Tabitha's POV
Derek suddenly appeared in my room, acting strangely.
I couldn't help but frown, wondering what was wrong with this man and why he came here acting so weird.
I stretched out my left hand, wanting to push away his body, which made me suffocate. However, when my fingers touched his body, I felt a damp liquid.
No, it was blood.
As a werewolf, I was very sensitive to the smell of blood.
"What's going on?" I immediately asked my wolf in my mind.
"There were no other scents of wolves, so he didn't experience an attack," Crystal calmly responded to me.
I turned on the light and looked at his snow-white shirt, which was covered in crimson blood. The blood was still oozing out.
How could he have turned out like this in just a short while, even though he hadn't even left the villa?
"Who did it?" I asked.
Derek, however, didn't care at all and instead reached out his hand to touch my face.
"Tabitha, I hurt your hand. I am giving it back to you with my arm. Could you please not be mad at me?"
There was an almost perverse thirst in his eyes, leaving me speechless.
"What's wrong with you?" I spoke frankly.
Derek did not deny it, as he touched my cheek with his blood-stained fingers.
"Yeah, I lost my mind, Tabitha. As long as you won't leave me, you can do anything to me."
"Can I kill you?" I asked coldly.
Blood slowly dripped down from my face along his fingertips, and he smiled with an extra tenderness.
"I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid that if I die, I won't be able to see you anymore, Tabitha. Don't leave me."
I watched the blood dripping onto the bedsheet and felt infuriated and ashamed.
"Get lost." I had heard Derek say that his mother had a severe mental illness and would self-harm when the illness attacked her.
Derek had been immersed in the death of Elena and the struggles of our marriage for the past two years.
I felt that his psychological issues were no better than Elena's.
And now he had already started showing self-destructive tendencies.
I watched the horrifying bloodstain, afraid that he would go crazy and even hurt me.
I instinctively protected my unborn baby who was only an early fetus, and I dared not anger Derek too much.
"If you have anything to say, bandage yourself up first. I need to sleep even though you don't. Look, you've made the bed all bloody." I tried to calm him down.
"Sorry, Tabitha. I couldn't control it. I will clean it up for you right away."
He reached out and scrubbed the bed sheet, but the more he scrubbed, the dirtier it became.
Just like our relationship, the harder he tried, the further he pushed me away.
I felt nauseous and could only leave Derek alone. I quickly ran to the bathroom and vomited.
I hated blood—it would remind me of the day I lost my pup.
Back then, I hemorrhaged badly, and my baby was covered in blood, too.
Derek wanted to pat my back to comfort me, but when I saw the blood on him, I vomited even more violently.
"Stay away from me. You make me wanna puke." I didn't hide my disgust at all.
Derek looked at me from a distance, his eyes filled with tenderness.
Derek's mind cleared up a bit, and then he turned around and left to bandage himself up.
Speechless, I looked around and stared at the blood in the room. What on earth was wrong with Derek?
I changed to sleep in another room and opened the window, breathing in the fresh air with a floral scent. The restlessness in my heart dissipated a little.
After Derek made a fuss, he disappeared instead, and I couldn't be bothered to deal with him.
I didn't know how conflicted Derek was in his mind.
I just felt as if a monster was about to crawl out of his body.
He struggled to control as the monster tore at his flesh, screaming madly.
His handsome face gradually twisted.
Although I didn't know about Derek's inner struggles, I knew that this man, this Alpha, was going through his own hell.