CHAPTER 3
1486 Words
“Did you just kidnap her?”
Henry’s voice thundered across the room the moment the door slammed shut behind him.
I didn’t answer. I stood with my back to him, staring at the unconscious girl lying on my bed. Wrapped in one of my shirts, her breathing finally even and calm after the nightmare she had been dragged into.
Kidnap her?
If only Henry had seen what I had walked into.
Henry is my Beta, my second-in-command so it's normal for him to question me and know what's going on with me. He stepped closer, jaw clenched. “Blaine, she is human. You can’t just snatch a human woman off the street.”
“I didn’t snatch anything,” I growled, finally turning. Anger simmered under my skin, my wolf pacing just beneath the surface. “If I had arrived ten seconds later, she would be dead.”
Henry’s expression faltered. “Dead… by who?”
My jaw tightened. Another wolf. A traitor.
One of the bastards who had been circling my pack like vultures for months.
Henry cursed under his breath and dragged a hand over his face. “So the enemy is already this close… to our territory, to your mate?”
My chest tightened at the word, 'Mate'
Mine.
“She was scared and screaming,” I muttered. “The moment I heard her my wolf snapped.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Blaine… this was reckless. Even for you, how did you jump into a fight with a wolf you don't even know, what if you were hurt? What if it was a trap!.”
I didn’t deny it. Because he was right but I would rather be reckless than allow anything happen to her.
Everything about Alice had made me reckless from the very first second.
I sank onto the edge of the couch, elbows braced on my knees. And the memories roared back, sharp and vivid like it was happening all over again as it did 3 days ago.
---
3 DAYS AGO
The roar of engines, the electric pulse of the crowd. Fuel. Metal. Wind.
I lived for moments like that.
The Christmas Eve Race was the biggest of the year, the thrill, the noise, the adrenaline, the human world wrapped around my claws without even knowing what I was.
I was Blaine Thorne. Youngest Alpha in werewolf history. The most feared creature walking the city and also the country’s unbeatable top racer.
I blended perfectly into their world.
Dominating it came naturally.
But nothing had prepared me for the moment I caught her scent. It hit me like a punch straight to the chest. Wild honey. Warm rain. Something soft, something unbearably familiar though I had never inhaled it before in all my 29 years of age.
My vision tunneled. My wolf surged forward, snarling awake. "Mate!" he screamed. The word echoed through my bones with brutal clarity.
I looked up into the stands and saw her : a small human woman with wide, bright eyes and a laugh that vibrated straight into my ribs. Her eyes were on me almost like she felt what I felt. She looked very innocent and oblivion of what just happened, she didn’t know she had already changed my entire existence. A human mate?
For a moment, I almost forgot the race.
Almost forgot the world. Until the instruction came signaling the start of the race.
I rode like fire. Like the wind was mine to command. I won easily as usual but my mind wasn’t on the cheering crowd or the flashing cameras. It was on her. The girl whose scent haunted the very air.
I tore off my helmet and scanned the sea of faces but she was gone.
My heart dropped.
But her scent lingered, faint and drifting toward the woods behind the event grounds. I followed it. And that’s when I heard the argument.
Her voice first was hurt and breaking. Her name was Alice
Then the male’s vicious, sharp. The kind of tone that makes the wolf in me want to tear throats open. I stepped into the shadows just in time to hear him snarl insults at her.
'Flat. Embarrassing. Not enough for a man like him.'
Something inside me snapped.
I shifted before I could think. Bones cracked, fur erupted, my wolf took full control. I launched at the bastard, Evan, I think she had called him. A pathetic excuse for a male. I slammed him to the ground, fangs inches from his neck.
I would have killed him but her scream stopped me. Her voice terrified, trembling pulled me back from the edge like a hand on my throat. I forced myself to shift back, ignoring the sting of restraint.
When I stood before her as a man again, she was shaking, terrified of me.
I couldn’t blame her. Humans knew nothing of our world. Nothing of the creatures walking beside them. My kind had been hunted for centuries by those who did know.
My father died because of them, wolf hunters, descendants of the old human lineage that had dedicated their lives to wiping us out. I was ten when they tore him apart. Eleven when I held power I wasn’t ready for. Eleven when I became Alpha over a broken, bleeding pack.
I never had a childhood but I built my own life. My own strength.
And I hid among humans by choice because blending in gave me control, power, anonymity.
And then Alice happened.
After that night in the woods, I couldn’t stay away. I watched her house from a distance.
Wanted to approach, wanted to explain.
But she was already terrified of me, she was convincing herself that she hallucinated the whole thing.
I didn’t want to scare her more so I waited, until tonight and then everything exploded.
I had been sitting on the rooftop across from her apartment, debating whether to knock on her window like a lunatic, when I felt it ; A wolf’s presence. Not mine. Not Henry's and not anyone from my pack.
It was an Enemy.
I was down the fire escape before my brain caught up.
By the time I crashed through Alice’s window, she was already in danger, another wolf lunging at her with murderous intent.
I tore him off her in one blow.
We clashed, teeth and claws, smashing against walls as we scattered the room. He wanted her dead. I didn’t know why yet but I made damn sure he never touched her again.
He knocked her out and fled, leaving blood dripping in his trail. I couldn't chase him, Alice fainted the second I caught her.
I couldn’t leave her alone. Not with enemy wolves out there. Not with her trembling in my arms.
So yes I took her, carried her home with me and I would do it again.
---
BACK TO THE PRESENT
Henry was quiet for a long moment after I finished narrating my encounter this night . His brows knit together as he stared at Alice, still unconscious but safe.
“You’re in deep,” he muttered finally. He wasn’t wrong.
“She doesn’t know what we are,” I said quietly. “She doesn’t know what I am. She doesn't even know she’s mine and now we have to deal with danger lurking around her first. "
“She’s human,” Henry reminded. “She would be overwhelmed by all these, how would she accept this new reality? ”
I looked at her, small, fragile, curled into my pillow like she belonged there.
“She will adapt,” I murmured. “Because I will protect her. No matter what comes.”
Henry exhaled sharply, resigned. “What’s the plan, Alpha?”
I stood, eyes glowing faintly gold.
“First,” I growled, “we hunt down the wolf who dared to step into my territory.”
Henry nodded, the room suddenly tense as the weight of the hunt settled between us.
“And second?” he asked.
A faint, dark smile touched my lips.
“Second… I make sure Alice never has a reason to fear me again and then we talk about introducing her to the pack, it turns out that your alpha wasn't abandoned by the moon goddess to die single and lonely.” I murmured, she may not have abandoned me but I think she doesn't really like me. How will I rule a full pack with a human mate beside me? Is that even possible?
I shook my head rejecting the thoughts threatening to invade my mind, nothing would make me different from the male from before if I think that she is not enough for me. My wolf roared in disagreement, she is enough for us.
A very deep breath escaped my throat as I watched her beside me, and asleep unaware that her entire world had just shifted.
- Writer
