The Alpha Who Tried to Unmate Me

Chapter 6 – Night Patrol

The city looked different from a patrol car.

Less like home, more like a maze of blind corners and bad decisions. Streetlights smeared across the windshield as Daxen drove, one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting on the gearshift like he might need to shift to claws at any second.

I sat in the passenger seat, med bag at my feet, trying not to think about how many of these streets still knew my scent.

“You didn’t have to come yourself,” I said. “You have patrols for this.”

“Alpha’s orders,” Daxen replied. “If someone is walking around wrapped in your aura, he wants eyes he trusts on it.”

“And you trust your eyes more than anyone else’s?”

He shrugged, mouth quirking. “I trust that mine are less likely to be distracted by old history.”

I snorted. “Sure. You’ve always been the unemotional one.”

He gave me a sidelong look. “You say that like it’s an insult.”

The radio crackled. “Unit Vaelir‑Three, report. Any sign on Seventh?”

“Negative,” Daxen said into the mic. “Running east along the river.”

Static, then Ishan’s cool voice. “Copy. Cameras picked up movement in the Dock Nine area twenty minutes ago. Possible aura anomaly. Sending coordinates.”

A soft ping sounded on the dash screen. Daxen’s brows knit.

“Dock Nine,” he muttered. “Of course.”

“What’s at Dock Nine?” I asked.

“Old freight yard. Half our patrols avoid it because the ground stinks of rust and human mistakes.” He flicked a glance at me. “And because it’s where they used to bring in program equipment by the crate.”

My throat tightened. “Great. Field trip down memory lane.”

We turned off the main road, tires thumping over neglected asphalt. The air picked up a sour tang—oil, stagnant water, old blood that had soaked too deep into wood to ever wash out.

By the time we parked behind a stack of containers, every hair on my arms was standing up.

“Stay behind me,” Daxen said, popping his door.

I rolled my eyes and got out anyway. “If someone’s bleeding, I go first.”

“And if someone’s aiming for your throat?” he asked. “Then what?”

“Then you can do your big hero act,” I said. “Win‑win.”

His answering huff was almost a laugh.

We moved in low and quiet, boots whispering over gravel. The dock loomed ahead, a skeleton of cranes and rusting metal. Somewhere water lapped against pilings. Somewhere else, something small skittered away from us, wise enough to run.

Then the scent hit.

Blood. Fresh. Too much.

Under it, the now‑familiar wrongness: a smear of my own aroma, thick as spilled ink, and beneath that, a second signature—sharper, jagged, like broken glass and winter wind.

My wolf went rigid.

“Daxen,” I whispered.

“I know.” His voice had gone flat. “Stay close.”

We stepped into the open.

The scene was smaller than the alley with Bren, but no less ugly. A loading bay, concrete slick with red. Claw marks on a metal door. No body this time—just a trail that ended abruptly at the edge of the dock, as if prey or predator had gone over.

“s**t,” Daxen breathed. “We’re late.”

I crouched, scanning the spatter pattern, the gouges in steel. Something in me recognized the rhythm of the attack—the angles, the depth, the places that would hurt the most without killing instantly.

Someone taught you to do this, I thought. Or you taught yourself the same way I did. The hard way.

I closed my eyes and reached a little deeper, past human senses. Auras left traces, like fingerprints in fog. If you knew what to feel for, you could—

Pain flared behind my eyes. A wave of static crashed against my mind, jagged and wild, like someone screaming underwater.

I staggered. Daxen’s hand shot out, gripping my elbow.

“Liora?”

“I’ve got it,” I said through my teeth. “Just—give me a second.”

I rode the wave instead of fighting it, letting it wash over my own scarred bond like water over stone.

And for one heartbeat, I wasn’t on the dock.

I was somewhere else—cold, dark, the stink of metal and fear thick in my throat. A woman’s ragged breathing in my ears, not mine. A flash of a hand gripping a table edge until the knuckles tore. Voices above, clinical and bored.

Subject Varra, unstable. Proceed with—

The vision snapped like a cable. I was back on the dock, knees on cold concrete, Daxen’s grip the only thing keeping me upright.

“Liora.” His voice was sharper now. “Talk to me.”

I sucked in a breath. Blood. Rust. My scent, too strong, laid down in deliberate streaks.

“She was here,” I said. My voice sounded wrong to my own ears. “Whoever they made out of me. And she’s not just hunting.”

Daxen’s eyes narrowed. “What then?”

I looked at the empty edge of the dock, the black water swallowing whatever had happened next.

“She’s remembering,” I said quietly. “And she wants everyone else to feel it.”

Behind us, the radio crackled to life again.

“Vaelir‑Three, report.”

Daxen lifted the mic, gaze still on me. “We have another scene,” he said. “And this time, the ghost left a clearer trail.”