Book 2 Teaser

“Happy birthday to you...”

The people were clapping while singing in Russian, smiling at her, and loosening up. Anna smiled shyly at everyone singing the birthday song while she awkwardly sat in the middle in front of her three-tier princess cake. Her body’s stiffness immediately relaxed upon feeling a peck on her cheeks. She grinned at her father and clapped her hands too. “Happy birthday, Anna!”

“Thank you!”

She was grinning all day. Her parents had the best 10th birthday planned out for her, and she was at the peak of enjoyment throughout. It’s this joyous every year, but she’s always thankful every time. At a young age, her parents had taught her to value even the most mundane things in life, and she’s still living up to it.

“Anna! Let’s play!”

Her playmates invited her immediately after finishing lunch. Despite having a full stomach, she still pushed herself up to burn calories and do some physical things, like her mother always advised her to do to stay healthy.

“Wait!” She giggled. “I want to open my presents first! Can I, Daddy?” She pouted at her father.

Axel nodded, smiling at her while his hands lay at rest around her mother’s waist.

“Of course, milaya. Go on.”

Anna skipped to the table stacked with presents and eeny meeny miny moed to pick which one to open first. Even in their small neighborhood, she still received dozens of presents, which she is grateful for, as she should be. Their small crowd of a pack cheered her on as she picked a fairly small rectangular present.

She was grinning ear to ear as she unwrapped the gift, only to see an almost empty box inside. Her smile fell as she took the small piece of paper, the only thing inside. Is this her gift?

“Cheers to the devastation,” she read out loud, her confused voice reigning supreme as silence engulfed the pack neighborhood.

What is ‘devastation’? Her vocabulary was still very limited when it came to English as she was raised in a Russian environment.

“Mamá? Papá?” She frowned at her parents, failing to notice how the air around her became heavy and her parents’ faces had gone dark.

It only took a heartbeat for her mother to reach for her hand and pull her behind.

“Hide, Anna.” Her mother’s voice was firm and a little bit shaky, far different from her daily voice.

“You know what to do. Lead the other kids. Mamá and Papá will deal with them, and I promise to go back to you after.”

Even her father, who was always silent yet carefree, was caught clenching his jaw and pulling out a firearm familiar to her. He once told her that those guns only get pulled if a threat is nearby, and she immediately understood the situation, so she ran to the mansion’s small compartment made exactly for her and the other pups.

All before shooting her mother and father a worried look.

When she turned around and ran to safety, an explosion went off behind her. She couldn’t bear to look at who survived that...and who didn’t.

“We should go out, I think it’s safe now,” said one of her playmates who had just finished crying silently. There were only four of them that made it, the other dozen or two being shot in the back by masked men while they were running.

Anna, who also wanted to cry, couldn’t feel her tears threatening to fall from her eyes. They were just not there.

“It has been twenty minutes,” another whispered. “They must be gone now.”

“No,” Anna intervened. “Papá has told me to always stay vigilant even after the noise is gone and wait for thirty minutes before coming out. If the enemy is gone, then Papá will find us soon.”

“What if he’s dead and won’t be able to look for us?”

Anna glared at him. “Stop saying nonsense. Papá is the Alpha. He’s strong, and brave, and he’s my hero, so he will save us!”

She was about to add more when they heard the floor creaking above them. The four of them simultaneously widened their eyes and looked at each other in panic.

“Find the girl!”

The voice was barely incoherent, but she understood their English. As a multilingual at 10, she knew they were fluent speakers—and they were most certainly not her father.

“I smell them.”

She gulped.

One of her playmates started crying uncontrollably, desperately trying to bite back her sobs and stay quiet—but it was a futile attempt to stay hidden because the trapdoor they went into had just opened.

“Well, hello there, children.”

—

Anna, the sequel of His Claws On My Neck, is currently in the works!

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