CHAPTER 79: 79

NYLAH

"Excuse me?" I retorted, staring at the old man with an arched brow.

"Don’t be offended by it, ladies. This is just to ensure that no one else dies in your hands. You both just lost a patient. From what I hear, it might be your first time." The old man replied regarding Sofia and I with a smile that didn’t sit well with me.

"Most doctors or people who work in hospitals lose it when they see someone die. Especially if they attended to the person when the person was brought in. It leaves a trauma in them. Sometimes, most workers don’t recover, while some need a break to think through it " he explained, but we were still not buying it.

"I understand that both of you took care of the patient when she was brought in yesterday. You both need to take days off and rest. Think through everything and remind yourselves that it wasn’t your fault." I arched a brow at his words.

Sofia’s expression didn’t even shift.

"I think we are sound enough to continue work at the hospital. We can even perform an operation if need be." Sofia spoke this time around, and I nodded at her words.

"Thankfully, there will be no need for that. I will be in charge of the hospital while you two take your rest for a couple of days." He replied. The smile on his face didn’t settle well with me.

"Why will you do that? Are you a doctor?" I was a little pissed by his words.

Why did he think he could take over the pack’s hospital?

"I won’t say I am. But I am knowledgeable when it comes to plants." He replied quite confidently.

"I think you should tell us what the cause of her death was instead of taking over the hospital. You should do what you are here to do." Sofia blurted.

"Yes, you claim you heard from the goddess, so why don’t you tell us why the female died even though she looked like she was recovering before we left her to go to sleep." I added.

Sofia’s gaze and my gaze were so intense that I thought he would break any minute from the intensity.

"That is one of the reasons I want to inspect the hospital to see if there is anything that looks suspicious." He replied, but Sofia and I didn’t buy it.

The hospital was the only place the pack members could come and feel safe and relaxed to get treatment. We could put that in the hands of a stranger.

Even though he was given a rank in the pack, we couldn’t trust him yet. For all we knew, he might be sent to set us up or ambush us one of these days.

"I hope you know that I am the pack’s advisor, and I have to inspect everything to know what the cause is and what the solution is." He said, and I could hear the authority in his voice.

"Well, we weren’t told that you were made the advisor. We had no idea you now have a title in the pack." Sofia lied, feigning ignorance

"The last time the Alpha visited the hospital, he told us that we were the ones in charge. And I haven’t seen where an advisor is in charge of a hospital. You haven’t treated any patient at the pack, so it would be unprofessional to leave the hospital in your care." I added.

"What is going on here?" A voice called from behind, and we all turned around to see Alpha Xavier looking at us with curiosity.

We all rearranged our standing positions as the Alpha closed the distance between us.

"We have been waiting for you at the hospital. What’s going on?" He asked when he approached us.

"Alpha," the old man spoke first.

"I was just trying to inform them about the new development. But they seem to be clueless about it. It’s nothing much, though." He stated with a bow of respect to the Alpha.

Xavier exchanged glances between Sofia and I before speaking.

"What are you finding hard to accept in everything he said?" He asked, and his question made Sofia and I cast him a shocked glance.

What was the Alpha talking about? Did he know about the old man taking over the pack’s hospital? Was he the one who ordered it? Why was he bending to the stranger who had been at the pack in less than a full moon? I wondered as the Alpha waited for one of us to speak.

"He said he was going to take over the pack hospital while Sofia and I got some rest, but we told him that we needed no rest since the patient didn’t die on the operation table. We came in this morning to see her that way." I pointed out when I saw that Sofia was already fuming inside.

"You see, I know you ladies are not used to leaving the hospital under an external care but he knows his things with herbs as well and he asked that you two rest because he thinks that it will help you both get better and resume with clear minds."

"Doctors tend to grow bonds with their patients, and I’m sure that you both grew bonds with the female who died. It must have gone off as a shock to you. The best thing to do now is get some rest." Alpha Xavier persisted, but Sofia and I didn’t flinch.

"I think we are perfectly fine to continue the running of the pack. I know we lost a patient, but we are both mentally and emotionally stable to continue the activities at the hospital." Sofia replied.

"Can I see you for a minute?" I asked instead, and the Alpha casted me a glance.

"Sure."

We walked away from the duo until we were certain that we were out of earshot.

"What is going on? Why are you putting a stranger in charge of the hospital because of the death of a female?" I asked before I could hold myself back.

Xavier didn’t look shocked by my question. It was almost like he had expected me to ask the question at some point.

"The death of a female can lead to the death of every member of the pack." He replied

I sighed. He still didn’t understand.

"When the female was brought in yesterday, she was battered almost beyond recognition. The claws we saw on her body ran deep into her, almost taking out her organs. That was no work of a wild bear or rogue wolf. That was something else. Something else in the woods. Something that needs to be checked out." I pointed out.

"What I expected your advisor to do is find out what beast did that to her, why the beast was around the forest close to this pack and the tendencies of that beast returning to the pack again." I added, my tone laced with anger.

I didn’t understand why Xavier would let the old man control him and make him focus on something else instead of finding out what we were really up against.

Just when we were waiting for the girl to wake up to tell us what it was, she died the next morning. It wasn’t adding up at all.

"You know, we asked him who did that to her, and he said yes, didn’t have the answers to everything. The next day, she dies, and he shows up to take over the hospital for a few days and conduct some research about what caused her death in the hospital. What about the beast that killed her in the forest?" Xavier didn’t say anything.

I expected him to tell me he mis-thought or didn’t think things through properly or he would talk to him. Something, anything would have been fine, but he just patted me on my shoulder and walked away.