Chapter 2-ZARA

My blood was spilling, but it had filled me with enough adrenaline to push the wolf off of me. I was now towering over it, my hand curled in a fist as I punched the snout and the face until I could hear the cracks of bones.

When the face of the wolf was bloodied and unrecognizable, I got off and found myself sitting up against a tree with my teeth gritted in pain. I placed a hand over my chest, putting pressure on the wound and waiting for it to heal.

“You’re in the danger zone,” Aera said from behind me, causing me to jump in fear at being caught out of the blue.

“Here.” She handed me a bottle and encouraged me to open it and place it on my wound. “It’ll help you heal faster.”

The sting that came with the liquid made me grunt as loudly as I could manage without being caught by one of the attacking wolves. Even though I tried to keep my screams under wraps, Aera slapped a palm over my mouth to keep me quiet.

True to Aera’s words, the wound closed up faster than it was doing before, and I was ready to move. She gave me a pat on the shoulder. “There are people behind you. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“I trust you,” I said to her with a nod as I rushed over to my target.

I headed forward and ran as fast as I could, blending with the shadows and hiding whenever I heard or saw someone. It was late, so there were fewer people walking around than there would have been if it we had arrived earlier. I was thankful to the Moon Goddess and Gray for that.

It was only when I was hiding behind another tree that I realized that I had no idea what the alpha’s house looked like.

It would only be a waste of time to run back to Gray and ask him what the Alpha’s house looked like, so I settled for standing behind the tree and looking at all the houses in the way to figure out which one of them would most likely belong to an alpha.

My eyes zoned in on a house in the midst of the others. It was not a hard house to miss, seeing as it was larger than the others. That was most likely where the alpha lived.

I walked on, getting closer to the house until I was right in front of it. But before I could find a place to hide, the front door opened and brought four men with it. They all stopped in their tracks, looking at me as I stared back like a deer in front of its hunters.

None of them looked like what I would expect an alpha to look like, so I decided to settle for the relieving thought that none of them was the alpha.

“Who are you and what do you want?” one of them asked, causing my heart rate to pick up once again. It didn’t matter if the alpha was not among them. These people would kill me at the slightest suspicion that I wasn’t one of them.

“I need to the see the Alpha,” I said in a tone that I forced to make it seem like I was a pack member. If they had not discovered that I was a rogue just yet, then I had a high chance of escaping this. “It’s very urgent. I have a message that needs to be delivered to him in person.”

They all shared looks with each other before the second one said, “I’m sure this can wait until tomorrow. He’s asleep. We can’t go in to wake him up over something minor.”

That was what it took for me to know that this was the alpha’s house. I almost laughed at the irony of it. The alpha of the pack was asleep, without the slightest idea that his people were out there being attacked and killed. Not even these guards standing in front of me had a hintabout it. Just how weak were their senses?

“I said it’s urgent! Please, just let me in. I won’t even spend—”

“I don’t remember seeing you in this pack, ever,” the first one said, walking closer. My muscles clenched once again. “Who are you?What family do you come from, and what’s your pack house number?”

I didn’t know they had numbers for their pack houses. It had to have been something that even Gray didn’t know about because he had never mentioned it. What were the odds that they would know the house whose number I would call as a lie?

“Well, what’s the matter?” he asked, towering over me now with a stone cold look on his face. “Don’t remember your pack house number all of a sudden?”

As soon as he mentioned the possibility of it, the others held out their weapons and got ready to hear what I would say to confirm the fact that I wasn’t a pack member. They were eager to get some action, and it was obvious. I was a prey in this situation.

“Of course I’m a member of the pack,” I answered with a small chuckle, almost sinking into myself as he started to sniff me.

The guard took a dagger out of where he had sheathed it and placed the tip against my chin, a fiery look in his eyes serving as a warning for me to not continue wasting his time.

“Pack house number…now,” he ordered.

“Twelve,” I said in a low whisper, my voice not even making its way past his ears. I was pretty sure the guards behind him couldn’t hear me.

“A true pack member would know that we have no pack house numbers,” he said. “And that disgusting scent on you that follows you everywhere, you can’t possibly hide it. That’s the scent that only rogues have. You’re a rogue!”