**YARA**

I didn’t know what was going on. All I knew was that something was wrong.

Autumn leaves crunched under my shoes as I made my way back to the cabin… the same cabin I’d heard terror filled screams coming from. I could no longer control my hands – they were shaking in an odd trembling rhythm – and my heart thumped wildly as I desperately hoped that my parents were okay.

When I was finally close enough to the cabin, I noticed that the front door was wide open and my heart beat even faster because my parents hated leaving the front door open but before I could walk around my dad’s car which was parked in the driveway, movement in the doorway caught my attention. I instantly stepped back, using the car to shield myself, and the moment I peeked around it to see who was coming out of the house, my heart froze.

There was a wolf in the doorway. A huge gray one.

*Oh my God.*

A loud chime suddenly filled the air while something buzzed in my pocket and my eyes snapped open. *Huh?* The first thing I saw were lockers and a dressing table and I blinked twice in confusion before remembering that I was at work. I was done with my shift and in the staff changing room.

“Right,” I muttered hoarsely, quickly pushing the dream I just had to the back of my mind because I really wasn’t interested in thinking about what happened that day right now. My phone buzzed again and I sat up on the bench, still feeling a little bit disoriented, before pulling it out of my pocket.

**Aunt A: Are you on your way back? Could you grab some milk from the store?**

**Aunt A: Where are you?**

**Aunt A: What the fuck Yara?!!!!**

Along with several other messages, there were also several missed calls from her and my eyes widened when I saw that the time was 12:35AM. “Shit.” I got to my feet and quickly gathered my things before rushing out of the changing room.

The people I worked the afternoon shift with had already left and I didn’t want to leave the hotel through the ‘Employees Only’ door alone because it led to an passageway – there weren’t enough words to describe how much I despised passageways – but my supervisor would throw a fit if I used the main entrance so I just had to suck it up.

“Shit,” I muttered again before stepping into the passageway and I only shut the door behind me when I was sure that I was the only one in it. I then began to walk down the passageway as fast as I could while glancing over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being followed because people – supernatural folks and humans – had been turning up dead lately and I sure as hell didn’t want to become a statistic.

My phone buzzed as I neared the passageway’s end and I glanced at it to see another message from my obviously angry Aunt, Allison, before lifting my eyes back up to see a man walking into the passageway.

*Crap.* I came to a stop as I watched him groan while swaying sideways before choosing to lean against the wall. He hadn’t seen me though and when he still didn’t look up from the ground after a couple of seconds, I swallowed my nerves and resumed walking. *Maybe he just wants to pass through and will ignore me.*

That thought flew out of my mind the moment I heard him growl and my entire body jerked to a stand still immediately before he lifted his head. His eyes were glowing.

Alarm bells began to go off in my head and my heart rate picked up as I slowly took a step back. *Calm down, Yara. Calm down. Maybe he still just wants to pass through and will ignore you.* That hope dwindled by the second as he still kept his eyes on me and when he fell to his knees, his clothes ripping as he began to shift, I knew I had to get out of here.

I whirled around and began to run down the passageway while he growled again. I’d already dealt with shit this week and I wasn’t in the mood for more but he definitely did not get the memo because he didn’t hesitate to chase after me. I kept my eyes fixed on the ‘Employees Only’ door, hoping I would be able to get back into the hotel before he caught up with me, but I wasn’t fast enough.

“Ah!” I cried out as something hard knocked me sideways from behind and when I hit the wall, pain shot through my body. *Shit.*

My heart throbbed in my ears, loud and irregular, after I hit the ground and the wolf took what I assumed was an aggressive stance, baring its sharp teeth at me, before it lunged at me. I immediately kicked my foot out, hitting it square in the face, and it stumbled to the side with a whimper while I scrambled to my feet.

I was *not* going to die here.

I resumed running towards the door and just as I remembered I needed my employee card to open it, the wolf caught up with me again. It yanked me backward, its teeth tearing through my flesh, and I let out an ear-splitting scream while falling to the ground before it tossed me down the passageway like I was a rag doll.

*Oh my God… Oh my God…* My heart hammered a million miles an hour in my chest as the wolf growled somewhere behind me and I realized I was crying when the edge of my vision became blurry with tears.

Okay… It looked like I was going to die here.

Why the hell was he even attacking me? Was he drunk? Was he under a spell?

I rolled onto my back and glanced to my right to see the wolf slowly advancing toward me again. “Get away from me, you rabid dog!”

I managed to get back to my feet despite my aching body protesting against any kind of movement but I couldn’t run. I could try to but it would be more of a *limping* run and that would probably only make my injured, bleeding leg worse. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to make it anywhere before the wolf attacked me again.

There was only one thing left to do if I wanted to make it out of here alive and though I didn’t want to, I didn’t exactly have a choice. I swallowed.

The wolf began to run towards me while I pulled on the sparks building up under my skin as fast as I could and just before it got close enough for me to send a massive jolt through it, someone rushed past me at an unnatural speed, knocking the wolf to the side. *Who–* The newcomer glanced at me with glowing eyes and surprise written all over his face, and I gritted my teeth at the fact that he was also a werewolf before recognizing him as Aiden Hendrix, the CEO of the hotel whose passageway we were currently standing in.

*What the fuck?!*

The wolf snarled, drawing his attention, and as he moved towards it, it turned and bolted down the passageway.

“Shit,” he muttered while I let the energy I had built up under my skin disperse before he turned to face me. He drew his brows together slightly. “… You’re not a werewolf.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

He tipped his head to the side as regarded me curiously, most likely wondering how I knew about their kind since I wasn’t one. I actually was a werewolf… well to be more exact, I was a werewolf-witch hybrid with my werewolf side being latent but I wasn’t interested in telling him that.

I glanced at my bleeding leg and a wave of nausea hit me when I saw the blood that had pooled at my feet. “Shit.”

I needed to do something to staunch the bleeding and find my phone which I had lost while running so I could call my aunt for help. She’d give me hell for what happened and most likely never let me out of her sight again but I couldn’t bring myself to worry about that now.

I dropped my gaze to the ground to search for my phone and as the man a couple of feet away from me began to speak, I was suddenly hit by a dizzy spell that had me leaning to the side to balance myself against something. Except there was nothing there and next thing I knew, I was heading for the ground in a free fall.

*Crap.*

I shut my eyes, bracing myself, but instead of feeling my body hit the floor, I felt arms wrapping around me and pulling me flush against a solid body. My eyes immediately snapped open and as I blinked repeatedly at the man who had been several feet away from me a moment ago, I couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was.

His features were even, masculine, and a strong chin and jaw shadowed with dark stubble complemented the chiseled planes. His thick dark hair was in unkempt waves, giving him a just-fucked look, and he had molasses-dark eyes with luscious, kissable lips that were currently moving as he spoke to me but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

*What…* My knees weakened and my vision blurred once more just before I felt something apart from the pain singing in my left leg.

I felt a pull.

The kind my father had told me about when he was alive and based on what I remembered from what he said, it only meant one thing.

Mate.

*Oh, hell no!* And then the world went dark.