Claimed by The Lost Alpha

Chapter 3: Eighteen Years Later

Eighteen years later…

The drowsy lull of midday in the campus cafeteria failed to reach the corner table by the window. Sunlight streamed through the glass, gilding the table in warm gold, spilling across a steaming bowl of spicy ramen before Lareina and a plate of kimchi fried rice before Draven.

Lareina—her hair a long, silken curtain of black, her eyes a crystalline blue that always seemed too curious for their own good—twirled her chopsticks through the noodles, then set them down with a bright grin.

“You know, Draven? I don’t think I can finish this. I’m too excited!”

Draven, all dark hair and sharp brown eyes that carried a quiet steadiness, stirred his drink lazily. His calm was a perfect foil to Lareina’s bursts of sunshine. “Excited? Why? Did you ace another math quiz?”

Lareina laughed, the sound like the tinkling of a small bell. “Better than that! Toby—you remember the senior I told you about? He asked me to dinner. A date!”

Draven’s spoon froze halfway to his plate. Around him, the cafeteria hummed with chatter, but the noise seemed to fade into silence, swallowed whole by that one word.

“Toby?” His voice was too flat, too measured. “Toby from Economy? The one with the leather jacket?”

“Yes! That Toby.” Lareina fanned her flushed cheeks theatrically. “He’s funny, smart, and… handsome.”

Draven leaned back in his chair, eyes never leaving her face, watching the happiness that sparkled there like starlight. “Lareina, wait. Isn’t Toby… already seeing someone? I thought he was dating Nina. Since last semester.”

“Oh, that?” Lareina cut him off with a wave, dismissing it as though it were nothing. She lifted her ramen again. “I asked him. He said they broke up. Recently. His exact words were, ‘I’m free now.’”

Beneath the table, Draven’s hand clenched into a fist. Broke up? Just like that? The rational part of him, the one that had long seen through Toby’s smirks and swagger, screamed a warning. Only a week ago, he’d seen Toby’s hand tangled with Nina’s at the campus gate, their laughter warm, their closeness unmistakable. Toby wore deception like a ring only Draven could see.

“Rei… are you sure?” His voice softened, careful. He couldn’t push too hard—Lareina bristled when pressed. “I mean… you don’t always take people at face value. Did you ask for details?”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “What’s with you, Draven? You sound like a detective. I trust Toby. He wouldn’t ask me out if he wasn’t being honest. Don’t worry so much.”

Draven inhaled slowly, forcing down the tangle of suspicion, fear, and something far sharper—the ache that flared hot and low in his chest. Jealousy. The bitter truth of it, that he wasn’t the one making her eyes shine. That her joy belonged to someone who didn’t deserve it.

His mouth twisted into a smile, thin and brittle, a mask that didn’t quite fit.

“All right then…” He lifted his glass in a faint toast. “To you, Rei. To your date. May your night be everything you hope for.”

“Thanks, Draven! You’re the best!” she chirped, blissfully unaware of the tremor in his tone.

Draven only nodded, turning back to his food. The kimchi rice, once rich with spice, now tasted flat and cold, every bite an effort to swallow. Across from him, Lareina chattered on, painting pictures of dresses and shoes, of the night she so eagerly awaited.

And Draven listened, silently, a storm tightening in his chest.

**

Draven crouched in the shadow of a thick tree, a black hoodie pulled low to hide his silhouette. His brown eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, never left the main door of the women’s dormitory.

Fifteen minutes crawled by before a metallic-blue sports car eased to a stop at the gate. The passenger door opened and Toby stepped out, grin too wide for comfort. Moments later Lareina appeared, draped in a pale-blue dress that caught the moonlight and held it like a second skin. She waved at the friends lingering in the lobby, laughter bright on her lips.

Draven watched from the dark. A cold knot clenched at his ribs, a nameless dread that refused to loosen. He swallowed it down and melted further into the shadows. He had to keep watch.

Their date was short — a glossy Italian restaurant tucked into a quiet corner of the city. Draven parked his bike across the street and folded himself into the night, eyes glued to the glass where their silhouettes moved. For two hours he stood, letting the chill seep into his bones, ignoring the curious glances of passersby. Waiting there felt like the only right thing he could do.

At nine the restaurant door opened. Toby came out first; Lareina followed slower, her bright smile gone. Her dress was rumpled, a strand of hair loosened; she moved with the unsteady gait of someone drunk. Draven’s hands tightened into fists. The man had been drinking her, the thought lit a hard, hot ember in his chest.

Toby slung an arm around Lareina’s shoulders and guided her toward the car. But instead of heading back toward the dorm, he turned down a maze of narrow lanes and empty streets.

Draven’s suspicion flared into a raw, terrible certainty. He kicked his bike into motion and chased them, engine throbbing beneath him until the car finally stopped by an abandoned warehouse far from any light. The streetlamps there were dead; only a sickly slice of moon filtered through the clouds.

He parked behind a stack of crates and crept forward, peering through a cracked window. Inside, Toby had shoved Lareina against a grimy wall; his hands were fumbling at the buttons of her dress.

Something in Draven snapped. He could no longer hold down the wildfire of rage that had been smoldering all day. He rammed the warehouse door with his shoulder and sent it crashing open.

“Bastard!” Draven roared.

Toby jerked, spinning toward the sound. His pupils widened as he took in the shape at the threshold, warm eyes now blazing with a fury that was almost physical. Draven stalked in, breath ragged, and grabbed Toby’s jacket collar in one iron sweep, yanking him off balance.

“What the hell are you doing?” Toby spat. “Don’t interfere in my business!”

Toby pushed. He tried to break free. He couldn’t. Draven didn’t just stand firm; he was an immovable weight. A shaft of moonlight pierced the hole in the warehouse roof and fell across Draven’s face.

Toby saw it then. The brown in Draven’s eyes had gone molten, a vivid, awful red flaring in the dim. And where his fingers gripped the man’s collar, nails had elongated, curving into black, razor-sharp claws.

Werewolf.

The word, unspoken, froze Toby. Color drained from his face. Whatever courage he had evaporated; he shoved at Draven one last time and then bolted, stumbling through the wrecked doorway into the dark, his footsteps hammering away until the sound dissolved in night.

Draven didn’t chase. Everything he owned of attention pooled back on the limp figure dropped against the warehouse wall, Lareina, pale and unconscious. He moved to her with a gentleness that contradicted the storm in his chest. He closed the opened places of her dress, fastening buttons that had been torn away, careful and deliberate as if mending paper. Then he lifted her easily into his arms, she was light as breath and cradled her against his chest.

In that embrace she looked paper-thin and fragile. He smoothed the hair from her cheek and watched the soft rise and fall of her breathing.

“I knew it, Rei,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I knew from the first time I saw you. I always feared any man who looked your way, because most of them carry a lying smile. I’ve always worried about that.”

He carried her out of the dark warehouse and into the clearer silver of the moon. “I know I’m not entirely human,” he breathed, the admission brittle and honest, “but there is one thing I am certain of, I will never hurt you. Never.”