Moon Bound

(49) Prove You Are A Man |Scarlet's POV|

Watching the pack, he stood in the middle. The wolf's body was tense and ready. The howl was only a second away.

He turned his muzzle up and let out another pitched up howl that had the air vibrate from the sheer power in the sound.

I saw them - a pack of hunger-driven, mad animals - jump into the carcass, the moment it happened my mind finally registering the meaning of the words echoing into the packlink.

Feast or die...

He'd told me, warned me it wasn't going to be pretty and it wasn't.

Wrong.

Wrong in so many ways that, even to an idle observer such as I, this looked like some kind of horror movie scene being replayed in reality with its all detailed gruesomeness.

Heavy paws padded like thunder on the ground, the wolves approaching about to be drenched in the blood of their own packmates while their alpha watched them. The earth would take in what the wolves couldn't, but savoring the flesh was all for them.

A yelp left my lips as soon as the first muzzle buried itself into a body. A cloud of angry snarls and grunts rose in response to my soft protest.

No, stop it! Now! A voice rang loud and clear before the rest could gorge themselves onto the bodies - my own voice.

The focus of the pack shifted toward me. The packbond trembled, searing hot under the pressure of my will over it. A will that was bending it, molding it into a different shape as I let go of every defense and let them in for the very first time. Accepting of the monsters in hope that there was still something that could save them.

Save him.

I trembled with the sensation, tried to hold my ground. Their leader angled himself in my direction, forest green eyes locked with mine.

Eyes that had never seen me as bare as I was in that moment.

Time stood still with only the sound of approaching steps reaching my ear - human steps that crept closer to me with an urgency. "What is happening, Scar? They look like they're about to attack you."

I recognized the voice as Micah's. I didn't turn to look at her and I knew without looking that she was looming over me.

The blood will be washed, but the memory won't ever fade, I shouted into the link. Don't do this.

His wolf snarled at me, muscles of steel tensing as if he was trying to hold himself. An alpha in his full glory. A dominant who never let things just slide. I knew this side of him.

We're not animals. We're not monsters! I sent out, trying to believe what I wanted to convince them- him.

He just stared at me, his gaze so intense it could melt me. My mind hummed with the sound of his low rumble into the link. And I could see it. Whatever it was that made him an alpha was the same thing that turned him into this barbarian now.

A beast.

A monster.

I waited, my gaze locked with his. I held my breath.

Don't do this. I am the alpha. Don't defy me. There was authority in his voice when he spoke, a power I didn't know he possessed. It radiated from his wolf's body. It made the packbond quake and shiver, just like I was.

It was far from the first time I'd wondered, but it was the first time I really, really wanted to know what he truly was. Was he just an alpha or was he something else - more?