Chapter 7 Chapter 7
ALPHA LUCIAN'S POV
I woke up to the cloying stench of stale sex and cheap perfume suffocating my senses. The woman beside me Dahlia, my casual bed partner. I remembered how she has been all over me from the previous night and since I needed to release tension, I gave her what she wanted. She was sprawled naked across my bed, red lips parted in a shallow sleep. The sight stirred nothing in me but irritation.
The same gnawing hollowness pressed harder today. Something was wrong. The air tasted off metallic, sharp, like the scent of blood carried on the morning wind. My wolf stirred beneath his skin, restless, pacing, snarling at shadows his human side couldn't yet see. I woke the woman beside me harshly.
"Get out" I commanded her.
"A-alpha" she muttered sleepily.
"Leave before I remove your head from your body" that caused her to be wide awake and she packed her stuff scurrying off the room like she was being chased.
That's how I liked them. Scared and obedient. I was never going to give another woman a chance in my life. They are all for pleasure and nothing more. I stood up from the bed despite my wolf restlessness. I had issues to take care of. The matter of rogues breaching into my pack was something I couldn't take lightly.
A harsh knock on my door fractured the tense silence. I dragged my hand through my hair and barked.
"Enter" I gruffed. My Beta, Aiden stepped inside, face grim, body taut with urgency.
"We caught a rogue, Alpha. Near the southern border at the stream" he said quickly.
I rolled my neck, forcing down the unease coiling in my gut. I had other business to attend to and I expected Aiden to take care of that as the beta. I didn't want to see any rogue around because I would kill him without questioning.
"And you interrupted me for that?" I asked angrily
"This one's... different" Aiden said carefully, a note of something unspoken threading his words.
"You'll want to see for yourself" he added.
My instincts snapped to attention. Aiden never spoke lightly and I knew I needed to see it for myself. I only hoped it was not one of our men that betrayed us. I would kill him on the spot.
Minutes later, I descended into the dungeons, the cold seeping into my bones. The scent of fear lingered in the damp stone halls, but as I drew closer to the holding cells, another scent cut through, a fragrance that slammed into me like a blow to the chest. Earth and rain and something sweet..forbidden. It curled into my lungs, seeped beneath my skin, tangled with my wolf's senses. It seemed like my wolf was giddy.
Then I saw her.
The rogue stood in the center of the cell, chained, wrists raw and bleeding from the silver cuffs. She was filthy, clothes torn, bruises littering her skin like dark fingerprints. Yet none of it dulled the fierce, almost feral beauty in her face. Her wild, raven-black hair tumbled in knots down her back. Her lips, though cracked and dry, were full, trembling as she fought to hold onto some scrap of pride. Her skin was fair even with the mud on her body. She looked like a goddess.
Her eyes caught mine, piercing, defiant, desperate and I froze. It couldn't be.
Something primal and dangerous surged inside me. My wolf growled low, not in warning, but in something far more dangerous...recognition.
I clenched my jaw, my body taut with confusion and unwanted desire. This rogue should mean nothing. She was a trespasser, a threat, a nobody. Yet my heart pounded against my ribs as if it knew a truth my mind refused to face. I hated it. Hated her for making me feel anything.
The rogue's bravado crumbled the moment she realized who I was. She dropped to her knees weakly, trembling, and my breath hitched despite the facade I put on. She was vulnerability wrapped in defiance, and it stirred a violence inside me, I couldn't name. My wolf was begging for control.
"Please... Alpha... I didn't know. I was only passing through. I swear." Her voice cracked, raw, torn between dignity and survival.
Her pleading should have satisfied me. It should have made it easy to order her death because I needed to catch one person to set an example to the rest of the rogues but instead, it clawed at something deep in my chest, something I didn't want to name or think off.
I crouched in front of the bars, close enough to breathe her in, to see the tiny fractures behind her tough facade. My gaze roamed over her bruised throat, the trembling curve of her lips, the stubborn flicker in her tear-filled eyes. For a moment, I imagined my arms wrapped around her slender throat while I was deep inside her and immediately I snapped back to reality. I shouldn't be having lustful thoughts about a rogue.
I wanted to snap at her, to remind her she was nothing, a rogue who dared beg for mercy but my voice came out lower, rougher, my control fraying.
"You think begging will save you?" I said it with a tone that would make her scared. Her lips quivered, but she held my gaze, even as tears spilled.
"It's all I have left" she whispered in tears.
My stomach twisted. This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to be just another prisoner. Instead, she was unraveling me from the inside, pulling threads of instincts I couldn't afford to follow. I growled, slamming the cell bars hard enough to make her flinch.
"Get her cleaned. I want her brought to me once she's presentable," I snapped at Dren, the guard in charge of the prisoners but my voice betrayed me...too rough, too hungry.
As I stormed away, the scent of her clung to me like a curse. Today was going to be a disaster and somehow, deep down, I knew the rogue woman or whatever her name was, would be at the center of it.
As I stepped into my office and sank to my chair. I kept trying to dissuade the fact. It couldn't be. I was mated to a she wolf already. How is it possible I have another mate? Was the moon Goddard playing a sick joke with me?
'The moon goddess has decided to smile open us at least something good came out of our former mate disappearance' my wolf sounded happy but I didn't really like the fact. I didn't want a mate. I didn't want to love again. And of all women for a second chance mate, it had to be a rogue?
'It doesn't matter what she is. She's ours and we need to protect her. We don't even know anything about her and you already concluded she's a rogue'
'She's not ours. She is a rogue and I can never accept a rogue to be my mate' I countered him.
'Don't do anything stupid' he warned.
'You know what I'm capable of. I'm going to test her and I'm going to push her restraint and you'll see that she's just like the rest'
'You'll do no such thing. Do you want to have her killed?' My wolf was getting angry
'I haven't done anything yet' I said and cut the link.
I tried to work but my thoughts strayed to a certain woman with brown eyes and I cursed out loudly. She hasn't been here up to a day and I couldn't stop thinking about her. I mind linked Aiden and he was here in seconds.
"Alpha" he acknowledged with his head bowed.
"What of the rogue woman?" I asked trying not to sound like I cared about her.
"She has been sent to Arabella to be cleaned up" I nodded at that. "What are you planning to do with her? Do you plan to let her stay here?"
"Are you questioning me?" I growled
"No, no Alpha. I would never do such a thing. I just wanted to know if you had made a decision"
"I don't know yet. I'll have to question her about the people she's working with. Maybe she'll have information about the people who breached in before"
"She said she is not a rogue and she didn't know she had entered another territory. What if she is someone that lost her way?"
"And you believed her? What if she's lying. You know women lie a lot to get away from trouble"
"I don't really know but there's an air around her that tells me she's harmless. When you came I saw something else in her eyes"
"I don't care what you think about her. I want you to keep an eye on her. I'm going to test her so that means she'll be staying here for a while until I decide what to do with her"
"I know you don't want me meddling in your business but your eye color changed when you looked at her. Did you feel something?" He questioned.
"Mind your business Aiden" I growled at him and he left my office.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about that rogue?