Shrouded in Mist

1| Alphas With Vendettas

Chapter 1: Alphas With Vendettas

I hurried across the deserted parking lot - midnight was a bad time to be out here alone - and tried not to feel scared.

I almost snorted out loud. I shouldn't have any reason to be scared. But maybe I'd lived with mortals too long. Way too long.

I was at the door to the lift lobby now, and I'd just placed my hand on it to push it open when I heard it.

A word.

It was faint, but I recognized it. I also recognized the all-too-familiar crackle in the air.

The papers I'd left in the office were forgotten, and I had my dagger out and was running towards where I'd heard the sorcerer before I knew it. But what was a sorcerer doing here?

Nothing good, I realized with a shiver of dread.

As I ran, the chanting got louder, and the words of the spell were starting to make sense to me.

I recognized the spell, all right.

A chill went down my spine, and I stopped dead in my tracks as the memory I'd tried so hard to forget over the past ten years rose up to the surface from its suppression somewhere in the back of my mind, assaulting me, paralyzing me. Some things were never forgotten, and never would be, and this was one of those things. It was horribly stupid that the most painful of the memories were the hardest to forget.

A clattering snapped me back to the present, and I looked down to realize it was my dagger. In my stupor, I'd lost my grip on it.

The crackle increased, and that bolted me into action, kick-starting my heart. Whatever was happening, I wouldn't let it. I couldn't.

There - just round the corner a few short feet away.

The last word of the spell was uttered - the final blow.

I put on a burst of speed, and skidded around the corner, just in time to catch a man falling. I glanced around wildly, looking for the wielder of the spell, but there was no one. Whoever had done it was gone.

I looked down at the man I'd caught - and my breath hitched in my throat.

I recognized him. Danan Pride - werewolf representative of the Council and Alpha of the Kelton pack.

I felt sick, and my arms trembled as I laid him gently down and felt for a pulse. But I knew it was futile. It had been a spell of death to fell him - and there was no coming back from one.

Another chillingly terrifyingly thought came to me, and I had to sit heavily down. Only Level Six sorcerers could wield the spell of death. And Sixes were rare. Who was the sorcerer behind this? And why would he kill Danan?

"Father?"

I was up on my feet instantly, my fingers curling tight around the hilt of my dagger, instinctively readying my magic. I might not use it much anymore, but I was prepared to now. Supernaturals had to stick together. And I was grieved that Danan had died - in the grip of a spell of death, no less.

Someone rounded the corner, and I would have thrown the dagger at him, if not for the telltale magic radiating off him that marked him as a supernatural.

I refrained from impaling the dagger in his chest, but I kept my guard up. For all I knew, he could be the sorcerer who'd killed Danan. One could never be too careful.

"Who are you?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes and assessing him suspiciously.

He looked confused. "Who are you?"