\[Serenity’s POV\]
Later, I sit with my parents in the infirmary as the man who attacked me lays in bed, sleeping. Although he clearly hasn’t had a proper wash or meal in years, he is still quite handsome, and I can’t stop myself from feeling drawn to him.
“Ugh,” he groans, beginning to stir. “Where…”
Eyes widening, I watch the man’s amber-colored eyes open and come to rest on me. For a moment, they stay locked there as some strange emotion flashes in them before awe and even appreciation take their place.
“You!” He rasps, attempting to reach out and grab me, but is stopped by my father grabbing his wrist and squeezing until a hiss of pain escapes him. “Ouch!”
“Who the fuck are you, and what makes you think you have the right to touch my daughter?” My father growls.
“Rosco,” my mother murmurs, giving him a disapproving look.
“What?” My father demands. “This bastard hurt Serenity!”
Opening my mouth, I prepare to argue what he said but stop as I realize that I shouldn’t have any reason to do so.
It was absolutely true that he did attack me, but I still couldn’t stop myself from feeling that, in that moment, he wasn’t himself.
“Serenity,” the man murmurs, his voice thick with an accent. “Is that you?” He continues, turning his gaze to mine.
“That’s right.” I respond as my father lets out a growl of warning. “And what’s your name?”
Growing quiet, I wait while the man considers. However, with each passing minute, his lips droop into a frown as the skin between his brow wrinkles.
“I...” he begins, confusion filling his eyes. “I don’t know.”
It’s almost like the words are a detonator that sets my father off, causing him to attack, pinning the man beneath his large frame as his body shakes with rage.
“What the fuck did you say?” He snarls, wrapping a hand around the man’s neck. “You don’t know what your fucking name is? Are you also going to say that you don’t know where you came from or some shit like that?”
“Rosco!” My mother gasps, jumping up and grabbing him. “You need to calm down until we figure out what exactly is happening.”
“It’s clear what is happening.” My father argues, though his body seems to untense a bit due to my mother’s comforting touch. “This bastard attacked our daughter and is now trying to play dumb to get out of punishment.”
“Who is playing dumb?” The man argues, attempting to fight off my father despite his weak frame. “I’m telling the truth! I don’t know my name or even how I got here. All I remember is darkness and pain!”
Darkness and pain… Was he possibly referring to his time as that terrifying wolf? If so, did that mean his days before that vanished because of the change?
“Dad!” I gasp, coming up with an idea. “Instead of trying to beat a response out of him, why don’t you do a lie detector test? If he’s telling the truth, then we can try to help him recover his memories.”
I knew that I was putting a hell of a lot of faith in a man that I didn’t know who tried to kill me in his wolf form, but my need to protect him just wouldn’t go away.
“Why do that when I can just torture the response out of him?” My father counters.
“Rosco,” my mother says sternly. “I think Serenity has the right idea.”
“I think you should do as she says,” the guard who helped me originally says, pushing off the wall where he watches silently. “You didn’t see it, but I did. That man was some strange wolf that I'd never seen before. It was almost a mixture of a rogue and a zombie. What if there are more of them out there?”
A chill races down my spine as I consider what the guard is saying.
Shit. He was actually right. What if there were more wolves out there just like this man, and what if they were targeting our pack?
“More reason to get answers out of him.” My father growls. “Tell me, bastard, are there more of your kind out there?”
For a moment, the man doesn’t speak as he stares up at my dad with an unreadable expression.
“I don’t know.” He admits.
“Don’t know? DON’T FUCKING KNOW!”
In one swift motion, my father throws the man against the wall and moves to attack him, but I’m moving before he can.
“DAD!” I snap, using my body to block him. “You need to calm down.”
Although I understood my dad's anger, especially since the one who was attacked was me, but we needed this man alive to get answers.
"Serenity, stay out of this.” My father warns. “This is between me and this bastard!”
“Isn’t it clear that he is harmless?” I snap, peeking over my shoulder at the man as he stares at my father. “If he was a threat, wouldn’t he have already shifted to protect himself?”
As the words leave my lips, I realize just how odd it was that the man wasn’t actually shifting. In that other form, he was deadly, but like this, he was a sitting duck.
“Speaking of,” I continue, slowly turning and kneeling so I can stare into the man’s eyes. “Why aren’t you shifting?”
“I...” the man whispers, confusion filling his face. “I can’t.”
Can’t. Was he really saying that he couldn’t shift? What in the world did that even mean? He was just fine until he bit me, and then after that, he turned back to the man in front of me.
“Can’t shift or won’t?” My father demands.
“Alpha!” Maria, who comes storming into the infirmary. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
As she moves, her son, Tristan, follows behind with a clipboard in hand. When he sees me, he gives me a nod before turning his gaze to the man in front of me.
“This man is a criminal.” My father snaps. “He attacked Serenity, and now he’s pretending he can’t shift and doesn’t have any memory!”
“About that.” Tristan says slowly, taking the lead. “We took some samples of his blood while he was out, and it seems that the wolf gene is gone entirely.”
At his words, the room around us grows so quiet that you can hear a pin drop, and I don’t know why, but a wave of fear slams into me.
“No wolf gene.” My father finally repeats in disbelief. “How the hell is that possible when he was a fucking wolf when he attacked my daughter?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” Tristan responds. “Can anyone who was present for the ordeal tell me what happened before he turned human?”
“He…” I begin, swallowing down the knot of fear that wants to be released. “He bit me.”