The Alpha's Keeper

Werewolf Showdown In My Bedroom

A few nights passed since then and Allison and Scott were grounded for seeing each other. But that didn't keep them apart. My brother was over at his girl's house and I was reading in my room when a knock came at my window. I jumped, gasping in shock before I realized it was only Derek. I sighed in relief, shaking my head before opening the window for him. "What are you doing here?" I asked him as I backed away, giving him enough room to crawl through the window and onto my bed. "I heard about the other night. You thought a mountain lion was the alpha?" he asked as he got off my bed and stood in front of me, arms crossed over his broad chest. "Yeah." I muttered in reply.

"And you ran right at it?" he asked, one eyebrow raised at me accusingly. I blushed and looked down. "Kinda." I muttered, keeping my eyes on the floor. "Were you even thinking?! You thought that thing was the alpha and then you ran at it?!" he snapped, his voice raising. He made me feel like I was a kid again getting punished. "No, I wasn't really thinking." I muttered, keeping my head low. "But Mr. Argent was there and –" I started, trying to defend myself but he cut me off with a glare. "You trust him?!" Derek shouted at me. I jumped slightly and glanced towards my bedroom door. I didn't know if mom was home or not and hoped that she wouldn't hear us if she was.

He suddenly reached out and grabbed my wrist, pulling me to my feet. "You see this?" he asked, holding up my arm and showing me the red scars I got from Scott. He pulled me to the floor length mirror. He stood me in front of hit, putting himself behind me before lifting up the front of my shirt. "And this? This was Scott – your brother. You got lucky. He stopped, an animal – a real animal – won't. you got lucky. You've gotten lucky so many times, and soon, that luck is going to run out." he insisted. His voice started out as an angry growl before fading into an almost concerned murmur. But his tone didn't matter because he was right – I got extremely lucky. I couldn't continue to rely on others to come save me.

Terror ran up my spine at his words. They made me realize I wasn't invincible – that even with all the death surrounding me recently, I had still felt like I was safe. Even after Scott attacked me, I had thought I was safe. I just realized how unsafe I really was. All those people who died – any one of them could have been me. One almost was. I still didn't blame Scott and he knew that – I would never blame him – but the gravity of living in this new world was weighing heavy on me. "Okay, I get it. You can stop trying to scare me now." I muttered. I felt my hands start to shake and I held onto his hands which still held my shirt above my stomach. "I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to get you to understand how dangerous this is. You can't just go running blindly into danger." He told me, his tone almost apologetic as one of his hands laced its fingers with mine.

We stood there for a long moment, the room around us silent and the tension thick. But it wasn't the same angry tension I had felt when he was yelling at me or even our fight the other day. This was totally different – and that scared me more than the angry tension. I glanced at the mirror to see that his green eyes were on my reflection, examining the scars on my stomach. His free hand moved slowly before his fingertips rested at the ends of the marks. He gently brushed his fingers against the red skin. My chest felt heavy as I briefly closed my eyes. I was surprised by how much I just wanted to spin around and pull him close. A soft sigh left my lips as his fingers trailed back the other way. I felt my hand that held his tighten its grip.

His fingers trailed across the scars another time, a little harder, before his voice made my eyes snap open. "Do they hurt?" he asked, his voice a little deeper than normal and barely more than a whisper. I wondered if he was feeling the same thing I was. My eyes briefly met his in the mirror before I looked away, turning them onto the floor. "Not anymore." I muttered, forcing myself with great effort to release his hand. He released me and backed away a few feet before turning and flopping down on my bed, making himself at home. I continued to eye the scars and trailed my fingers over them as he had. I had matching scars on my forearm. I had been wearing long sleeves and jackets recently to hide them. Even with stories of the incident spreading as quickly as they had, I still wasn't ready for all the questions I would get once people saw the scars. I had received a lot of how-are-you-feeling's and are-you-okay's when I had returned to school but people knew me well enough not to ask anything else until I opened it up as a conversational topic.