Book 2 of Mate of the Alpha.
My mate was one of the most powerful Alphas in the world, one of the three brothers. No one would have known that he had a mate, everyone thought that he and his brothers were mateless, until I came.
I was once a normal...
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I sniffed at a random branch, then moved on, walking on mud, branches, pebbles, and so on.
I didn't know how long I had been walking in the forest, but it certainly has been a while. My paws were aching and my body was too tired to move, but my furry form was too numb to feel the pain.
It's just the usual.
Okay, so all I have to do is look for a piece of a Yeti's fur, and a golden serpent's talon. And all of those types of animals just happen to be extinct. Great.
The last ingredient we were missing was the easiest of all the missing ingredients. An exact single drop of an Alpha's saliva. And we already have an Alpha present, the only hard part was to get exactly a single drop.
The only ingredients present, and are safe with me are a vampire's fang and a witch's nail. The easiest of the five. I mean, vampires just sell their fangs as if they were nothing, and a witch's nail is probably useless to the witch anyway, so they sell it for the most useless of ingredients.
I scolded myself for the millionth time.
I shouldn't have cursed their generation. Vengeance was never the answer, like Hecate used to tell me, when I hunted for a squirrel who pulled on my fur.
But that was before she turned into a black witch.
And when she changed, I did, too. I wanted to be the perfect pet for the perfect witch. And being the perfect pet for a black witch would mean having to do all those evil things, like revenge and curses.
I even tried dyeing my fur black one time.
Focus.
I kept walking, until I reached a familiar location. The trees were planted in a formation, it was part of security, and only the ones who knew what was about to come next could prevent the attack.
Silver bullets dipped in poison were shot from the holes of the trees, they came from above, below, and middle, almost in every single direction.
I closed my eyes and summoned my inner spirit's ghost-like form.
It wouldn't come.
I tried again, and just before I thought I'd get hit by one of the bullets, I suddenly felt wobbly, and when I opened my eyes, everything looked furtive. The secret traps that were installed all around the area were visible to me.
I easily dodged all the traps and the sentries' shots of fire. And then there was nothing, just a clear field now.
Now comes the hard part, the traps are invisible to even my ghost-like form, meaning the traps had been installed by one of my kind too, and that was to prevent intruders who have spirit animals as pets or slaves to get into the Secret Spirit Headquarters. But I'll have no problem with this test, since this was my childhood home, unless they added more traps.
I shifted into my human form and took a small pebble from a tree's hole nearby.
I threw it towards the empty field, but before it could even locate a single trap, it poofed into thin air.
They upgraded security, I'm doomed.
There wasn't any turning back into this, the former test I had passed had been blocked by a brick wall, impossible to pass by magic, ghost forms, or even strength. Unbreakable and unpassable.
I slowly stepped forward.
If I could remember correctly, the first was to just dodge every hole without seeing them, or fall into a snake pit, if they hadn't changed the places, then I could pass it by instinct, but if they did...
I took slow cautious steps, in different directions, and I passed it. I guess they didn't find the need to change the first of the traps.
If they really hadn't changed the entire security, then the next would just be a mental test. I'll just have to pass a crowd of ghosts who would magically know all my deepest insecurities and secrets, but the best way was to ignore them.
I walked straight forward, and immediately, a huge crowd of transparent ghosts appeared in front of me.
"Useless," an old man with broken glasses chuckled.
"Weak," another whispered in my ear.
"All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you'll never escape!"
I flinched, but didn't show any other sign of being affected.
"Invisible," a strange girl with wobbly legs taunted.
"Time doesn't heal all wounds, you know that."
"Maybe you've always been broken, with twisted wounds that can never heal," a man who looked like he was in his mid 40's murmured in my ear.
"I can't think of anything more useless than living a life without any purpose."
I winced, but still kept walking.
"Hasn't it been a long time since you've had a wonderful dream? Of what? Growing old with your deceased owner. And even if that was possible, she would have still died and you would still live. Immortally alone. Forever after."
"Immortally alone. Forever."
Their words echoed in my mind, and I stumbled upon my steps.
"Always alone."
"Love never lasts forever. See how that went to your previous owner."
I kept walking, but slowly, dark, negative thoughts started invading my mind. What if I give her the same fate as..?
No. They're just messing with my mind.
I know who I chose for a reason, and I knew I chose her because she would have needed my help sooner or later, and for a couple of other reasons.
"Immortally alone."
I drowned out the voices of the ghosts with my own thoughts. The thoughts started out as positive, but soon, the thoughts started getting darker, and the ghosts' words started getting into my mind.
I stumbled on my steps another time, then fell straight down a deep hole, but before I could fall all the way down, I got a purely white rock from my pocket and activated it with the special dust I was given when I was still a small fox in the headquarters.
I flung it as hard as I can into the air.
It activated the 'distress call,' because there was no going out of the hole, unless someone from the inside decided to personally help the victim.
