Lyla’s Pov

My eyes opened slightly, rebelling the light that penetrated towards it. I tried lifting up my body from the cold hard floor but I couldn’t. I looked down to see my hands had been tied tightly together with my legs as my back was resting against a wall.

“Lyla, are you okay?” I looked beside me to see Pearl with a deep cut on her mouth. She was also tied down as much as I was tied down like an animal about to be used for a sacrifice.

“Where are we?” I asked her, feeling the taste of blood in my mouth.

“I don’t know, Lyla. I woke up to see us like this. My head fucking hurts, the last thing I remember was being at the mall”

Then it clicked, I had gone to the mall with Pearl during the day to get us some nice dresses for the family dinner she’ll be attending with Lucas, her boyfriend later in the week.

We then went to the library to get a book for my brother. We had gotten halfway when the driver suddenly stopped and before we could say flapjack, the driver got down and other men took over while two men joined us in the back seat. Before we could scream for help, I was hit with a hard object .

I closed my eyes and opened it once more, trying to confirm if I was really locked up in a place smelling like a…

“This place smells like a fucking horse urine. if Aurora was here, she would’ve thrown up a million times” Pearl said, confirming my thoughts.

If the situation had been different, I would’ve had a good laugh but now the thought just wasn’t coming to my head.

“Who do you think could have brought us here?” Pearl asked.

“Maybe the cult” I replied with the only answer I could get.

My brother, Henry and his friends; Sebastian, Derek and Lucas, who happens to be Pearl by force boyfriend, have been against a big time Cult group in town for years now and this could properly be them retaliating.

“What cult?” Pearl being so chatty at this time made me wonder how well she was taking the situation. I hate to admit it, behind my jovial, playful and always smiling character lies a fragile and scared child who lost her parents way too early in life.

“The same ones…”

I was about replying when the door suddenly opened, it had been pushed strongly enough to bounce against the wall and echo around the empty room.

A tall giant came in, walking with a cane supporting his movement, his face was scarred and he looked nothing less than 60 or maybe 65 years old.

“Why are there two girls?” He asked, turning to the guys behind him.

The two guys replied to him in a language that I don’t quite understand.

“So you’re telling me that this one” He said pointing to me, “is a mistake” He turned towards the guys with the guns and they nodded.

“Get me Damon. Since we don’t need her, we can as well waste her” My body tenses up at his words. Waste, as in kill.

How did I get here?

My heart pounded as tears rolled down my face, I wanted to free myself and as much as I tried getting the rope off my hand, it didn’t work.

“Lucas must think himself lucky to have such a beautiful lady like you” The man touched Pearl’s face and she spat on him.

He held her tightly by the hair and slapped her almost immediately.

Still holding her by the hair, he said,“Maybe Lucas didn’t tell you a little bit of his past, Young lady. If he had told you, you would know I’m not someone to mess with”

“Fuck you, you hear what I said, coward, fuck you a million times”

Angrily, the man threw her to the other side of the room, her head hitting the wall. She screamed out at the impact.

“You better give yourself some senses, girl or else I’ll call my boys and watch them take turns with you over and over till your tiny body gets so exhausted that you’ll beg for death” He threatened as he hovered over Pearl. She wasn’t moving and she was scaring me. I wanted to call out her name but I knew I couldn’t.

He turned to look at me angrily.

“What’s your name?” He suddenly asked while cleaning his hands off.

“Lyla” I replied through tears.

“Such a nice name. It’s such a shame that I’ll have to waste you. You know why?” He asked and I shook my head. “You’re just an unexpected abduction. She was the target and not you. When you see God up there, tell him to make you lucky in your next life”

Not understanding what he was saying, I kept looking at the floor asking for a last chance from God.

The door suddenly opened for the second time.

A really nice smell hit my nose, making me wonder where such a nice smell was coming from. This place wasn’t smelling this nice when I first got here and now I have to embrace the wooden smell, that was just like the way books smell which draw me to the library each and every time.

When I looked up to trace the smell, the first thing I saw was a gun, whoever it was was holding a gun. I couldn’t possibly run, so I crouched into the wall more, hoping it’ll open up and swallow me.

The old man in front of me stood up and walked towards the man who had come in with the gun.

“Waste her” He instructed him.

The guy didn’t waste any time in lifting up the gun as instructed. I looked up in the direction at which the gun was lifted.

Our eyes met and mine widened in shock. His deep blue eyes penetrated mine, shaking me to the core. I suddenly wanted to run towards him and pull him into a tight hug but I couldn’t as the situation doesn’t warrant it.

The gun still pointed at me, he smirked, dropped the gun back down and swore terribly.

“What’s the matter, Damon? Kill her” the old man screamed at him.

“I can't,” he simply replied.

“Why?”

*Mate*

My eyes widened one more time when I realized he hadn’t opened his mouth to say a word and yet I heard the word, mate.

Damon’s POV

“We heard Callister was kidnapped last night” The motherfucking snowfall Alpha, Alpha Xander was sitting in front of me asking me that stupid question with a smug on his face.

I’ve been in a meeting with this man for hours, going on and on about the pack's politics and security affairs. He’s hell-bent on knowing everything going on here all because he was sent by the werewolf committee of leaders to do an internal inspection of our pack.

Ever since he arrived here, he had been hell-bent on knowing more about every pack member, those living in the pack house and those who decided to stay in their own apartment. I’d also given him the honor of going through our financial system, yet, this man deem it fit to still look down on me.

“Why is Callister any of your business, Alpha?” I asked, annoyance fixed in my words

“You do not talk to an Alpha like that Damon” He threatened

I smiled at his stupidity.

“Callister is one of my dogs and my most loved pet. I don’t know where you got the information to make you think Callister is one of my men but in case you need to know, Callister wasn't kidnapped, it just lost its way and as it had been trained to look after itself, be rest assured that he’ll be fine” I replied with the stick of cigarette between my fingers.

I didn’t explain any further because I didn’t owe him any explanations because I know he would have realized just how stupid he was.

“If that is the case, then I hope your dog will be fine” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat before he continued talking, “I wish to discuss a business deal with you and I need to ask you this paramount question, can I trust you?”

He was already getting on my nerves with his stupid questions and assumptions.

“You do know I have no obligation to sit here and answer all of your questions, right? I’m just been considerate because you’re a friend to my father. My father is the one who’s supposed to be here, listening to your rants and You come into my crib to talk about fucking trust. Should I remind you of who I am?” I yelled, right into his face.

Losing my temper is one of the many fine attributes I’ve got and I’m glad it always comes at times when I need it the most. How can this man come into my home and ask me about trust?

“I don’t want to know who you are, Damon. It’s not necessary for you to remind me of what you are. I know you and I’ve heard so much about you. You’re Damon; ruthless, heartless, and evil, but yet, you walk in the shadows of your father. You’re a coward, which is no surprise about how you ended up being a fucking Beta” He spat and o lost all control.

My claws came into view as I walked toward the Alpha as a predator walked toward his prey.

Before he could block the impact of the hit that I was about to grace his face with, it landed on his shoulder and I heard a crack before his face wrinkled in pain.

He was an Alpha; he wasn’t expected to show pain.

I moved closer to him, pulled him up by his shirt and threw him against the wall.

“Need I remind you that I’m not only the son of an Alpha but also the son of two Alphas. I’m much faster, stronger than you, Alpha and if you piss me off, I will break your bones, one by one, pack it up in a bag and send it to your family. Do you understand?” I growled.

He nodded.

“Very well! Good you know that. It’ll be best if you stop asking me about trust. If you want to put your money and your life on the line, good luck to you and if not, use my door, other packs will receive you and your business deals willingly” I replied.

The man kept on looking at me as if he was pondering on what to do next while still on the floor, breathing heavily from pain. I ignored his stare and placed my cigarette in my mouth, drew a deep one and blew the smoke into the air.

“I heard you were cursed while you were still in your mother’s womb” I smirked.

I wouldn’t be surprised about how news spread in the werewolf pack, I mean, we move faster than regular people, so obviously our news should spread.

“By your fucking goddess, yes. I heard too, Alpha. It was a really unpleasant curse but you know one thing, I loved how the spell was spoken and placed. Damn! That woman must be related to Williams Shakespeare” I said referring to the goddess.

For each and every pack, the goddess is worshipped in different forms, while others think of her as the sun goddess, we worship her as the river goddess.

“You’re a psychopath”

“You won’t be the first person to tell me that, Alpha. Let’s get straight to business, when are you leaving this place?”

His head whipped up in surprise. It was the first time in his life that he would be walked out of a pack. I don’t care if the fucking elders summon me to a disciplinary meeting, it wouldn’t be the first I’ll attend, and neither will it be the last one.

“Only when the elders want me to” I nodded

“Well, why don’t we send you back to the elders without your legs? At least, they’ll know you didn’t try to leave on your own accord” I stared hard at him so he would know I wasn't playing.

Thinking I was joking, he looked at me amusingly, until I reached down to the bottom drawer of my mahogany desk, and brought out a chainsaw with blood stains on it.

“You can’t do that, Damon” he yelled

“I already told you to leave, Alpha but you refused and now, I have to do what I have to do”

I said walking towards him.

“I have uranium”

That made me stop in my tracks.

Uranium was an element used in the olden packs, years long before my great grandparents were born to hide out pack from the outside world and that is why we have been able to coexist with humans while staying fitter away at the outskirts of their town but these days, Uranium has been scarce to find and difficult to use as this leads to the exposure of many packs to humans, hunters, and vampires.

“It’ll be delivered to you by tomorrow, tens of it, just make me stay here for one more night”

“If you are lying, you know what the consequences would be right”

He nodded. I helped him up to his feet and walked him toward the door.

“Your wife and kids still stay on that private island of yours, right? The one you brought a few years ago from that Italian, right” I threatened.

The Alpha angrily nodded and walked out of my door with his suitcase in his hands.

White angel is the name of our pack. My father was supposed to be the Alpha till I was seventeen. Once I turned seventeen, I was supposed to perform some rituals to be able to become an Alpha, but due to the curse that the goddess placed on me and because of my hatred for her as well, I refused to take the oath of allegiance and there, the goddess rejected me as an Alpha.

Sadly..

Not…

That was exactly what I wanted to happen.

“Damon, the girls are here” My gamma, Tunde, rushed into my office and informed me. He was my closest friend in the pack ever since I turned eleven “The Alpha wants you on base 9”

“Girls?” I asked surprisingly.

It was supposed to be one girl and I hadn’t even expected the one girl to be here. I’d sent a message to that son of a gun called Lucas to make sure he protects his girl with everything but he had been so careless that he still let her slip away like this.

“Have you seen Bagon?” Bagon was the guy I sent to deliver the message to Lucas and I hadn’t heard anything from him ever since.

“His body got washed offshore this morning. We couldn’t tell you because you were in a meeting”

“Shit!” I banged my hand hard against the table in front of me.

“Let’s go” I grabbed my car keys and hurriedly headed to base 9.

Base 9 is a training ground for the pack warriors and a place of death for any stranger taken into base 9. Nobody enters base 9 and leaves the same way they entered. It was forbidden and if any member helped them to escape, he’ll have to pay with his life.

“They took another girl with them, she was with Lucas’s girl in the car and they had to bring them together. The Alpha wants you to eliminate the girl” Tunde explained.

“Why should I be the one doing the killing at every time?”

“You know how the Alpha is, he loves it when someone else has their hands in innocent blood than his. You don’t want to kill the girl”

“I don’t fucking give a damn about any other girl. Killing her would be easy”

I was on the edge of losing my sanity. Whoever had killed Bagon had known of his mission, but one thing I wasn’t sure of yet was if the person knew it was connected to me or whoever the fuck that asshole who thinks he can mess up with me was.

“What about Lucas’s girl?” Tunde asked

“Until we get there. But whatever happens, before we get there is none of my business” I groaned.

We got to base 9 and passed through the heavy gates before we walked into the building where one of my father’s boys led us to the room where they were holding both girls hostage.

Tunde gave me my gun before I walked in alone. I saw my father crouched down before a girl and when I looked at the other one, she was sitting in a corner, her eyes everywhere, reminding me of a wild animal.

Not one glint of fear passed through her face as she glared at my father, oblivious of my presence.

“Waste her!” my father walked towards me and pointed to the girl he had been talking to.

I watched her move closer into the wall behind her while whimpering. Her ginger-red hair was what first caught my attention. I ran my eyes down her delicate figure.

She suddenly lifted her head and our eyes met. Her eyes widened in surprise as if she knew who I was. My breath hitched and for the first time in a long time, my heart started breathing rapidly. There was something about this girl that kept me captivated. It was as if her big green eyes were ready to swallow me whole, making me feel different or maybe the beautiful scent coming from her was keeping me trapped.

Not bothered about how she knew who I was, I lowered my gun and for the first time, I was ready to break a rule.

What’s the matter, Damon? Kill her” my father screamed at me.

“I can’t,” I said

“Why?”

*Mate* My wolf growled.