The untamed Alpha and his human mate

Chapter 1: The war

Amaya

I quickly run to the kitchen in the back of the pub, the swinging doors slamming softly behind me. I’ve just washed a load of dishes, but more are piling up in between me collecting people’s dishes and the cutlery. The air is thick and muggy, the smell of alcohol and the sharp scent of soap, my hands are already raw from hours of scrubbing.

The dishes never seemed to stop coming. Between running plates out to tables, collecting empty glasses, and gathering cutlery sticky with dried food, the dishes seemed endless.

You would think I get paid for this work, but I don’t. I was nothing more than a slave. I still shook my head in disbelief every time I heard that word, like something dragged from a history book, not something that existed in the year two thousand and twenty eight.

I had lived a good life, no cares or worries to report, where the most I had to complain about were uni exams. I had loving parents, a sister, and a brother, lived in a block of flats with not much in the way of money, but loved, happy.

Then all hell broke loose. We had been watching the six o’clock news like we always did. I can still remember the flickering light of the television, the low hum of the broadcast, the way Mum absentmindedly stirred her tea.

A big bombshell had been dropped on us, all the jokes we had made as humans, all the debates on social media, the arguments as to whether we were the only beings like us to exist. We were wrong.

Supernaturals existed, werewolves, vampires, demons, you name it, it was real, all of it. Apparently someone in the supernatural race had blown the whistle, gotten fed up with all the jokes, being mocked as fictional creatures, fed up with hiding.

They shifted live on camera on social media, of course no one believed it, said it was staged, special effects, and so on, but not the government, they took it deadly seriously, searched the video, tore it apart, frame by frame, searching for any hint of it being fake, it was confirmed to be real raw footage.

A month passed by, and people relaxed, brushing it off as no different from the government saying aliens were real, words but still no proof, easy to ignore. Until the war.

More supernaturals came forward, feeling the same frustrations, fed up with hiding what they were. Humans were afraid, and what do we do when faced with something we don’t understand? Tell ourselves it’s a threat.

Our soldiers went to war under instruction from the government, armed with everything they had, but while they killed a lot of supernaturals, they were ill-equipped to deal with such powers, spells tore through them, curses spread like a disease, beings like werewolves hunted in silence, their senses sharp, far outweighing our abilities in stealth and heightened senses. We lost, we weren’t fighting equals. For the first time, we were the prey. Humans were being picked off like cattle, civilians included. Cities burned, the streets ran red, no one was spared.

My parents went shopping for food and essentials, humans still needing to live in this madness, but the war had reached our city. They were caught in the crossfire when it happened. My brother heard the slaughter outside, people screaming, and ignoring my and my sisters pleas to stay inside, he rushed out to find our parents. He never returned, dead alongside them.

I still remember the screams outside, the chaos, the sound of flesh and meat tearing.

It didn’t take long after that. Supernaturals took over our world. My sister and I were taken into slavery to be sold off along with other humans, reduced to property, bought and sold like livestock.

We were on the brink of extinction when the gods stepped in. Oh yes, you heard that right, not just one god up in the sky but many. They put a stop to the killings and formed a council among themselves to keep order, not out of kindness but necessity, so it didn’t mean they were good and kind. Humans were still sold off. All the gods cared about was maintaining balance and order, they didn’t care all that much as to what else we got up to.

“You best not be slacking, girl!”

I jolted from my thoughts to the sound of my boss Jackie’s sharp voice. My hands froze in the sink, suds dripping from my fingers as I turned slightly. She was fierce and always quick to anger, looked it too. With a jowly face sagged with age, deep wrinkles from frowning so much, she looked to be in her early sixties, but she was a vampire.

I’d been shocked to find out it wasn’t as cool as the movies. Yes you could get the beauty and flawless skin, but you were pretty much screwed if you got turned in your older years. No wonder she was so bitter.

She was a heavy smoker too, the stale scent of cigarettes clung to her, mixing with the metallic tang of blood beneath it. I hated the smell of her vile breath whenever she yelled in my face, so I quickly got to washing the dishes.

Jackie had bought me for cheap and was trying to sell me off for an insane amount of money, me along with ten other women she had here. Men were sold off too, but Jackie wanted to sell us for darker purposes, knowing it would make more money, and that was as s*x slaves.

No one had wanted me yet. I was heavily overweight, fat. I’d done it on purpose to put men off wanting to buy me, and it had worked so far. Then Jackie, although I didn’t feel that way at the time, did me a favour. She was furious one day when I was mopping the floor and she slipped on it.

I had never seen her as angry as she was that day. She beat me, and called over her werewolf friend Shirley who clawed my face like I was nothing more than meat, and when she still wasn’t satisfied with that, she dragged me over to a boiling pot of water and poured it over half my face, leaving me with permanent burn scars as well as the scars from Shirley’s claws. I begged, cried, apologised, but it all fell on deaf ears.

I’d screamed in agonising pain, felt like I would die. My screams had irritated her so she gagged me and threw me in the cleaning cupboard and didn’t come back until the next day.

I must have passed out because I had woken up to her bandaging my face, muttering something that sounded like an apology for losing control, but I knew she didn’t care, all she cared about was that she had ruined her chances of selling me off.

That didn’t stop her from still trying. I was still made to line up with all the other girls, the only thing I had that was different from them was that I was still a virgin.

Tonight was auction night, something she did every month, and as usual I felt safe in the fact I was ugly and undesirable to these disgusting, arrogant males.

When she finally closed up for the night to customers, she herded us girls upstairs to go get ready. The other women applied makeup, styled their hair, and dressed to be appealing. I didn’t bother with any of it, and she didn’t try to make me, she knew as well as I did that no one would want me. Good.

I hadn’t spoken in the last two years since she had brutally attacked me, the shock, the trauma, all of it had left me mute. I couldn’t bring myself to talk, and thankfully she preferred me quiet anyway.

I watched the other girls, or more accurately women, get ready. I was twenty-six and these women weren’t much older or younger than me. I’d been separated from my sister when Jackie bought me, someone else had bought my sister, and I had always vowed to somehow find her one day.

I heard Jackie open the door downstairs, letting her potential buyers in, their voices drifted up, low, male, confident. My chest tightened, and a small whimper that I couldn’t stop escaped my lips. I tried to reassure myself it would be ok, no one would want me, just as they hadn’t for the past five years.

One of the women, Jessie, squeezed my shoulder gently, offering a reassuring smile even though I could see the fear in her own eyes, that same fear was mirrored in every woman in the room. I wish I could say I was brave, tough, a heroine who decided to fight back and save us all, but that just wasn’t reality. I was human, I was fragile, and our world was ruled by monsters.

We were herded down the stairs and made to line up next to one another facing the bar where men sat at their stools, drinks in hand. Believe it or not, some men were human. I didn’t understand how, perhaps men were given a tad bit more respect than us women? Perhaps they were more willing to do unthinkable things to prove themselves? I have no idea.

The men were laughing and drinking with one another, some clinking their glasses and talking, others leering at us women. I kept my head down until I overheard Jessie whisper to the woman beside her hopefully. “If I have to go, I really hope it’s with him.”

I looked over to where they were looking and lost my breath for a moment. I hadn’t noticed the man at the end of the bar leaning back on his stool, his elbows leaning on the bar behind him as he watched us, watched me.

I didn’t understand, men never noticed me. I was invisible to them, but he was staring intently enough that my cheeks burned. He was handsome, no, more than that, hot, sexy, gorgeous, unnaturally beautiful. I didn’t know if he was a vampire, a werewolf, or a different wereanimal, but he had unnatural good looks, too perfect, too sharp, too captivating to be human.

While I could, I looked him over. I’d say six foot five when standing, with a broad, muscular build that filled out his clothes effortlessly. He had short, jet-black hair that was a mix of wavy, curly, and unruly and fell into stunning eyes that were a pale, almost lilac blue, unsettling, mesmerising, dangerous. If he was a wereanimal, I knew that strong emotions would turn his eyes a different colour, some wereanimals would turn gold or green, or orange.

When he lifted his glass and took a sip of his drink, I snuck another glance and took in the strong line of his jaw, full lips that made a perfectly shaped cupid’s bow, and high cheekbones.

His skin held a light olive skin tone, contrasting against the dark leather jacket he wore over a loose, dark grey frilled shirt that exposed some of his chest and some sort of brown fashion scarf, like a thin gauze scarf. A silver necklace rested there, catching the light and drawing my attention to it. Black jeans with calf high black combat boots laced up completed the look. I don’t know why I was storing all this information away, but I quickly looked away again when his eyes met mine.