Episode 3
1564 Words
THE ALPHA's WARNING
Nara was sitting on the frozen floor of the clearing long after the warriors had hauled off the body of the rogue. Her hands still trembled. Her garments were shredded, her breath was unsteady and her heart beat was a wild drum in her chest.
She might still remember the warmth of Kael in her wrist to touch her skin...
And the ache in her chest of his rejection like a wound on her very soul.
Mate… Mine…
The connection within her whimpered as a hurt animal. It did not know why he had refled her.
But her head knew all right.
She was nothing.
He was everything.
This was how the world worked.
Footfalls grew soft and Nara grew tensed.
It wasn’t Kael. He was as stormy as he was heavy; as dark as impossible to overlook. Any who came now was a bit lighter, almost familiar.
“Nara?” A gentle voice whispered.
She turned.
Her only friend Lira came through the trees with his brown eyes wide with concern. Her hair was disheartenedly tangled, and her apron dirtied in the kitchen. She seemed to have had to run the entire distance over here.
“What happened?” Kneeling beside her Lira gasped. I felt the ground shake, and then, when everybody began talking about rogues and Alpha Kael, Nara, hurt?
Nara attempted to talk and her voice broke. Shame burned at her throat.
Lira’s face softened. She touched him, wiping the dirt off the face of Nara just as she had been doing since they were both kids in hiding.
“You’re shaking.”
“I—I’m fine,” Nara whispered.
It was a lie.
She was far from fine.
Lira turned and glanced about. “Kael was here. I smelled him. Did he hurt you? Did he threaten you?”
Nara’s lips parted. There was a certain pang in her breast.
“He…” She swallowed. “He rejected me.”
Lira froze.
The forest went silent.
Then—
“What?” The voice of Lira sounded like a twig. “Rejected you? As what?”
Nara gazed at her dirty hands. “As… his mate.”
The scream of Lira was so great that it had startled a flock of birds in the air.
And by what do you mean that he turned you out of his mate? You’re—Nara, you’re his—”
Say not, say not, said Nara, in a panicky voice. “Please.”
If anyone heard… If the pack found out…
Nara is weak and useless, yet became the mistress of the strongest Alpha in the area?
They would cut her in half even before Kael could do so.
Lira moaned her mouth. “This is… this is huge. Goddesses are mistaken no more. Kael must have felt the pull. The bond. How could he reject you?”
Nara hugged her knees. “Because I’m me.”
Lira was about to say something, when a shiver ran through her.
Nara stiffened.
Lira’s nostrils flared.
Another had come into the opening.
A shade had crossed the trees and then Kael came into the picture, big, broad-shouldered, and blazing with sheer strength. His appearance was oppressing. Even the wood appeared to cringe about him.
Lira scrambled up and instinctively stood in the presence of Nara.
Kael’s eyes glowed faintly. “Move.”
My friend, said Lira and then startled them both. You would need me, to get something out of her.
Kael didn’t growl.
He didn’t shout.
He simply raised one eyebrow.
Lira’s courage evaporated. She made a hastening step aside, grumbling. “I was just leaving anyway.”
As she went off into the woods, Kael stared directly at Nara.
She felt pinned to the earth.
His voice came out low. Controlled. Dangerous.
“We need to talk.”
Nara rose slowly. Her legs, she was weak, but she brought herself up. She did not want him to see how she broke so easily. He had already seen too much.
You have no debt to me, Nara said and he had nothing to say. “You made yourself clear.”
His mouth closed in a sort of sphincter, but he made no remark.
Instead, he stepped closer.
Too close.
You are not going to cross the pack borders, said Kael. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order. “Not alone. Not without permission. Not ever.”
Nara’s heart dropped. “Why? You do not want them to know that you are bound to a weakling by the Moon Goddess?
He even shivered—but momentarily.
Today there was a rogue of it, he said coldly. “And it wasn’t alone.”
Nara blinked. “Are there more?”
Kael nodded once. “Three sets of tracks. Only one attacked. That is to say that the others were observing.
Her blood ran cold.
“Watching… me?”
Kael’s eyes darkened. “Possibly.”
The breath of Nara fell in her throat. “But why? I’m no one.”
And that, by the way, is what I am trying to work out.
He turned back, walking round like a caged animal. There was something to his movements that was restless. Agitated. As he did not have full control.
Then he halted and looked at her once more.
“Someone is hunting you, Nara.”
There was a slight tilt in the clearing.
Hunting her?
For what reason?
She wasn’t important. She wasn’t powerful. She wasn’t even a proper wolf. She was not able to move, not able to struggle, not able.
I believe you are wrong, I said to myself. No one wants to have anything to do with me.
Kael’s eyes flashed. “The rogue said your name.”
Her stomach sunk down the line. “What?”
Kael stepped closer. Your name, said before it attacked you. Nara. As clear as day.
Nara stumbled back.
“No. No, that’s impossible. Ravers do not—do not speak so. They do not mark out pack members. They’re—”
“Mindless?” Kael finished. “Savage? Yes. Normally.”
He leaned in.
“But that one wasn’t normal.”
Her heart beat was a throb to her ribs.
His smell, pine, storm, something darker, circled around her, and she was dizzy. Even when it was all over, she detested the fact that her wolf responded to him.
I do not know, I said to myself.
He clenched his jaw. “Neither do I.”
There was a silence, almost a silence between them. Then Kael pulled his hair, evidently irritated—at such a circumstance or at his own person.
You are under guard, you are under guard, he said. “Either I watch you. Or I assign someone.”
I do not require a babysitter, Nara said to herself.
I do not care what it is you think you need.
His voice was like a thunderbolt.
She flinched.
Kael froze.
He turned his head away—the first time, nearly, it were, guilty. His tone lowered.
“Nara… this isn’t a game. This does not concern the mate bond. This is about your life.”
She swallowed painfully. “You don’t even want me as a mate. Why should you be concerned about what befalls me?
His eyes snapped at hers. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
Whatever I want, it does not matter, he said to himself. Should you die, then the connection makes me with you shreds.
Nara’s breath hitched.
So that was it.
This wasn’t protection.
It was self-preservation.
The heart stung sharp and fast.
“I see,” she whispered.
He didn’t deny it.
He withdrew, and turned aside, creating a space between them, as he always did.
I will introduce someone to take you back to the pack house.
“I can walk on my own.”
“Nara—”
I said, I can walk, she repeated, and it was stronger.
A small spark.
The initial indication of a fire which she was ignorant she had.
Kael noticed. His face changed — wonder, annoyance, something she did not know what.
He exhaled deeply. “Fine. But keep your eyes open.”
Nara walked away, already.
She expected him to leave.
He didn’t.
Rather, he whispered behind her--
“Your scent… it’s changing.”
She stopped dead.
“What?”
When the rogue had assaulted you... your scent changed. Just for a moment. And it wasn’t… normal.
There was a shivering wind in the clearing.
“What do you mean?” Nara was whispering, hardly able to breathe.
Kael didn’t move.
It reeked of old wizardry as he put it. In years, I have never felt the same.
Her entire body went numb.
Ancient magic?
Her?
Impossible.
“Whatever you are, Nara…” His voice was lowered to a dangerous whisper. “It’s waking up.”
She heard her heart beat slamming in her ears.
She turned around—
But Kael was already gone. Vanished into obscurity like he was not ever there in the first place.
Behind her, a twig snapped.
She froze.
Turning her head very slowly, very slowly, she turned it.
Two luminous eyes looked out on her outside the dark trees.
Not Kael’s.
Not human.
Not familiar.
Just a low, rumbling growl—
Right behind her.
And then the creature lunged.
- Writer
