Unmated by Fate

CHAPTER 2: NO RULES

We crept toward the cracked door in front of us with a sullen and slow step, as if we were walking on the edge of a blade. The pounding of boots still echoed in the distance, closing in like a pack of bloodthirsty hounds. My heartbeat was a drum in my ears.

“What’s your name?” I asked, my voice low, my eyes still fixed on the sliver of light beyond the doorway.

“Luke,” he replied, breathless. “And you?”

“Alicia,” I answered flatly.

Then we paused.

“I don’t think we can fight them all,” he muttered, as if I didn’t already know that.

I turned to him sharply. “You’re not fighting anyone. You don’t belong here, they’ll kill you before you draw your blade.”

His brow furrowed. “Then why are you staying? Why are you fighting alone?”

“Because someone has to hold them off.”

He stared at me like I was mad. Maybe I was.

“You want me to run while you die for me?” His tone was rising now, incredulous.

“Yes,” I snapped. “That’s exactly what I want. There’s a back window. Crawl through it. Stay low. Keep running until the Outlands disappear behind you.”

“No. We go together.” He reached for my hand, but I pulled it away.

“There’s only room for one,” I said, eyes locking with his. “And it’s not going to be me.”

“Alicia—” he began, almost pleading.

“Don’t argue with me, Luke,” I hissed, cutting him off. “I’ve survived worse than this. You haven’t. They’ll smell your fear, tear you to shreds, and hang your pretty head on a pike.”

He hesitated, jaw clenched, torn between pride and the need to live.

“Run,” I said again, this time quieter. “While you still can.”

The voices grew louder. Closer.

Luke looked at me, a thousand words in his eyes and without another word, he turned and slipped through the darkness toward the back.

I exhaled, long and slow, drew my blade, and stepped toward the door.

“Let them come,” I whispered.

I opened the door to face thirteen fierce-looking werewolves ready to pounce on me,

“You little brat,” the giant shouted.

I am six feet plus. Why would he say that to me?

“I find that insulting considering the fact that I am taller than all the men with you,” I lashed back.

He smiled as if to say he got me where he wanted me.

“Let’s party,”

I raised my hand.

“Wait! I screamed.

He looked at the men with him, and they returned the gaze.

“Why not let’s finish what we started, and this time, no rules,” I said.

There was a roar, or should I say laughter.

“You want to fight me in my wolf form? I am the biggest and strongest werewolf when transformed,” he boasted.

“Nope,” I said. “You can change, but I would love to kill you as a little brat.”

“Boys!” he boasted, looking at the men who came with him. “Don’t worry; this won’t last five minutes, and you can start counting from now. "

The air shifted.

A low, guttural growl tore through the silence, reverberating against the wooden beams of the warehouse. I spun around just in time to see him, the Giant, his body snapping, stretching, bones cracking as muscle ballooned beneath his skin. Fur erupted along his limbs like wildfire. His eyes, once dull and beady, now gleamed with a predatory hunger.

He wasn’t just a thug.

He was a beast of a giant..

A monstrous werewolf, standing nearly eight feet tall, with claws like blades, breath steaming in the cold air.

But I didn’t flinch.

“Big mistake,” I muttered, sliding my dagger from its sheath with a metallic whisper.

He lunged.

His claws swiped through the air where my head had been a heartbeat earlier. I ducked, rolled, came up behind him, and slashed at his side. Blood sprayed across the wall, but not deep enough.

He roared and spun, throwing a side punch as I darted under his arm. Another splash of blood followed.

“Too slow, beast,” I hissed, kicking him square in the knee.

He stumbled, briefly, but came back with a fury. His claws raked towards my ribs. I leapt back, barely missing the strike, and flipped onto a rafter beam above. He leapt after me, crashing into the wood like a cannonball, snapping the beam in half.

We fell together in a blur of motion. I landed first, cat-like, while he crashed into the ground like a meteor chasing after Earth.

Before he could rise, I was already on him. He never expected it.

My dagger plunged into his shoulder, twisted. He howled. I jumped back as he swiped again. He came at me, frightening, furious, foaming.

But I danced around him, slashing, stabbing, moving like water.

He roared and leapt.

This time, I didn’t move.

I waited.

But at the last second, I sidestepped, driving my blade upward, under his ribs and very deep.

His momentum carried him forward, but my dagger had found its mark. He staggered, bleeding, struggling to turn.

I stepped behind him. “I said… You were too slow.”

With one final, vicious s***h across the back of his neck, the beast collapsed to the floor, twitching, groaning, then still.

I stood there, breathing hard, blood dripping from my blade.

“Let that be a lesson,” I whispered, wiping the blade on his fur. “Don’t chase a wolf in her den.”

The men with him could not comprehend what had just happened. No one had defeated him before, even at the pit.

They ran.

I stood, wondering, but grateful that they did not attack me, I also wondered why they fled.

I pushed the door open, exhausted and still buzzing with the fight’s adrenaline, expecting the quiet rickety of my home and maybe Marcus by the fire. What I didn’t expect was the sound of laughter.

They were low, masculine and familiar.

I stepped into the house and froze.

There they were. Marcus, my father and my mentor, and across from him, sitting like he belonged there, Luke with a half-filled mug of ale in his hand, and his eyes locked onto mine the moment I entered.

I didn’t say a word.

Neither did he.

The silence was thick enough to slice with a blade.

Marcus looked between us, oblivious or pretending to be.

“Alicia,” he said, gesturing casually, “you’re back. Good. Meet Luke. Turns out he’s none other than the son of Alpha Lucious.”

I blinked, slowly, absorbing it.

Then I laughed.

A sharp, bitter sound that echoed off the wooden walls.

“Alpha Lucious’s son?” I repeated, folding my arms. “And what? He came to the Outlands expecting us to kneel?”

Luke said nothing. He just watched me, cool and unreadable.

Marcus grinned like a man who didn’t understand how close the fire was. “He came looking for alliances, not obedience. He said he wants to help unite the gangs, the packs, the misfits.”

I scoffed, stepping further in, dust clinging to my boots. “Unite? The Outlands?” I shook my head. “We’re not some lost pups looking for a collar. There are a couple of gangs, clans, rival alphas and warlords, each with their own turf, grudges, blood feuds.”

I looked Luke dead in the eye. “And none of them are interested in bending to the will of Lucious-no - - no matter whose blood is in your veins.”

Luke leaned forward slowly, setting down his mug, his voice calm, but electric.

“Then maybe,” he said, “it’s time someone bled enough to change that.”

The room fell silent again. Marcus exhaled, tension thick in the air.

I walked past them both, my back to Luke, but I could feel his eyes on me like a blade on my neck.

“We’ll see who bleeds first,” I whispered

I went to the other room, still full of shock rather than regret, the very werewolf I saved came to save the outlands, the very one I almost made up with in an uncompleted warehouse.

I was annoyed with myself.

Then suddenly the wooden door exploded inward with a deafening crash, pieces of wood flying like shrapnel through the smoky air.

Marcus sprang to his feet.

Luke was already standing, his hand reaching instinctively for the blade strapped to his side.

And I, by the gods, didn’t flinch.

I turned slowly and walked to the living room.

There, framed by the jagged doorway and backlit by the flickering torchlight outside, stood a monster of a man. Broad shoulders like slabs of stone. Scars that twisted across his face like cursed veins. His eyes, bloodshot, wild, and hungry.

Behind him spilt a flood of men. Half-shifted werewolves with snapping jaws, crude blades glinting, fur matted from past kills.

The leader stepped forward. His voice was gravel wrapped in thunder.

“You killed Gat, my blood-bound warrior.” He spat on the floor. “Now the Giant Claw Pack demands your head, Alicia.”

My jaw clenched. “You’ll have to pry it from my neck, fang-face.”

He growled low. “Gladly.”

“I am a guest here, and you must respect that,” Luke said,

The fierce-looking man growled, “There are no rules that define that here at the Outlands, you’ve come to the wrong place, boy.”

Luke moved beside me, blade unsheathed, but I reached out, halting him.

The leader’s gaze shifted. He noticed Luke for the first time, and the royal crest tattooed near his collarbone. His lips curled.

“Well, well. Lucious’s bastard, in the den of Outlanders. What is this? Treason or suicide?”

Marcus shifted to block the back door. “You’ll get no blood here tonight,” he warned. “Not unless you want a war.”

“Oh, we came for a war,” one of the gang members snarled.

I stepped forward, letting my coat fall from my shoulders, revealing the twin knives sheathed at my back and the scars across my arms.

“Then let’s paint this floor red,” I said, my voice sharp as steel.

The gang leader raised his hand.

His men tensed.

The room crackled with anticipation. One wrong breath and it would all erupt.