Chapter 3

PACK AND PREY

Aiana's POV

I’d barely settled back behind the bar when Mary Ann nudged me and her plain blue eyes darted toward the stranger and his group. 

“Those wolves haven’t taken their eyes off you all night. You know them?” she asked me with a smile on her lips. 

I snorted while I wiped down the counter. She of all people knew that I didn't have friends and I hated werewolves for that matter. 

 “No, and I don’t plan to.” I quiped. 

“Really?” She asked as she leaned in closer and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I heard some of the regulars say they’re new in town. Alpha and his pack. That one’s Jeremy,” she pointed discreetly at... you know who. “and the others are his pack. Apparently, they’re scouting.” she informed me. She was the gossip of the both of us. 

Jeremy. 

The name suited him. Not the fact that he was an Alpha but the fact that he looked..... intimidating and didn't mind his own business. 

Okay, I had developed a somewhat grudge on him. Deal with it. 

But then again, he was an Alpha. Figures. 

That did explain a lot I gotta say—the control, the effortless power, and the way his presence had the whole bar on edge, even if most people didn’t realize it. 

Alpha energy wasn’t simply something you could fake, and Jeremy exuded it. All of it. Still, it didn’t sit right with me. Alphas always came with complications, and I had enough of those in my life. I didn't want to add to that. Not now, not even ever. 

But there was something else, something more than just wariness for him. Despite myself, despite everything I knew about how dangerous werewolves could be, I felt a strangely odd pull towards him. 

His aura was just so..... magnetic, primal. 

And it pissed me off, honestly. I hated feeling like I was drawn to someone that I didn’t trust. My skin still prickled from our earlier encounter.

I immediately shook the thoughts away and tried to focus my attention on the task at hand. 

Rent. Focus on rent.

It was nearly the end of the night, and I desperately needed my damn paycheck. 

My asshole of a landlord had been on my ass for weeks and his threats eviction if I didn’t come through with teg rent by tomorrow was not something I intended to joke around about. 

 Tonight’s shift was my last chance to make the payment, and right now, I couldn’t afford any distractions, especially not ones that came in the form of tall, dark-eyed, mysterious Alpha wolves.

The hours dragged by slowly while I robotically worked my time. The noise of the bar was gradually becoming dulled as the crowd were beginning to thin out. 

But still, I could still feel Jeremy’s eyes on me ever so often. Each time I glanced over at where he sat, he was watching me with an unreadable expression. His pack talked amongst themselves as they laughed out loudly and exchanged stories, but Jeremy remained silent, observed. It was becoming way beyond creepy. 

Eventually, the last one of the customers staggered out, and I got to work and cleaned up in preparation for closing. 

Mary Ann had already left, and the rest of the staff had somehow trickled out one by one and had left just me and the boss remaining. Well no one knew the boss was around because he usually was inside his office, probably counting on his money and the profit he had made.....you know, the same old shit a Mr Crabs would do while a workaholic SpongeBob did the hard work. 

I guess I was SpongeBob. I was a workaholic. I was usually if not always the last person to leave the bag and it had soon become a norm with everyone comfortable about it. I for one, wasn't bothered though, it's not like I had someone at home to go to. 

I wiped down the last table and grabbed the trash bags while I mentally prepared myself for the conversation I’d have to have with my landlord tomorrow because the rent money still wasn't complete. The thought made me want to scream, but I kept it in together. The last thing I needed at the moment was to get evicted from the only place I could call home.

The alley behind the bar was dark, the kind of dark that made your skin crawl. I usually wasn’t bothered by it because Black Creekside was full of dangerous places, and this was just another one. 

I have lived here long enough to know how to handle myself. 

I tossed the trash into the dumpster and tried to shake off the feel of disgust at the stale steaks that stank out from the dump when I heard them, the not so loud and predatory sound of footsteps behind me.

I turned as my senses immediately went into overdrive. The shadows moved quietly and to my surprise, out stepped the panther shifters from earlier. 

The ones Jeremy had scared off. Only this time, the slink ferks weren’t slinking away. They were rounding me with malicious glints in their eyes. 

I inwardly rolled my eyes. I was too exhausted for this shit. 

“Back for more?” I asked them as I glanced casually at them. 

The leader of the group grinned at me. 

"You got lucky earlier, witch. Your little Alpha friend won’t save you this time.” He said to me. 

So even he had recognized that Jeremy was an Alpha but I didn't? The joke was on me, for sure, I scoffed. 

“I don’t need saving,” I shot back at them. To keep the record straight. I could handle my self. I squared my shoulders as my heart raced, but I wasn’t about to let them see that. “But if you want to test that, by all means.” I added. 

They all moved at once and lunged at me. 

I quickly reacted on instinct as my magic came to life as I flung my hands forward and sent a shockwave of energy through the air that looked like lightening. The leader was thrown back and he crashed heavily into the wall. 

Oops, I ooofed. But the others weren’t so easily deterred. They recovered quickly and charged aggressively at me again. 

I managed to hit another one with a blast of my magis powers, but there were just too many of them and I wasn’t fast enough to keep up.

 One of them slashed at me with his claws and it ripped through my side, leaving a deep cut and I cried out in pain and stumbled back.

Blood poured from the wound and my vision blurred momentarily. I could feel my strength fade away with the loss of blood, but I refused to go down easily. I managed to summon another blast and it knocked down one more shifter to the ground, but before I could catch my breath, another blow landed at me this time it was to my shoulder.

I fell to the ground and gasped desperately for air, the world was spinning around my head. My magic sizzled. I had been weakened by the loss of blood and the leader of the pack towered triumphantly over me with mischievous eyes. 

“This is what you get for thinking you can stand up to us, witch,” he sneered at me as he raised his claws for the final strike. I knew this would be how I died. It wasn't a new thing in this city. So many people woke up to seeing dead shifters, humans and what not littered all over the ground. Maybe I would be discovered the next day and that would be the end. 

I closed my eyes and braced myself for the hit. 

But it never came.

A deep growl sounded like a rumble through the alley, it was so powerful that it shook the air around us. 

I opened my eyes just in time to see Jeremy walk out from among the shadows with his eyes glowing red. 

“Step away from her,” He growled in a low and dangerous voice. 

The panthers hesitated for a split second which apparently was too long for Jeremy. And in an instant he shifted to his Wolf form. 

Right before my eyes, his wolf bursted out of his skin in a blur of fur and teeth. He tore into the leader of the Panther shifters brutally and the sound of bones being snapped echoed through the alley. The other panthers scattered, but Jeremy didn't plan on letting them escape and so he took them down one by one. Every single one of them. 

I watched in a daze as my vision faded in and out while Jeremy made quick work of the attackers. His wolf was, I gotta say, swift, ruthless, and terrifying. 

When the last of the panthers was lying dead and breathless around the place, he shifted back to his human form adj saw that he didn't even have a single scratch on him. 

I tried to push myself up and away from him but the pain in my side was too much and I winced. Blood oozed from my wounds, and my body felt like it was shutting down. Before I could say anything to him Jeremy was by my side and his strong hands gently lifted me up.

“Hold still,” he murmured in a low, soft and tender voice. “You’re hurt.” he said to me. 

I wanted to protest, I wanted to tell him that I didn’t need his help, but I couldn’t get the words out. My body refused to cooperate with my senses and all I could do was lean against him and feel the warmness of his skin seep into mine as my vision blurred even more.

I could barely register what was happening around me. My head rested against his chest as he carried me ans all I could think of was his unique scent that was the only thing I could inhale. I didn't even know the moment darkness covered me and I drifted into unconsciousness.