Chapter 6: The alpha is in heat

****James****

I arrived at the office only in the afternoon, while the advertising team was still busy in the meeting room with the Lancôme client.

I was sure of this because as soon as I entered the revolving door at the entrance, I sniffed the air cautiously, terrified, already ready for the worst. The virgin smell that I was afraid to smell had already dispersed into the air, swept away by the air conditioning and absorbed by a vague hint of tobacco, sweat, and deodorants of different brands.

And I was also sure of this because on my cell phone there were about thirty messages that had arrived during the morning and to which I had not paid attention. I knew who they were without having to look at them: Connor!

As the legal representative and majority shareholder of the company, I should have chaired the meeting, but I abandoned that commitment after the shitty night I spent running in the forest. I still had the pungent smell of musk and some leftover dirt under my fingernails, despite having scrubbed my hands under the hot spray of the shower for forty-five minutes.

The mutation began spontaneously around midnight, accelerated by the distant echo of the howls of female wolves who had entered heat. It was a call that, as a man, I could very well resist, but which the beast within me certainly could not oppose.

Their moans were saturated with frustration, hanging in the air like invisible fingers that attracted all the free men present in the territory. Even the most domesticated wolf was subdued, undergoing an emotional and physical transformation, finalized by the visceral need to mate. It was not mere libido, but the innate desire to ensure the perpetuation of the species.

For our women, sexual pulsations were easier to control, being strictly linked to ovulation, but for us men, it was different. In us, the testosterone level was constantly high because due to evolutionary inheritance, we had to always be ready to get a woman pregnant. Therefore, the beast hidden within us, in this specific period, could not be dominated either by rationality or by that small human part that characterized us.

Only we who had already bonded with our partner were able to resist this appeal, assuming the ability to trigger and neutralize all sexual impulses towards other women.

  I was wandering at the foot of Eagle Mountain, desperately weaving between the different trees, scratching the trunks and pissing everywhere to mark my territory. No wolf would have the arrogance to enter my lands without first being invited, and this allowed me to not possess two or three before dawn. I desperately needed it, but the impression imposed on me a loyalty to Brooke that I could barely tolerate.

Every part of my body was still shaking, the erection painfully crushed in the fly of my jeans had been throbbing for hours to be released, the beast inside me was still roaring, elbowing itself free and running towards the first female, werewolf, or human. To get her pregnant.

I ran my hand through my hair, removing the tuft that escaped the elastic from my forehead, and sat down in the chair behind the desk. I was grinding my teeth so hard that my breath came in fits and starts, as if I had run for miles. Furthermore, I had to calm down. I had to regain control. Conviction!

With a sudden gesture of my hand I threw the yellow folder placed in the center of the desk onto the floor and that declared my doom. A waft of perfume, light and at the same time painful, floated invisibly towards my nostrils, penetrating them like red-hot blades.

That folder belonged to her. She remained at her desk for days, immersed in her personal things. Brooke had touched that folder a billion times, and as long as it sat still on the table, the scent of the roses remained still, stabilized on the paper. Upon impact, however, the perfume broke free from the filigree chains and dispersed in a torturous torment.

By reflex, my irises began to burn, and I clearly felt my canines lengthen. I curled my upper lip, exposing my jaw as if that little girl was in front of me, ready to mark her skin.

“For the bitch, James! Calm down." Dimitri ran towards me, grabbing my shoulders, so I could turn to him.

"Where is she?” I growled so low, from the depths of my diaphragm, that only the werewolf's hearing could have deciphered the syllables.

“Listen to me, James, you have to stay in control. Breathe deeply. You have to breathe slowly, with your mouth.”

Completely blinded by rage, I grabbed him by the collar of his coat and threw him away from me. His feet left the floor and, a moment later, his head hit the glass door, shattering it. A shower of shrapnel exploded, spinning toward the center of the office before spreading out.

Through the floor.

"Tell me where the hell that woman is!” I thundered, grabbing the chair and throwing it to my right.

This time it was the shelf's turn to break. The books that were placed in it fell on top of each other, and some covers were literally pierced by the destroyed pieces of some shelves. A pair of vines crept past my combat boots.

“If I brought it here, it would come out in a black bag.” he tried to reason with me. He put his hand on his knee to stand up. Some pieces of glass remained stuck in his calf and gradually became dyed with blood. There was a dark pool of blood near his feet, a smaller one on the printer shelf. “Now try to calm down and go to the bathroom and masturbate. I'm not bringing this human here.”

I pointed my red eyes at him and reflexively a few golden spots began to stretch along his iris, a sign that he was submitting.

“Don't you dare go against the Alpha.” I threatened.