities I’m asking of her. Why else would she try to run

felt foolproof, yet Lancel didn’t seem

he said. “But that’s not quite what I

urged, and I released a sigh. With my head pounding as severely as it was, I needed rest, and