Under The Alpha's Claws

Chapter 5

I open my eyes and find myself standing in the room I share with Cassian. Shadows fill the corners. Moonlight filters in through the single dirty window. Through it I can see the distant town.

We were so lucky Henry—our last Alpha—had saved this old motel complex just outside of town from demolishers twenty-five years ago.

It broke my heart when he died two years after I joined the pack. I was only fifteen. He just missed out on his fiftieth birthday. He left in the middle of the night for a hunt while we all slept and never returned. Cassian had to tell us the unfortunate news the next morning. He had been the only one Henry told about him leaving before he took off. Cassian stepped up and became leader of the pack. That's how I got to know him, and the next year we were dating.

The door flies open with enough force for the handle to dint the wall behind it, causing me to jump and look away from the window. In the doorway, Cassian stands tall and big. Shadows hides his face but I can tell he's glaring at me.

My heart drops to my stomach, and a lump grows in my throat, restricting any words from coming out.

He steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. A quick glance to the clock beside the bed shows the time. 9:02 pm.

His dark blonde hair swings in front of his face, reaching his nose. Almost black eyes peer at me from behind it. The eyes I fell in love with, and now the eyes I dread more than anything.

He stalks towards me. "Eli told me you gave him an extra feed."

"He--he was staving," I explain, my voice failing me.

His fist curls and pulls back. "I've told you enough times already, there's not enough meat for people to have second servings!" His clenched fist soars down towards me.

"Emery. Emery."

I'm pulled from the memory and brought back into reality world by Luca's frantic voice. I wake up kicking all four limps. The blanket must have been kicked off during my sleep and it now lies on the ground beneath Luca's bare feet.

He holds my shoulder, shaking me awake. "It's okay," he says. "It's just a nightmare."

The faint sunlight shines through the windows, lighting the room just enough to see.

The agony I had been in last night has dwindled. All that's left is a dull ache and tenderness that I can deal with. The wound should have closed to stop the bleeding and I need to wait a little longer for it to completely heal, but I can't be sure until I check it in my human form.

Luca waits for me to shift, holding the blanket that he wraps around me as I sit up. He sits down beside me.

I pull one side of the blanket away for a moment to confirm what I believe about the wound. Just as I thought, a thin layer of skin covers the torn area, but I'll need to be careful for a little while longer to be sure I don't rip it open again before it can heal.

"It will need a few more hours to strengthen," Luca says, studying the injury and lightly brushing his fingers over it. "And it should be mostly gone by tomorrow." Something in his voice tells me he's reassuring himself rather than informing me.

I give him a small smile and wrap the blanket back around me for warmth and comfort.

Getting to his feet, he walks out of the room without a word and moments later, he returns with two plates in his hand. Steam rises off the the cooked food. "We'll have to hunt later," he tells me, placing the eggs, and toast on the coffee table in front of me, and drags it closer to the couch before sitting down.

I nod my head in agreement. It's the part I hate the most about becoming a werewolf. The human part of us allow us to eat the food we're used to and love, but the wolf side of us requires raw meat all the time to remain strong and healthy.

It disgusted me in the beginning. For three weeks after my transformation, I refused to hunt or eat until I was dying and desperate. I was forced to eat a small rabbit that I saw get hit by a car, and had to do everything I could to not throw it up.

I survived like that for a year. Only eating small, freshly dead animals when I needed to after weeks of starving. When Henry found me, I hadn't eaten anything for a week, not even human food, and I was too weak to stand.

He carried me back to the motel complex where he encouraged me to eat. He never told me what I ate; he said I should just think of it as rare steak. I couldn't convince myself of that, but I still repeated, "It's steak," over and over in my head with each bite which helped me swallow all of it.

After eight years, I've learnt to deal with it, but I still hate it and only hunt because I have to.

We eat in silence. Stuffing our faces with the toast, egg yolks dripping down our chins. When we're done, Luca takes the plates back into the kitchen while I get dressed.

He returns, wiping his wet hands on his pants. "If we're going to avoid Cassian, we're going to have to leave here."

Placing the folded blanket on the couch, I turn my attention to him.

"He tells me where to search for you," he says, stopping on the opposite side of the coffee table. "So, it won't be long before he-" He cuts himself off.

It's as if someone pressed pause on him. He's frozen. Unmoving. He doesn't even blink. His face pales. His eyes stay trained on me but he stares through me as if I just vanished right in front of him. The distance in his eyes tells me he's somewhere else in his own head.

I wait for him to return, blinking back into reality.

Without me asking, he gives me the answer. "We're too late. He's near."