Harper was too focused on the portal she had just gone through, disappearing in a flash of light, that when gravity returned and knocked somebody onto her, she didn’t have enough time to move aside. She gave a loud grunt as someone fell on the forest floor with their upper body on top of her.
“Alex?” she gasped at Alex whose face was buried into her heaving chest.
Momentarily aware of the compromising position they were in and Alex’s prominent bulge pressed against her belly, a blush burst on her cheeks. Quickly, she pushed him off her, and picked herself up.
With her mouth slightly opened, she felt her heart plummeted into her churning gut when she saw Alex’s naked ass. She quickly looked away.
*How many times do I have to see this guy’s ass?* she thought to herself.
Alex pushed himself up. “Harper, are you okay?” As soon as he noticed her crimson cheeks, and he looked around “There it is!” His eyes lit up the second he located the pair of pants and shirt piled a couple of feet from where he was standing.
Shaking the thought of his nakedness, Harper sat down and fumbled over the dead leaves and damp ferns on the ground with her hands. For a moment, she thought she was still somewhere close to Black Hallows, but when the smoke had finally cleared, and she saw two planets hung like red and blue bauble up in the sky, breathtakingly so close, she knew she was very far from home.
“What is this place?” She surveyed her surroundings, and a chill crept across her body at the feel of the omnipresent shearing wind. Thick fog suddenly rose into the sky from the barren wasteland, obscuring the stream of lights from the setting orange sun into the horizon.
“Hey,” Already covered in a white shirt and a pair of gym pants, Alex knelt in front of her.
“What―what have I―” she struggled to speak, holding her lips into a tight line of fear. She was suddenly in a state of momentary shock and awe. “What have I gotten myself into?”
“Don’t worry. I’m here,” he whispered soothingly, stroking his hand through her messy brown locks. He paused, closing his eyes for a second, and then released a calm breath, looking sincerely into her teary brown eyes. “You’re here because you want to save that guy.”
Harper sniffed. “You―you said I’m going to die.”
“I’m here, Harper. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Alex cupped her cheeks, stroking his thumbs along the damp skin beneath her eyes. He tilted his head closer to her and his lips brushed an inch over the smooth curve of her cheek.
Sparks and heat engulfed them in an instant.
“You have a mate. You didn’t have to come after me.”
He grunted, but his eyes remained on her. “I know,” he said, though, uncertainty was evident in his voice. “But I’m here. I want to be here…with you.”
Harper gasped out a wordless response.
“We’re in this together.”
“But I lied to you.”
“I know.” Alex held her tearful gaze firm. “And I’m not going to lie―it sucks. But―” he paused, the fullness of his lips pulling into a weak and shy smile. “But I’ve grown to like you, Harper. *A lot.* I can’t help it.”
Harper slowly shook her head at his all-out honesty. “Oh, no. Alex…please…don’t say that.”
He slowly eased off the ground, looking down at her. “It’s because of that guy, isn’t it?”
“That guy’s your best friend. You and Lucas were―”
“I don’t want to hear stories about him from you, Harper. I don’t really care. And if you think it’s your responsibility to bring him back to our world, then I’m here for you. I’m *only* here for you.”
Harper looked away. “What about *them*?” she asked after a few moments of silence.
“Them?”
“Mira and the rest. What happened to them?”
“All dead except Aleister.”
She froze and stared up at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “You…you killed Mira?”
He nodded. “And that pain-in-the-ass vampire. Viessa was her name, I think.” He let out a sigh that conveyed some slight annoyance.
“But Mira was your mate.”
“I’ve never really felt the bond between us if there was even any,” he simply replied.
“How d'you know? How could you be so sure? You have no memories whatsoever.”
“Exactly. All I could really rely on is my gut feeling. My emotions. And I had none for her. I felt nothing.”
Harper’s mouth drew into a straight line. She then stood up, dusting off some of the dirt that had attached itself to her jeans. A couple of distant stars shone through the dead trees around them. “Did you really have to end their lives?”
“What would you have me do? They were in my way. I had to do it.” He paused. “I had no other option.”
“I disagree, Alex. There’s always an option. Another way to deal with them.”
“It was either you or them. There’s no other way. Trust me.”
“Well, you could have just let me go. You could have just stayed behind with Mira.”
Alex ran his hand through his disheveled hair and narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you kidding me? Didn’t you listen to what I just said? And Aleister told me that werewolves and vampires rule this land. Do you really think I could just stay behind knowing that your chances of surviving out here are slim to none?”
“I don’t need you, okay?” Harper spat. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
His eyes glinted with amusement. “You should have seen your face then in front of those wolves. Shit-scared and always on the verge of fainting.”
“Now you’re just mocking me.”
He chuckled. “Oh, come on now. I’m not mocking you. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Well, why don’t you try and see things in my point of you. Unlike you, I only have my own human strength to rely on.” Harper snorted as her anger bubbled.
Alex didn’t further laugh at her as she had expected. Instead, he towered over her as walked closer to her. “You look adorable when you’re pissed. Do you know that?”
She didn’t reply despite how much she had found his response ridiculously annoying. As if telling her she was adorable when she’s pissed was immediately going to change the fact that he thought of her as a weakling just because she’s human.
She rolled her eyes. And she hadn't realized how close the two of them had been standing until Alex grabbed a lock of her hair to twirl in his fingers before his hand moved from the tips of her hair to the base above her neck
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t even be able to handle me,” Alex murmured as he leaned in closer, their faces so close their noses were almost touching.
Harper shrugged. “Wanna bet?”
His eyes lit up at the sound of the challenge. A slow, wicked smile spread across his lips. Harper shut her eyes closed for a mere second after realizing what she had just said.
“Is that a challenge, Ms. Fritz?”
She gulped at his tone and words. He called her *Ms. Fritz* the way the old Alex had used to call her. She blinked at him. “Alex…”
“Shhh…” he hushed as he started to caress the back of her head with his fingertips. “Let’s see if you can really handle me, shall we?”
Harper could feel her cheeks heating up. “Alex, this―this is not the appropriate place…for this,” she breathed.
Alex smirked. “So there is an appropriate place, huh…” his voice trailed off teasingly.
“Shit.” Harper thought out loud.
Grinning, Alex moved his right hand to stroke her cheek with his thumb while he encircled his other hand around her waist. Then he gave her a light peck on her forehead, then her nose before moving down to her jaw and neck.
“Alex…”
Still holding her face with his hand, he hovered just a little before softly touching her lips with his with some light kisses.
Harper let out a small gasp.
“Hmmm…I can’t belive I’m saying this but I think you’re right. Someone or something could show up and interrupt us, and I might lose it again,” his eyes darted to her lips as he spoke.
She vaguely shook her head to shrug any tempting thoughts off her mind.
“And don’t think for a minute that you’ve already won, Ms. Fritz,” he added, smirking.
“*Ms. Fritz*…” she echoed out loud.
He stared at her for a moment. “You know, for some reason, I find calling you Ms. Fritz very familiar.”
Her heart suddenly hammered in her chest. “Really?”
“Yeah. Odd, I know.” His smile broadened. “Would you rather want me to call you *cuddle bear* instead?”
“No,” she answered curtly. Shaking her head, she bit her lower lip before looking around nervously. “So this is Moorland.”
“I guess it is.” Alex casually replied, allowing her to change the topic. “Let’s go find your stupid *mate* so you can reject him,” he growled, spitting the word *mate* like it was venomous.
Harper’s stomach churned at the word. She was no werewolf or vampire. She had no idea what being a mate to a werewolf meant, except for what Lord Aleister had told her. “Reject him?”
“Harper, Aleister told me that Lucas was already sentenced to die. I guess he’d done some really terrible things and, as his mate, if you would accept him, you’d die, too,” he blurted out, stepping away from her. “Let’s go.”
She hadn’t really decided yet whether she would reject Lucas or just leave things be, but she knew that this fact alone could start another tiff with Alex, so she decided to start walking with him without any objection.
After walking in silence for half an hour, they finally saw what looked like a trail and kept close to it, hoping it would lead them somewhere.
*Somewhere close to where Lucas might be.*
But after walking for what felt like hours and after having spent some ample time to herself thinking what would happen once they found Lucas, Harper stopped when she and Alex reached a dismal marsh.
“This place stinks,” she complained, pinching her nose.
As Alex sniffed the air, his demeanor changed in a second. “Don’t move.”
“What? Why?”
His eyes were tensely examining the surrounding, sensing the shift in the atmosphere. “Wolves,” he whispered.
Harper bit down her lower lip, eyes nervously looking around and trying hard to see anything that could be lurking behind the thick fog behind the dead trees. “Are you sure?”
Alex only nodded, grabbing hold of her hand. After a moment of silence, they heard a loud and distinct snarl. It abruptly occurred to Harper that he was right when they heard a howl from behind the largest and oldest tree Harper had ever seen in her entire life.
Then, it didn’t take another moment for a large red wolf to appear. And as the wolf began to move closer, howls erupted into the air before a pack of wolves slowly showed up from the darkness and began to close in on them.
“Friend of yours?” Harper kidded, though, her heart pounding in her chest.
“No. But I can hear *him* in my head.”
“Him?”
“Yes. Him.” Alex nodded at the red wolf, the largest in the pack of about fifty wolves.
“What’s he saying?”
He pulled her back and stepped in front of her protectively. “He wants you.”