Chapter 7

As soon as Alpha Darius was out of the door, I was on my feet to determine what my next steps would be.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself as I looked through the window. The path right below was almost deserted. Whoever walked by was not paying any mind to the house with everyone on their way to the festival.

If there was anything I remembered about festivals, they started right after the alpha addressed the pack. There would be loud cheers to signal that they had started.

“Patience, Zara,” I told myself in a whisper as I walked toward the door and placed an ear over it.

If I focused hard enough, I would hear the heartbeats of everyone standing out there.

One.

Two.

There was no third one. There were just two guards out there. For a moment, I thought it was a trap. Perhaps Darius had caught on to the fact that I wanted to escape, and he was baiting me to make me think I could do it.

But even though I didn’t know him much, I knew that he wouldn’t do something like that. Especially on a special night like this. He didn’t think I would escape. And I hadn’t given him a reason to think otherwise.

I sighed as I heard the loud and distant cheers of the pack to tell me that the celebration had kicked off and was now in full swing.

“Patience,” I told myself again. I had to make sure they ate and drank to their fill. Werewolves loved a good party with food and drinks, and they barely knew how to stop.

I didn’t know how long I stayed in the room, pacing back and forth, but when it was long enough, I headed to the door and took a deep breath.

“Hello?! Is anyone out there?! I need help!” I yelled on top of my lungs, banging my hands against the door for the guards’ attention.

As soon as the door opened and they both walked in, I kicked the first one in the shin. They hadn’t expected me to attack, and I was using that to my advantage.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” The second one screamed as he raised his hand in an attempt to hit me. I dodged his attack and grabbed his arms, head butting him.

Ignoring the pain in my head, I kicked the first one again and pushed the second until he fell out of the window. I gasped when he landed hard on the ground with a thud and lost consciousness.

“I’ll make sure I kill you and send your body to the rest of your abominable rogues in prison right now,” the first guard threatened as he rushed toward me.

In one look, I could tell he wanted to push me out of the window just the way I had done to the other guard. I sidestepped him when he was close enough, causing him to stumble. I tripped him with my leg.

When he was on the ground, I grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed it repeatedly against the floor until his eyes were closed and there was no sign of him opening them anytime soon.

I didn’t wait to process what happened. I ran out of the house, finding the second guard on the ground, hidden in the bushes.

“Which way…” I trailed off as I tried to recall how I had gotten there in the first place. There was a tree I recognized.

When I finally figured it out, I headed straight into the shadows, hiding each time I heard footsteps or muffled voices.

I figured that they hadn’t noticed the rogue who had escaped from how cool the atmosphere was. It was only a matter of time. I had to get to the border of the pack before they would notice. By then, I would be long gone.

I quickly shifted into my wolf form and started to run deeper into the woods that led me here. I recalled how the first time I was in those bushes, it was when I was on my way to kill the alpha.

“Faster. Faster. Faster,” I kept encouraging myself in the back of my mind. “Come on, Zara.”

It was only when I slowed down for a moment to figure out if I was on the right path that I heard the sound of padding footsteps behind me. They were heavy, and they were fast.

I was being chased.

With no time left, I picked up my pace and ran even faster. My breaths became shorter as I started to pant, but that was the least of my worries. There was a chance that one of the guards had caught up to me and was now after me. In that case, my execution would come sooner than expected.

I was sure it would be even worse if the person after me was Darius, but I was sure it wasn’t him.

I grunted, abruptly shifting back into my human form when the wolf attacked me from behind. It was fast. It had caught up to me with no problems.

“Get off of me!” I yelled as I tried my hardest to fight the wolf off. It was just as strong as it was fast.

I bucked my legs in an attempt to knee the wolf in the gut, but it figured out my next move before I could even raise my knees. It held me down even more, pressing all of its weight on me.

“Get away from me, you beast!” I wheezed as I could barely breathe under the weight of the wolf.

Finally finding it appropriate, it shifted into a man who was quick to hold my hands down and pin me to the ground, reminding me of when Darius had done it the first night we met.

“Get off of…” I trailed off, unable to finish the rest of my words when I set my eyes on the face of the man who was holding me down.

I would have quickly denied the feeling if I hadn’t felt it before. The familiar feeling of my stomach tightening into knots and my heart beating faster than was possible took over.

“You… No, this isn’t possible.” I had never met this man in my entire life, yet somehow…

“Well, it seems I’ve finally found my mate in the last place I wanted to,” he said, a smirk growing on his face.

It had to be a mistake from the Moon Goddess of some sort.

I had another mate.