Shrouded in Mist

3 | Alpha? More like Asshole

Chapter 3: Alpha? More like Asshole

I was so furious it was almost a surprise flames didn't erupt from me as I practically flew into my house. I kicked the door shut behind me.

Keiran's messenger stopped the door from slamming completely closed with a foot jammed into the slot, then pushed it open and strode in.

"Miss McKellan, the alp-"

I whirled around, and despite the messenger being at least a good head taller than me, I now felt I towered over him. "Do not tell me anything about what that idiot alpha of yours wants." My tone bordered on somewhere between dangerous and fucking pissed off.

The messenger growled. Loyalty to your alpha was one of the values drilled into a werewolf from birth, and right now, I believed I was insulting his alpha.

"That bastard Keiran killed an innocent!"

"He wasn't innocent, nor did the alpha kill him!"

"He damn well was! All he did was run onto your pack's territory!"

"That is what exactly makes him a threat to our pack." The messenger (some blond dude with these bulging muscles that could've rivaled Keiran's - I was not admiring them at all) snapped, and I could practically see his werewolf fur bristling. His eyes were narrowed, glinting with danger. Like alpha, like pack, I thought with a snort.

"No. That's where you're wrong, Mr Muscles."

He raised an eyebrow at the nickname, but I ignored him and forged on ahead. Keiran was an asshole, and if this werewolf couldn't see that, he was an asshole too. Them werewolves. All so stuck-up and petty. Well, Danan hadn't been that way, at least that I could remember, but he must've been a terrible father, or his son wouldn't be such a cruel bastard.

I remembered the sparkle in Keiran's eyes as he'd shifted into wolf form and lunged toward the innocent mortal. That's what made it all the more worse. Keiran had hurt a mortal. He'd invited (more like ordered, if you wanted to get into technicalities) me to his territory this morning to discuss how we would start going about the business of finding Danan's killer. I'd just arrived when a little kid (probably not more than ten - that was the sickening part), whom I assumed had gotten lost on a camping trip, had wandered into Kelton territory, crying and calling for his father (which part of that had made him a threat, for God's sake?!). Keiran had just appeared to usher me in, and when he saw the kid, he got this maniacal glint in his eyes, shifted, and pounced on that poor boy.

I'd been standing dumbstruck at a side, until Keiran had sunk his teeth into the boy's calf and the kid had let out an ear-piecing, gut-wrenching, agonizing scream. He'd buckled, sobbing.

And that jolted me into action.

With a yell of my own, I'd uttered the first spell that came to mind at Keiran, knocking him away from the boy until he was lying prone a good few feet away from him.

Disregarding him, I'd hurried over to the boy and fallen to my knees besidd him, his eyes were squeezed shut, his face ruddy and red and tear-stained, mouth open in a soundless gape.

Casting my eyes down to his leg, I had to fight not to lose my lunch right then and there. Swallowing down the bile and the lump in the back of my throat, I let my hands hover over the boy's leg. He'd gone deathly silent, and I'd found myself praying Don't die don't die don't die don't die don't die pleasepleaseplease.

The spell came easily. I didn't see if there was a glow; my eyes were shut too tight. But I knew it'd worked, and when I felt my energy being drained and exhaustion swamping me, my eyes flew open, and I fell back with a heavy sigh.