MARRIED TO THE ALPHA

Cursed Gene

The night was approaching, slowly by slowly. The community was socked in black ink. As if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their place. Tasha looked around at the black scenery outside the window. "I wish I could just disappear," she thought, hugging herself with her warm arms. The breeze continued playing with hair when Ryder entered the balcony.

"Do you intend to escape again?" He joked, while staring at the crescent moon.

"Come on Ryder," she replied with an irritant expression.

Soon, a torch was hit on the trees. Tasha looked at it with hope once more. The torch light became brighter and brighter until she noticed a man figure. She looked at Ryder who was glaring at the man by then and then he fixed his gaze on Tasha. "You scream again and I repeat the same thing," with a wink, he gave a sinister smile.

Heat spread across her body. Her cheeks flushed. It was the blush of roses, that peak of champagne pink. She turned herself away from him to hide her embarrassment but immediately regained her composure. This was probably her last chance to find a way to escape. Luckily for her, the man walked towards their house and knocked on the door.

"Who's he?" She asked to confirm whether he was a human or another one of them.

"He's the sheriff we saw in the morning today."

'Sheriff' was the only thing that her brain processed. With an enigmatic smile, she looked at Ryder. "Lemme go check on Evan." Ryder smelt something fishy but he couldn't put his finger on it. Her heartbeat was normal, not one that Ryder could find suspicious. He nodded and continued gazing at the moon.

After Ryder was out of sight, she took a deep breath, 'come on Tasha,' she gave herself the boost and picked up her pace as fast as she could. Her legs turned numb but she forced herself to give it a try, perhaps a last try.

Before she realised, strong hands grabbed her and pushed her towards the wall. The tight grip sent shivers down her spine. Knowing who it was, she didn't bother opening her eyes. Instead, she kept them shut. A loud yelp escaped from her mouth. Before she could do more, he tightly gripped her mouth and forced her to keep quiet. She made a low growl, straining to stand up to the pain. After much struggle, she jammed her knee into his groin, sending shock waves of dull nauseating pain deep into his abdomen. He fell on his knees but still maintained his tight grip on her. Due to his fast recovery, he immediately regained his composure and stood on his feet. "Don't mess with me Tasha!" He warned, with a frown flickering across his face.

Tasha had no words. She tried getting out of his grip but in vain. "I'm sorry," she cried out.

"What do you exactly want?" Shaking her with full force, he continued, "how do I make you believe I intend no harm?" Tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry."

"Is your house the only problem?" He questioned again.

"It was a part of me,"

"If I agree changing to your house, will you behave then?" Reluctantly, Tasha nodded.

"Fine then!" He shouted and punched on the wall right beside Tasha and stormed away from her. Evan exited his room and walked towards Tasha to console her. He held her hand and took her to his room. Quietly, she sat down beside Evan waiting for Ryder's next movement.

On going down, Ryder found Styles talking to the sheriff. "Hello," he greeted them.

"Oh hello, sir," the sheriff stood up from his seat to shake hands but Ryder ignored his approach. Instead, he sat on the seat opposite him and waited for him to talk. Embarrassment filled the cop as he sat down on his place.

"We have found leads of the animal around your area," he briefed. Ryder looked at Styles who nodded and turned his face towards the floor.

"Have you checked around?" He asked.

"We did, but we only found its footprints, many infact," Ryder nodded.

"We'll make sure we are safe, if anything we'll call."

After what seemed like ages, the cop left their house. Ryder immediately issued orders to hunt down the rival group. He ordered Alina to look after Tasha and Evan and left with his pack. Fur covered all his body parts as he changed into his original form. His transformation was smooth and painless for him. In a blink of an eye, his whole form changed. He had become bigger in size. In a sprint, they left to investigate on the area. Their smelling sense caught one different kind of smell of the rival werewolves. Styles looked at Ryder to get a signal of what to do next. With his nose, Ryder pointed out to the direction to show them that they should not back off.

They increased their paces, panting but as soon as they were near, Ryder stopped them. He took deep breaths to get more of their smell and transformed to his human form. The rest followed suit. "What happened?" Styles asked him.

Ryder counted all his people and shook his head. "We won't be enough for them," confusion was clearly written on Styles face. He kept quiet for Ryder to continue, "they come from the cursed gene," he spoke while taking his shirt which he had tied to his leg and wore it. "And they are more than twenty."

Styles glanced at the wolves from their troop and realised they were only six at that moment. The rest stayed back to guard their home. The cursed gene werewolves were the evil ones. They changed to werewolves after a curse they had gotten. In the olden days, they were a different kind of animal which went extinct after they were cursed to change because of their mistake of killing their saints. Their power was ten times more than the werewolves born from the uncursed gene, who were the protectors of humankind. However, after some special prayers, the incursed gene had the ability to fight them. That took a lot of prayers.

"What can we do?" The beta questioned.

"I'll have to communicate with my ancestors for that," he began walking back with a little less speed than they had come. Styles knew Ryder didn't know how to do what to do next. This was a situation they had never faced before. The alpha's had an ability to identify who is a cursed one and who isn't from a long distance but it was hard for them to defeat them. Many alpha's passed away because of the war between them.

From a distance, they heard the wolves howling, celebrating their success already. Ignoring the howls, Ryder walked into the house.

The first sight made his heart melt on the spot. Tasha was sitted in the middle of the sitting room, wearing Stacy's favourite blue dress. looking just like her. Kids of the pack surrounded her, all politely seated, listening to the story she was narrating. Evan was sitted on Tasha's lap. "How sweet," he murmured to himself. Genuine happiness spread across him. It was what Stacy used to do.

On seeing Ryder, Alina quickly sent the kids off to their rooms and stood, impatiently waiting for Ryder to say what he'll do next. Due to her privilege of being from a healing family, Alina sometimes got glimpse of what was going to happen. This helps her know the situation of the pack most of the time.

"Let's head to the meeting room," he stated and turned himself away from Tasha.