Shadow Alpha

Chapter 2 🌙

Evelyn's POV

A vile midnight, sawing trees from harsh wind and sharp rocks cut into my feet after fleeing on foot for two miles. The dust that flew into my vision had caused me to trip, and now I was stuck!

"No!" I plead and scream for my release, but it is too late! I've been ritually chased down by my own pack, to the point of exhaustion. Neptune were bloodthirsty wolves. They hindered my ability to transform into my athletic wolf. I had been their best female Lupine. I spent my whole life proving to them I was worthy, smart, dangerous – but now?

On the eve of my 18th birthday, I am going to die.

My gift to surviving the Neptune exclusion and hatred since I was gifted to them – was to be scarified to a god that didn't exist..

It was the worst way to go. What a fucking waste of my life.

They were going to rip me apart!

I've caught my ankle in the root of a tree, and fallen over onto my hands.

"Stay back, please!" I scream at my surroundings before they all pounce, "HELP! Mercy!"

As I scream it, I feel like time slows as the light green Lupine eyes of the Neptune Wolves all glow together in the dark as they come forward. Hostile and ready to kill.

As the pack edges closer all around me, ready to pounce, I watch them bare their fangs, lean back and prepare to launch for me – and that's when it all ends.

A different way.

Time itself stops.

Without pain, but with my panting still hard and fast, I look up at the unmoving leaves and shadows – the still wind and the wafting scent of a Wraith.

Oh god no.

He was real?

Out of the shadow of a tree, I can't see the lurking Wraith's form, but I do see his hand reach out.

His wrist is covered in silver bangles – his skin is porcelain, finger nails pointed and so symmetrical he could be a doll, rather than a person.

"Take my hand," he asks me, even though I can't see his face, only his offer.

"Are you Ferir?" I whisper.

"They were praying to the wrong Wraith, but yes... I am Ferir. The Shadow Alpha."

In fairy tale stories, he wasn't the good guy.

He fought his way up to immortality. It was all violence and power and brute strength – the Old Lupine way. We abandoned that centuries ago. We were modern now.

So I tell him, worried, "...b-but you're the kind of Alpha... who kills other Lupines... you do not help us."

And his hand almost curls away from me at that, but he decides to remain, "...do you really have to be like your mother...?"

I had never met my mother.

"You know her?" I murmur, "And...w-what happens if I don't want to accept you. I don't want to be a bride."

"I offer a painless journey to my bed – that is what I'm offering my new bride," he drawls a little more darker. Something sinister.

And my hand, which had been reaching out toward him on instinct at the mention of my mother, now falls back into the dirt.

"I don't want to be your bride," I snap. Now he retracts his hand entirely, "When I can-not even see your face."

"Suit yourself," his dark voice fades away.