Dark Times

Chapter Eighteen

My leg was the first thing the rogue chomped down on. I felt the pierce of his teeth and the flash of pain, but I still couldn't bring myself to shift. With the searing pain in my leg, I doubted I could even manage a shift anymore.

The second rogue bounded for my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing I'd die any second now.

I'd never been scared of death, but that didn't make the build up any less terrifying. Just before those jutting teeth could kill me, I heard a whine and the distinct cracking of bones. I peeled one blue eye open just in time to see my assailant go flying. The Alpha kicked his leg out with insane- impossible- strength.

He did the same to the wolf at my leg. With a quick, swift flick of his foot, the wolf's chin shot up. With it, the animal's neck snapped. It dropped to the ground, dead. The Alpha didn't stop there. Being the only standing person left, he was an attractant to the rest of the living wolves. The final three came at him. Each one met their demise.

He was a warrior. A dark angel. Something from hell. And he had eyes only for me.

When the last wolf was killed, he stood over me all high and mighty. Victorious.

Then, crouching over me, his eyes on my eyes, he said the most romantic thing any man had ever said to me.

"You're a fucking idiot, Lorelei."

With that, he sauntered off. Sauntered wasn't the right word. He marched like a soldier, his head held high after battle. With his foot, he nudged the black wolf- one of the two living wolves left.

"Shift," He commanded in the way that only an Alpha could.

Seconds later, Igor's bones were contorting until a naked human man laid, his ding-a-ling covered only by his hands. His pale skin faced the sun as the Alpha towered over him.

"I don't care what she says. You're getting that fucking key and ridding me of these fucking chains."

In his birthday suit, Igor scrambled to a stand, rushing over to the rags that'd once been his clothes. He began rifling through them, searching for the keys. He found the key to the cuffs first, awkwardly popping them off.

With his wrists now freed, the Alpha flexed them out. Raw, circular marks were indented into his skin like bangles of where the metal had been. He gave them a shake, the chains that still dangled from his arms clanging. Then, with an eery grace, he marched back over to me.

He paid no mind to the ginger wolf struggling to a stand, or to Trish who laid off to the side breathing heavily. With a dark grace, those chains swayed around him as he returned to me. Freed, his eyes were flashing red, the hold of the wolfsbane gone.

"Why didn't you shift?" He demanded, though I refused to meet his eye.

No one else could either. They knew my secret. He didn't.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, trying my hand at sheepishness. "I did semi-shift. You didn't see that?"

"Don't fucking play with me. I saw what I saw. You didn't shift." Those eyes needed to pick a colour and stick to it. For a second, they'd warm to hazel, before flashing that angry red again. Honestly, it was getting hard to keep up with. "I fucking told you to shift."

"And I didn't fucking listen." I pushed him away, grappling to sit up on my elbows. "For God's sake. You might be an Alpha- but you're not my Alpha." I panted, brushing strands of hair out the way of my eyes. Blood had crusted over some of it. Up there, it wasn't mine. "You can keep harping on about all this mating bullshit, but it means squat. You can't tell me what to do."