First Meeting

(Alina's POV)

The courtyard was empty, yet the jeering laughter of the crowd still echoed in my ears long after they were gone. I stood paralyzed staring after where my parents had been dragged away. My hands shook, an open hollow sensation filling my chest where my heart once lay.

Gone.

Every step they had taken away from me felt like a knife carving into my soul. My parents—my only family—wrongfully imprisoned, humiliated in front of the pack they’d served faithfully for years.

The Alpha’s cruel words replayed in my mind like a taunt: You’ll die out there, alone and forgotten.

My fists clenched as I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. I wouldn't cry. Not here, not now.

They didn't deserve to witness my tears. But as I turned to leave, the reality of what lay ahead-the real part-hit with the force of a physical punch.

I had nowhere to go.

Not a house anymore, not even a home, just some mangled piece of what once stood here. The door was open, the living room ransacked, drawers out, chairs overturned. The small collection of trinkets my mother treasured lay shattered upon the floor.

I knelt beside a vase, in pieces, my fingers running over the jagged edges. My mother's favorite, she'd always kept fresh flowers in it, said they brightened the room. Now it was as shattered as everything else.

"Alina."

The cold voice snapped me back to myself. Twisting around, I found two enforcers standing in the doorway, their faces hard and unreadable.

“What do you want?" My voice came out hoarse, little more than a whisper.

"By order of the Alpha," one of them said, stepping forward, "you are to leave the pack immediately. You are no longer welcome here."

I stared at him, the weight of his words sinking in. "You're banishing me?”

"You're lucky that's all he's doing," the second growled, "after that little stunt you pulled. You should be grateful you're not joining your parents in the dungeons."

A defiant spark flew through my chest, which was then smothered out by a wave of despair. They were taking my family, my home, my life.

I forced myself to my feet, my legs shaking beneath me. "Fine," I said, my voice shaking, yet firm. "I'll leave. But it isn't over."

They said nothing. They only stepped aside, motioning for me to be on my way.

I took nothing with me. What was there to take? Everything that had ever mattered was long lost.

The wilderness was dead silent. In my scramble through the undergrowth, a sensation of towering trees closing in upon me, stalks and branches grasping at me, met a head full of thoughts, one prevailing. I had no strategy, no direction. All I knew was that I needed to keep moving.

But as the sun started to set, the forest changed. The shadows lengthened and darkened, the silence that had almost been tranquility now punctuated by the soft whisper of leaves, and the far-off howl of wolves.

My heart quickened its pace. I was not safe here. I was not safe anywhere.

A low growl behind me froze me in place.

I turned slowly. Behind them, out of shadows, trotted three wolves. Their eyes shone bright with a predator's glow. They weren't pack wolves; their tattered looks and snarls told me they were rogues.

I tried swallowing the fear scratching my throat, refused to cower. "Back off!" I shouted, my voice shaking.

The largest of the wolves snarled, showing teeth as he took another step closer. My wolf stirred weakly inside of me, but the rejection and my exhaustion had left her too weak to help. I was on my own.

I picked up a fallen branch off the ground, clutching it in front of me as if it were a weapon. "I warn you!"

They didn't listen.

The first wolf sprang, and I swung the branch as hard as I could. It connected with its side, and the wolf let out a pained yelp before tumbling backward. But in one fraction of a second, the others closed in; their teeth snapped less than an inch from my skin.

I fought hard, swinging and dodging as best I could, but these were different. Its claws raked across my arm, and I cried out, stumbling backward. Blood trickled down my skin, warm and sticky, but I couldn't stop. If I stopped, I was dead.

The other wolf knocked the branch from my grasp, its weight sending me to the ground. I bucked under it, my hands pressed to its chest while its teeth snapped mere inches from my face.

"Get off me!" I yelled, twisting and kicking, but my strength was deserting me fast.

Just as the wolf's teeth closed in, a deafening roar broke the night.

The weight was gone, the wolf yanked away; I scrambled to my feet, vision swimming, and saw a figure emerging from the dark.

With deadly precision, he wove through the rogues, his fists and claws ripping through the off guard rogues like they were nobody. One wolf leaped at him; he dodged it easily, and his hand shot out to grab its throat. He gave a brutal twist, snapping its neck before casting it aside like a rag doll.

The other two wolves faltered, but he didn't. In an instant of whirling fur, he was among them, his claws raking and his motions a dance of death.

It was over in less than a minute.

Once more, the forest was quiet, silent bodies of the rogues strewn across the forest floor. The man turned to me, his bright silvery eyes gleaming faintly in the dark.

“Are you okay?" His tone was low and authoritative, but beneath the firmness, there was a softness to take me by surprise.

I tried to answer, but my throat felt tight. The adrenaline that had kept me going started to wear off, quickly replaced by extreme fatigue and the keen sting of my injuries.

"Hey," he said, closer to me now. His tone quieted down with his words, though his presence overwhelmed me. "You are safe now.”

“Safe.” The word felt foreign. I hadn't felt safe in what seemed like an eternity.

Before I could respond, my knees buckled, and the ground rushed up to meet me.