Forbidden: Bite Of An Alpha

5. Senses

Yara's POV.

Pain. My entire body was in pain. I went to slowly roll over only to groan from the movement. Beep. Beep. Beep. The sound of my alarm going off woke me from my sleep. Opening my eyes, I forced my body to get up, but as I did I felt the aching pain once again.

"Ouch," I said.

Now I was fully awake, the pain felt even more intense in every part of my body. My alarm continued to beep and on instinct, my hand landed on my phone as I tried to turn it off.

I squeezed my eyes shut as my head began throbbing with a very bad headache. I let out another groan before I slowly opened my eyes. I grabbed my glasses from my bedside table and ignored the aching pain as I stood up from my bed. My shift would be starting soon and I wasn’t going to let the pain I was in stop me from working. I went ahead and opened the curtains to put in some sunlight.

Throwing the curtain back, I closed my eyes shut as the sunlight blinded me. The discomfort of opening my eyes was downright torture, but I had to get ready. That alarm my phone was ringing off was the alarm to wake up and get ready for work. Thanks to whatever god there is, I only live about ten minutes from the building of the place I worked at.

I forced myself to sit on the bed as I let out another groan. My body ached, my head hurt, and my eyes even watered as I attempted to open them. I felt like I got hit by a bus. Maybe I just drank too much? Why am I struggling to remember exactly what happened? And how did I get home?

I stood on my feet and walked to my bathroom and turned on the water, making it warm. Standing underneath the warm water felt good in my aching body, and I didn’t want to leave. But I had to go to work or else I wouldn't even have a roof over my head. Stepping out of the shower, I gently messaged my head after wrapping a towel around myself. I took my other towel to dry out my damp hair. Opening my eyes, I couldn’t help the burning sensation that had started as it caused me to blink a few times.

I wiped the fog off the mirror as I stared at myself. My chocolate brown eyes stared straight back at me. My light brown hair was damp as it hung over my shoulder. My toned olive skin was clear and smooth for once. Usually, I would find several pimples that I couldn’t help but try and remove from my face. However, that process would normally cause me to have a dark spot on my skin.

I stumbled out of my bathroom and to my closet. The aching pain returned despite the comfort of the warm shower I had just had. Reaching for my work uniform, I grabbed an overcoat as I felt some sort of cold breeze go over my entire body. I felt a chill run down my spine. All night I remember getting hot and cold flushes. I don’t know if it is from the hangover from drinking or if I'm coming down with something.

Standing in front of my mirror, I scanned my body for the hundredth time. As I did, that was when I was hit with a realisation. I was beaten last night by a huge f*****g dog.

I looked at my right wrist where I had wrapped a bandage. How had I not noticed when I got in the shower? My eyes were sort of playing up on me this morning. Unwrapping the bandage, I looked at the bite wound. The bite mark I saw last night seemed worse than what I'm looking at right now. I remember it was hurting as blood slowly trickled out from it. What I was looking at now seemed to be healing. Not completely healed, but it looked way better than last night. I quickly cleaned it with warm water before placing new bandages and ointment on the wound. I didn’t waste any more time as I got dressed. I grabbed my bag and was about to place my phone in it before I saw the many missed calls from both Milo and Gina. I was about to call Gina when I read her message.

‘Are you alright?’ I read Gina’s text.

‘Please text back, I need to know you're safe!’ Milo texted.

Both of their texts were concerning to me. However, I couldn’t get the image of the two of them out of my head. They kissed. Like the lip-to-lip contact on each other’s faces. Or was it tongue to tongue?… whatever type of kiss it was, I didn’t want to know. They were both my best friends and I was happy for them if they were happy about being with each other.

‘I’m fine, I am safe, I made it home and now I’m about to go to work.’ I quickly replied to both of them in a group text.

‘Thank god!’ Milo texted back within a second and Gina just hearted his message.

‘We will see you on Monday.’ She ended up replying.

I sent back the thumbs up before shoving my phone into my bag. I left my studio apartment, locking the door before I put the keys into my bag. I left the building so fast as I didn’t want to be late for my shift. My body was still aching and only felt like it was getting worse by the minute. Every movement I made just to walk to work was agonising. I wasn’t feeling well at all, but I ignored it. I had to ignore it. I needed the money for my monthly rent as well as food. I have never gotten unwell to this point before but I definitely couldn’t afford it.

I bolted down the street just ignoring the fever that I had. It didn’t take long for me to get to the building where I worked.

Sweat Tea was the name of the café I worked at. It was owned by a man who was in his early forties. His name was Terry. He was a good man, he let me work there even with no previous work experience. Especially in the hospitality industry. Despite no work experience, he taught me what to do and I was quick to learn it all.

“Hey, Terry!” I greeted him as I checked my time card before shoving my bag into my locker. “busy morning?” I asked.

“Good afternoon Yara, it’s been pretty average today. Weekdays are our more busy days.” He responded.

I nodded as I put an apron over me to begin working in the front while another worker had his break. Billy was his name and he was the flirtatious type, but he wasn’t flirty towards girls, it was only towards boys. He was also a great friend, but he was in his mid-twenties. Billy always encouraged me to date handsome men, but I never listened. As far as I am concerned, my studies were more important than a fling of any sort.

"I'll be back in ten," Billy said as he rubbed his fingers through his brown hair. I swear that when he did that, it was like everything went into slow motion. Like I saw every strand of hair that went through his fingers.

I shook my head. "Sure Billy." I ignored whatever that was.

"What can I get you, sir?" I asked the man that stepped up to the counter.

"I'll have a coffee, black, two sugars and no milk. Please." He gave me a smile, I took his cash and handed him the change.

I continued for the next half an hour, taking orders and making the coffee for the customers that entered the building.

"Busy?" I heard Billy call as I was making espresso for a customer.

"Just serving gentleman", I answered, while keeping my eye on the coffee bean I was currently grinding.

"I will take the next order," Billy said, as he began to work at the counter.

"There we go sir, one expresso, two sugars, almond milk," I said as I gave the order to the customer, who smiled at me.

I turned back and looked at the other orders that Billy began to attend to. As I did, I couldn't help but feel like someone was watching me. I quickly scanned the café and when I didn’t see any familiar faces I shrugged my shoulders before I looked at the time. The clock read four o'clock. Customers would be leaving soon as the café closed by four thirty on Saturdays.

Before long, it was closing time and there weren't any customers around. Billy walked over and closed up the front as I began to clean the tables the customer sat at. Wiping a table near the window, I felt that feeling again that someone was watching me. I looked up, no one was there besides Billy and me. Looking out the window, I saw there were several people walking, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

"Terry wants to know if you're able to work next Saturday. Billy said, I jumped as he startled me. "He knows you only work every fortnight on Saturdays but he said he would be out of town and wants to hand you the keys to open up. Considering you live close to the café," he explained.

"Sure, I can do with the extra cash." I smiled at Billy, who returned the smile.

"Me too." He replied, "Oh you can leave, I can see you don’t look too well. I will finish up here and I'll see you on Monday morning?" He finally finished with a question. I nodded my head in agreement before I checked out my time card and left sweat tea.

I was grateful that he saw I wasn’t well and was okay with me leaving now. My body felt drained, I ignored the aching pain the entire time I was moving around the café to serve customers. Leaving the café, I felt weird. I never felt like this before and it is hard to describe the feeling. But I began to sweat badly, that was for sure, even my brain felt fussy and dizzy altogether. My breathing was heaving, whatever was happening to my body, I was desperately fighting it.

It wasn’t even five o'clock and usually, I go straight home after my shift. However, my whole body didn’t want to go home to my studio apartment. Instead, I went in the opposite direction. Before long, I found myself walking on the pathway in the park near the pond. I looked around for a place to sit, a private place where I believed no one would bother me. I have to be honest, I have never been the type to like the outdoors. Even in high school, I made sure to miss every sports class. My subject of interest was in helping others that couldn't help themselves. I ended up finding that being a doctor did exactly that. I came to care for those that never had anyone to care for. I knew all too well how that felt. I never had anyone an orphan.

Looking at every person that passed me, I looked for a seat to sit on. I saw a bench near the edge of the pond where I could sit. There was a huge oak tree near it. The oak tree looked like it could hide anything or anyone. However, it looked beautiful, peaceful and full of life. Things of qualities that I wish I had. But being an orphan that had to work very hard to be kept from being put on the streets, I was thankful for my path.

Taking a seat on the bench, I tried inhaling some clean fresh air. Silently hoping it would make me feel better. The moment I did, I swear I smelt some sort of freshly cut grass with a mixture of sea salt. The land and sea smelled like it was one, it was a very intoxicating scent. It was faint and very weak but I seemed to pick up on it. I had to fight myself to look for the scent but I stayed seated in my seat. I felt a sense of longing for the scent, but another part of me said to ignore it. So that is what I did, even with the urge to look for it.

The park was beautiful and the view of the pond was breathtaking. It was clear that it was freshly mowed. Maybe that was where I was smelling the fresh scent of grass from. However, even though it was explained, it was freshly cut. It definitely didn’t explain the sea salt smell. Maybe I was smelling things. It had to be a mistake. I looked up slightly, I noticed a few people feeding ducks that floated upon the water of the pond. I have seen many people feed ducks before, but I have never sat down and just enjoyed watching it being done. It was all new to me as an orphan.

My body had tensed, and the feeling that someone was watching me had returned. I decided not to bother looking at my surroundings. I already knew I was just being paranoid. Besides, my body felt too weak to search for my surroundings. I felt comfortable and at peace just sitting in the presence of nature. I seemed to not care at all if I was being watched. I couldn’t explain it but I felt like I was safe. But that smell was so intoxicating that I almost looked up to find the source.

I held my eyes closed shut, as the pain I felt returned. It seemed to have returned every five minutes, ever since I came to get fresh air. It was similar to period pains, only I wasn’t bleeding, I felt physical pain that was like bad body aches. Taking a deep breath in and out was all that kept me under control.

Suddenly, the smell of musky wood entered my nose. The scent makes me relax even more and most of the ache in my body calmed down from its torture. That was an amazing smell. It seems that my senses have been playing up on me all day.

Just thinking about my senses, something in me screamed to open my eyes and look up. Instantly, I regulated doing what my senses wanted me to do. A shadow had blocked my body from the warmth of whatever little sun was still shining. The second I looked up and saw those coffee-brown eyes... It was Zander.