Chapter 82 THE STRANGER WHO KNOWS ME
ALISANDER’S POV
I do not ask for permission from Sebastian when I take over forcefully.
I just take control.
Sebastian’s consciousness is still raw and hyper so it's even easier to take control.
He feels me only after I toss him to the back of our mind.
“Alisander–?”
“Sleep, little wolf.” I subtly command him.
I'm not in any way close to my peak heyday but I still have a little juice in me to put an Omega to sleep.
He yields almost immediately not because I am stronger at this moment, but because he is tired.
And as much as he doesn't want to admit it, it's also because he trusts me more than he wants to admit it.
The world sharpens as my senses become keener
The rain has slowed to a thin, cold mist blowing like a wet breeze clinging to the forest.
Mud sticks on our boots as I steer us past the training grounds and into the trees, following a path our body knows too well, after all we almost died here.
I take us back to the path back to where blood soaked the earth and a rogue died by our hands.
The memory flickers and I can remember seeing Sebastian fighting against that Rogue.
The bone snapping and the flesh tearing from the Rogue.
And the wet choking gurgle the Rogue was making after its throat was torn out.
I feel no remorse whatsoever regarding the Rogue. If anything, it just shows that my curse is still waxing stronger and stronger every year.
I only feel dissatisfied.
Something about that fight was too wrong.
The whole attack felt too… planned.
That Rogue had been too reckless and too exposed.
What were the odds that a powerful Rogue like that all of a sudden just happened to be right in Ragnar's territory?
There are about seven different patrol points from here down to the border miles away so how did the mindless Rogue manage to make it past several levels of ruthless Deltas and find itself right there.
And the Rogue didn't affect or attack any other wolf, it attacked me.
The one time I managed to get Sebastian to come out of his shell and get him to come into the woods, a Rogue attacked him.
And there were other wolves in the forest too. Why go for exactly me?
That could only mean one thing, that Rogue couldn't have been a mere coincidence, he was planted there.
But why go through the trouble?
A single Alpha could snap Sebastian's head off cleanly so why go through the whole trouble of transporting a Rogue to me?
Was it some sort of distraction?
Or a test for me?
Or was there a goal or something else and I was just bait perhaps?
The scent reaches me before I get to the clearing.
Our system is not swamped with Acmonite so I can smell it clearly and distinctly. The rain has done a good job of washing most of it away but I can still get a whiff of the scent.
It's the scent of someone else from that day.
That day other than the Rogues, we were not alone in the forest.
I step into the clearing and the ground is churned into a dark paste of mud and dried crimson.
The splotches of blood all over have turned to red earth that's splashed around by the rain.
The corpse is long gone, probably dragged away by scavengers or retrieved by the pack enforcers to investigate the details of the attack.
I crouch low, pressing my fingers into the soil to dry and find it.
Right there.
It's faint and has nearly been erased by the rain.
Rogue wolves reek of desperation and blood, the very thing I cursed them with. They smelled sour and rancid like spoilt milk and a rotting corpse.
This scent on the other hand, was not.
It was a fine mix of brandy and oakwood.
Definitely not from a Rogue.
I don't think they even remembered what it was to take baths after centuries in the wild.
An Alpha had been here or rather was here during my fight with the Rogue.
He was watching me.
A slow, cold understanding slides into place.
We were being observed and tested like some type of lab rat out in the field.
As a former scientist, how dare they?
My fingers curl in the mud as my claws threaten to break through skin and rip something apart.
Sebastian stirs uneasily in the back of my mind, sensing my anger as it rouses him up.
“What is it?” he whispers in my head.
It's like he forgets he doesn't need to whisper. We share the same body, whatever happened to him, happened to me.
“Nothing you can fix, little one.”
I rise slowly, inhaling deeper.
The foreign Alpha scent is faint but deliberate, like a signature scent for a wolf.
This is one arrogant wolf I am dealing with.
My gaze sweeps the tree line and the silent forest is deafening.
Wait.
A silent forest.
The forest is never supposed to be quiet.
The rain sounds should be louder then insects should have resumed their noises especially at this time of the year.
I straighten up in understanding.
“You can come out now,” I say as my voice goes low.
“Or do you intend to keep skulking in the shadows like a coward?”
For a heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then–
A rustle.
I hear it from my left.
I move quickly before the sound finishes.
The world blurs into motion as I launch forward, tackling the shape emerging from the trees on the floor.
We hit the ground hard as lots of mud and earth explodes up from the impact.
I pin him down instantly, straddling his torso with my forearm pressed right against his throat.
He is solid beneath me.
Definitely stronger and bigger than me but he's not struggling.
He's just looking at me with an odd light in his eyes.
My snarl is immediate and feral.
My face is inches from his as I'm shouting at him. “Who are you,” I growl, “and why are you stalking me?!”