The Alpha Regrets Rejecting Me

Chapter 3: What Came for Me

The howl came again, closer this time, and every hair on my arms stood up.

Ash moved fast. He kicked dirt over the fire, killing the light in one motion, and grabbed my wrist.

"Stay behind me. Don't shift, don't fight, don't do anything unless I tell you to."

"I don't even know how to shift," I said, my voice shaking.

"Exactly why you're staying behind me."

He pulled me toward the door, and I realized my legs still felt weak, like they belonged to someone who'd been asleep for two days, because I had been. My whole body wanted to sit back down. My mind wouldn't let it.

Outside, the night was too quiet. No wind. No insects. Just the kind of silence that happens right before something bad.

Ash stepped out first, scanning the tree line. I stayed close behind him, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I thought he must be able to hear it.

"How many," I whispered.

"I don't know yet."

A shape moved between two trees to our left. Then another, further back, low to the ground. Not people. Wolves, but wrong somehow, thinner than they should be, moving in a way that made my skin crawl. Like something was wearing a wolf instead of being one.

"Ash," I said.

"I see them."

A third shape appeared directly ahead of us, and this one didn't stay in wolf form. It rose up, bones shifting and cracking in a way that looked painful even from a distance, until a man stood where the wolf had been. Tall, gaunt, wrong around the eyes. He smiled like he already knew how this was going to end.

"There she is," he said. His voice sounded like gravel dragged over stone. "The little wolf who isn't supposed to exist."

"You're not pack," Ash said, stepping slightly in front of me. "You're not rogue either. Who sent you."

The man ignored him completely, his eyes locked on me like Ash wasn't even standing there.

"You don't know what you are yet, do you," he said. "That's almost funny. Everyone's been so afraid of you for so long, and you're standing there shaking like a lost pup."

"Get away from her," Ash said, and there was something in his voice now that hadn't been there a second ago. Something old and dangerous.

The man's smile widened. "Or what, guardian. You've been hiding for a long time. Longer than she's been alive. Did you really think nobody would notice the day you finally came out of hiding to collect her?"

Ash didn't answer. His whole body had gone rigid, coiled like a spring.

I felt it before I understood what was happening — the same electric pull from two nights ago, sharp and sudden, climbing up my spine like static. My arms burned. I looked down and watched the black marks flare bright silver under my skin, glowing hard enough to light up the dark around us.

The man's smile dropped.

"Hold her down," he snapped at the wolves in the trees. "Now, before she—"

He didn't finish the sentence.

The wolves came at us from both sides at once, fast, low, teeth bared. Ash moved before I could even scream, shifting mid-stride into something huge and dark, easily twice the size of a normal wolf, and slammed into the nearest attacker with enough force to send it crashing into a tree.

I stumbled back, and the burning in my arms turned into something worse, something that felt like my whole body was splitting apart from the inside. I dropped to my knees in the dirt, gasping, and somewhere far away I heard the man's voice again.

"Interesting," he said, walking toward me slowly while Ash fought off two more shapes in the dark. "It's stronger than we thought. Good. That'll make this easier."

"Stay away from me," I managed, my voice barely more than a whisper.

"Or what?" He crouched down in front of me, unbothered by the light pouring off my skin. "You don't even know how to use it. You're a weapon that doesn't know it's loaded."

He reached for my arm.

The second his fingers touched my skin, something inside me broke loose.

I don't remember deciding to do anything. One second he was reaching for me, and the next he was flying backward through the air, hitting the ground hard enough that I heard something c***k. The light on my arms surged brighter, and for a moment I couldn't see anything except silver, couldn't hear anything except a roaring sound that might have been in my own head.

When my vision cleared, the man was pushing himself up off the ground, blood running from his mouth, staring at me like I'd become something he hadn't expected.

"You're not ready," he said, breathing hard. "But you will be. And when you are, you're going to wish you'd stayed the weak little nothing everyone thought you were."

He raised two fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. The wolves fighting Ash broke off immediately, retreating into the trees like they'd never been there at all.

"This isn't over," the man said, backing away, still watching me with that same unsettling focus. "You should ask your guardian what happened to the others like you. Ask him how many of them are still alive."

Then he was gone, swallowed by the dark, and the woods went quiet again.

I knelt there in the dirt, shaking, the light on my arms slowly fading back to nothing. Ash shifted back to human form beside me, breathing hard, blood running from a gash along his shoulder.

"Are you hurt," he asked, crouching in front of me.

I couldn't answer right away. My whole body felt hollowed out, like whatever had taken over during that fight had used up every last piece of me and left nothing behind.

"What did he mean," I finally said. "The others like me. What others."

Ash's jaw tightened. For the first time since I'd met him, he looked like he didn't know what to say.

"Ash."

"There were others," he said quietly. "Before you. People with the same bloodline. The same sealed power."

"What happened to them?"

He looked away from me, out into the dark trees where the wolves had disappeared.

"They're gone," he said. "All of them. I couldn't save any of them in time."

The silence after that felt heavier than anything the man in the woods had said.

"And you think you can save me," I whispered.

Ash turned back to look at me, and for the first time, I saw something underneath the calm, controlled mask he'd been wearing since I woke up.

He looked afraid.

"I have to," he said. "Because if I don't, and they get to you before you're ready—"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

Somewhere in the dark, another howl rose into the night, and this time, it wasn't alone.