Caspian woke up with a frown, he was completely disoriented as he tried to make sense of where he was.
The moment he tried to sit up brought the memories tumbling back, a sharp pain ricocheting up his spine.
His entire body was sore, and not in a ’blissful, post-sex haze’ way, but in a ’spent the night running through the woods from bears’ way.
Caspian laid back for several long minutes, he really wanted to just go back to sleep.
Asher’s scent was fading from the room, it meant that he had already been asleep for several hours after...
His thoughts trailed off, was he ever going to get an answer of what it was?
He lived with an Alpha for three years and he didn’t ever remember Noah losing his sense of self.
The only person who could provide answers to the conundrum was long gone so he pushed the memories to a side of his head.
He sat up with a soft sound of pain, he was going to need to lie in a scalding hot bath for a couple of hours.
But before that, he needed to check up on Jael.
So although it wasn’t a very smart thing to do, he slowly trudged to the door, wincing with every step.
He was drowning in Asher’s shirt, and every inch of his skin was covered. The only spots visible were his face and parts of his neck.
And even then, anyone could already see the tips of several darkening bruises, a visible stripe around his neck reminiscent of fingers.
He honestly looked like he had been strangled, and if he was too occupied with trying to get to Jael, he might have covered it better.
Caspian walked with little steps so that he wasn’t visibly wincing with every movement, knocking quietly when he got to Jael’s bedroom.
He half-expected not to get a response, it was almost noon, and the Beta was most likely already long gone.
He was pleasantly surprised to hear Jael invite him in, pushing open the door to peek his head in.
Caspian smiled at the sight of Jael propped up in bed like a good patient, most of his bandages were off, and he looked almost brand new.
"Good to see you’re still in bed," He drifted in, "How do you feel?"
Jael’s eyes were dimmer than the first time he had met the Beta but it didn’t take the sharpness out of them.
Caspian would take that as a positive response, "Have you eaten yet?"
"Yes. Have you?" The Beta turned the benign interrogation on him, his voice oddly quiet.
It hit Caspian only just then that he hadn’t. "No, but in my defense I just got out of bed..."
"And do the marks on your neck have something to do with that?" Jael asked bluntly.
Caspian wrapped his small hands around his neck a little too late. "I-It’s nothing serious," He mumbled, wondering why he felt guilty about it.
Maybe it was because Jael had told him that this would happen again, and yet he turned down the Beta’s offer to start a new life far from Haines.
"Yeah, right. That’s why you look like you were dragged around by a rope around your neck." He quipped, closing his eyes and sinking into his pillows.
Caspian gulped, unable to say a thing to that. He hadn’t seen the bruises yet so he didn’t know how bad they were but Jael was being rather graphic.
"Was it Asher?" He tagged on in a quiet voice that wouldn’t have been heard if the room wasn’t already deathly silent.
Caspian didn’t need to give an audible response, the answer was already painfully obvious.
But even more than that, he wanted to defend the Alpha. Asher had told him to leave, he was the one who consented to this.
"He gave me the option to leave, I chose to stay," He said somberly, feeling like he was being scolded by Jael again.
The Beta snorted, "And you think he would have let you leave?"
Caspian’s eyes widened at that, he had never considered that, there had been no reason to.
"The first time it happened, I had to strap him down in the basement to keep him away from you," Jael spilled easily.
Caspian was already way in too deep for him to withhold information from the other.
Caspian slowly sat on one of the couches, doing a bad job of hiding his wince which Jael immediately picked up on.
"We’ve got to get you looked over." He said gravely.
Caspian waved his concerns away, "I just need to sleep it off, I’ll be fine."
The waving motion made the long sleeves of Asher’s shirt fall back to reveal the black-blue bruises around his wrists.
That was Jael’s cue to get to his feet, doing it fluidly as most of his injuries had merely been on the surface.
The only internal injury he had gotten from the incident the day before was the crushing weight on his heart.
"Either you get dressed, or I’m taking you this way," He threatened lightly but it was clear he meant every one of his words.
"Taking me?" Caspian frowned, getting to his feet again like a geriatric. "Are we leaving the mansion?"
"If I let any of the doctors in the mansion give you a thorough checkup, Asher is going to tear them limb from limb."
Caspian didn’t protest further, Asher flipping out aside, he would rather not be looked over by an Alpha.
He obediently got dressed, wisely avoiding the mirrors in the walk-in closet.
He wore a sweatshirt to cover his wrists, throwing a scarf around his neck as well.
Caspian paused at the door when he opened it to find Jael looking very worried behind it.
"Can you tell me why this is happening?" He asked steadily.
Jael avoided his gaze for the first time, a guilty expression on.
"It would be better for you to find that out from Asher," He deflected his question.