Chapter 3

Lucia’s POV

“I thought I was going to die,” Daniel wailed into my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes, patting his shoulder. “There. There. It’s alright.”

Peter looked at me through the rearview mirror again. “Is there a problem?” I asked him.

“You seem different, Lucia.”

If Peter had not noticed, I might have been disappointed.

“Why do you say so?”

“Only a few days ago, you were so excited at the thought of making an alliance with the werewolves. If I did not know better, I would think you went there to wage war.”

I chuckled. “Waging war is not the best option for us right now?”

How else would I take back everything Reese and his pack animals had taken from us?

My hand tightened around the contract in my hand.

Unlike last time, Reese had not proposed marriage but a trade contract. Grain in exchange for the anti-lycanthropy perfume.

This was only possible because in my last life, the humans did not any real leverage over the wolves and had to accept their desire for an alliance as a favour.

Not anymore.

“Was giving them the formula for the perfume really a good idea? What if they make a counter for it?”

I smirked. By the time they figured out how to neutralize this, I would have already replicated the upgraded version.

“Don’t worry about it and trust me,” I said, my hands running through Daniel’s long hair.

He snuggled closer to me, soon falling asleep on my shoulder.

“Peter, take me straight to the labs.”

***

I parked beside the border, jutting my head out of the window.

“Reese Enderwood, I have been meeting you far too often than I would like.”

His brow quirked. “So you do know who we are. Kathy was right.”

“The slut?”

“Can you not call Kathy a slut?” he said, his voice a little tight.

I nodded. “She is your Luna, isn’t she? I heard the whole mate thing is a big deal among werewolves.”

He blinked at me once, twice and then burst into loud laughter. “Katherine is not my Luna. At best, a bed warmer.”

The selfish bastard. He let a woman he did not even care for walk over me, his real wife.

“What is it that you want?” I muttered, knowing that he heard me.

He walked closer to the car. “I have what your people need. The money and power you need to really make the South your own.”

Those lines sounded painfully familiar. They were the ones he used when he first brought up marriage.

“The other human factions are pressing in on you all from the west. The wild animals from the east–”

“The wolves are in the North and the magical species are further south,” I completed for him. “Can you skip the geography lessons and get straight to the point?”

Anger radiated from him but he kept his cool. “South City will soon be swallowed up. Agreeing to my terms is in your best interest.”

His words instantly triggered a replay of the explosions going off all over the city, reducing my home and people to ashes.

How dare he stand there and feign concern when in a few years from now, he would be the very source of our destruction?

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Correct me if I am wrong but that sounds like a threat.”

A cruel smirk slipped onto Reese’s lips. “Will you get down from that car or will I make you do it?”

I revved the engine in response, reaching for my gun.

“Do not bother with that little spray of yours,” he said, his nails extending into sharp claws. “Your cheap tricks do not work on–nngh.”

My bullet penetrating his skin interrupted his monologue.

He looked down at the wound, his face a perfect mixture of awe and shock.

I did not wait for the novelty to wear off before I put the car into drive, speeding back to safe ground. But the thing about Alphas was that they were fast.

Very fast.

A large mass slammed into my car from the passenger’s side, knocking it off the road.

The car swerved off the road, going down the slope into the swamp beneath. I cut open my seatbelt and kicked the car door open.

Before I could run far, Reese’s wolf knocked me down, standing over me.

“Go ahead. Kill me,” I snarled. “You think erasing me will silence South City? In your dreams.”

Reese turned back to human form, not at all ashamed of the fact that he was butt-naked. His hand grabbed my hair so tightly that it hurt.

“This is not a negotiation,” he said slowly. “I will come in two weeks to marry you. Have yourself prepared for me by then.”

I spat on his face. He froze, feeling the liquid slide down his cheek.

My body flew back from the impact of his slap.

“You low-life creature,” he hissed. “How dare you?”

His hand wrapped around my throat, lifting me off my feet. “Die.”

My hand scrambled in my jacket, feeling for my syringe. When Reese saw me moving, his hand around my neck only got tighter.

“Fuck you,” I muttered and was about to jab it into his arm when an arrow whizzed past the back of my head and embedded itself in Reese’s shoulder.

Reese dropped me flat on the ground and stumbled backwards, his eyes scanning the tall buildings around us.

“Who the hell is that?” he snarled.

I crawled forward and stabbed his leg with the syringe, emptying a dosage of anti-lycanthrope ten times more potent into his body.

Reese kicked me. My body soared in the air, landing a few feet away. Blood spluttered onto the wet floor.

I watched through hooded eyes as Reese stumbled away.

Life was really unfair. Even after all that, he could still walk, while two kicks from him made me feel like I would die from the sheer pain alone.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

“You should be more concerned about yourself,” a voice said above me.

Before I could pull out my gun, his hand hit the pressure point on my neck. “Go to sleep.”