Chapter Six: A Wounded Fox

Dante’s POV:

I woke up to a storm.

No.

It was just an unnerving pair of grey eyes staring at me with a fierce desire deep within them.

Alpha Talon was awfully close to me.

Too close.

“You fucking pervert!” I yelled with all the strength I could muster.

Pushing against his chest—his surprisingly buff chest—as I hurriedly pushed myself away from him.

Something about being so close to him felt familiar but I couldn’t place a finger or it.

It was foggy… almost like a dream.

“Watch your tongue. I’m an Alpha,” he responded with a gruff voice that was almost similar to a growl. “And I didn’t touch you.”

“Sure, you were just looming over me because asides from being an Alpha, you’re also the pack doctor,” I replied dryly, using sarcasm to hide the fact that I was actually very nervous.

I fired on before he could respond to my retort. “Where am I? Why are you holding me here? When can I leave?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?” He snapped. His wild sandy-blond hair was in a rough bun above his head and two strands fell down each side off his face highlighting his powerful jaws.

Fuck, he was handsome.

‘Do you always ask so many questions?’ something about the way he said that felt familiar. Like we had another variation of this exact conversation somewhere else, but I’d only just met him.

Did I dream of him? Why couldn’t I remember if I did?

“You’re my property now. That mark means you belong to me.”

HIs words snapped me out of whatever debate I was having in my head about whether I saw him in my dream or not.

He was right.

He marked me.

“You bit me?” I asked. “Why would you do that?”

“You burnt me first. It only seemed fair,” He shrugged casually like he hadn’t just placed a stamp on me that declared to every wolf and any other creature that I was his.

His eyes never left mine as we spoke. It was almost unnerving but I couldn’t back down. Not now. It didn’t matter where I was. It didn’t matter where he brought me.

I had to get out of here.

I had to find the voice that was speaking to me in my head.

The face of a man I had never seen before in my life flashed in front of my eyes as I had that thought, very swift, so sudden that I could barely see his features.

The only thing that stood out to me were the black eyes.

Eyes that were completely as dark as a starless night.

Just who was he?

“I have to get out of here,” I muttered as I turned away from Alpha Talon to access where I was.

The room I was in had a woody and rustic vibe to it. A centre table that was made of what looked like oak or perhaps mahogany—I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t a carpenter—and it had warm brown walls that matched the simple and sturdy furniture that were different shades of coffee and cream.

I walked in the direction of the door, past the bed that dominated the space, with its frame made from thick unpolished logs and it barely took Talon seconds to cut across the bed and block me before I reached the door.

“You belong to me now. Do you suffer from an inability to comprehend sentences?” He asked.

His words weren’t pissing me off. It was the way he spoke. Like his word was law and my inability to follow them was not because I had a mind of my own but because I simply couldn’t understand that his word was law.

I knew Alphas were cocky, but this was a staggering arrogance.

“I don’t belong to you or anyone else. Now let me go or else I’m going to burn this room to the ground,” I said, trying my best to sound far more confident than I actually felt.

I don’t know why he didn’t throw my ass in jail, I don’t know why he chose to mark me, but I don’t want to find out. My existence was a curse to my old pack, and these powers were a curse on my soul.

I didn’t want a new enemy or even a new friend.

I just need to be alone. To be on my own.

To figure out what these powers meant, and if possible to get rid of them.

I never want to hurt anyone again.

But this hulk of a man doesn’t need to know that. These powers were my trump card right now, my only card really, and that was my ticket out of here.

I continued, “I don’t care if you can walk away unscathed like yesterday, but I doubt everyone in your pack can do the same thing. The kids, the elderly… don’t put their life at risk. Just let me go.”

“For someone that’s supposed to be an omen of ruin, you’re pretty desperate to leave. You’re going to disappoint all your fans.” He responded.

Omen of what?

“Fans? What are you talking about?” I asked, confused by his strange words.

“Several members of my pack have theories about why you came on our pack grounds yesterday night. Some say you're a scout for your coven, others have far more outlandish theories.”

“I don’t have a coven. I just want to leave.”

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” He asked, his grey eyes staring at me intently.

His words felt like a slap to my face.

Where was I going?

It was a question I hadn’t even bothered asking myself.

I just wanted to run as far as possible. Away from what I had done.

Away from the truth.

Because the truth was… I am a monster. A murderer.

“Where I’m going is none of your business,” I snapped, suddenly flustered by the eye contact he was making, by the intensity of it all. Butterflies fluttered slightly in my stomach. “Now, let me go or I’m going to burn it all to the ground.”

“I don’t think you will.”

That was not the response I was expecting.

“Yesterday you were like…” He trailed off like he was looking for the right words, his eyes wandering towards the light that trickled in from the window catching flecks of dust. “A wounded fox, caught in a trap.”

His gaze returned back to me with the same intense stare that made the butterflies in my stomach flutter even quicker.

“You were snarling, you were snapping, not because it was your nature, but because you were desperate to survive whatever you were running from. All that fire behind your eyes is gone now.”

“You don’t know me. You don’t know my nature,” I said, glaring at him.

“Then prove me wrong,” He responded and took a step closer to me.

“Set me on fire, witch.”