Chapter 6

I don't know what I'm the most uncomfortable about. The beta smacking his lips against the other or the fact that it seems like he is about to flirt with me.

I should be used to situations like this now, I know. But the feeling that came with this one felt kind of different. Has me wanting to cringe or whatever I should call it. 

“Hi,” I say, in return to the beta’s greeting. I couple it with a brief once-over before accepting his handshake. But there was no warmth to it.

The fact that my inner mind is telling me that I'm exaggerating the situation was another bother. Maybe I shouldn’t think too much about it. Knowing myself, it was something that wouldn’t happen yet until something completely different fills my mind.

I try to take my hand out of the beta’s hand but it seems he wasn’t ready to let go yet. It prompted me to look from his face to his slight grip on my hand then back to his face. The creepy smile was still there and it still was a bother.

Eventually, he lets go, slowly and stylishly. Don’t know what he was trying to do by pulling that off but I felt nothing to hold on to after.

“So, you two should come in to rest for a while. We have your rooms ready for you,” Alpha Tyrone suddenly says, grabbing my attention.

“Well, thank you,” I respond when I shift my gaze to him, “But I’ll be taking a walk around the premises for a while. Hope you don’t mind?”

“Of course, I don’t. Feel free to do whatever you want,”

“Thank you... again,” I dish him a sly smile and then tell Mark, “Shall we?”

Mark seems confused when he asks, “Now?”

“Yeah... now.”

Then I turn around to walk down the stairs that lead up to the balcony of the building. The group of warriors that came with me felt like a hindrance the moment I face them, and I’m sure it would be like that if I allowed them to go with me on my brief walk around.

“Don’t worry about us,” I start to say when I walk through the space provided between them, “we’ll be back in no time.”

I round the corner of the premises with Mark by my side, all the while staying silent. I won’t necessarily say Mark was by my side. It was more of him leading the way because he knows his way around here, unlike me who is coming here for the first time.

We were now in something like a balcony, except this seemed like an extension to another part of the building. Probably the backyard or something.

“You seem rather uncomfortable,” was the starter Mark uses once we were far away from the front of the building we just left.

“Am I?”

“The Soma I know never stays quiet except she’s going through something. So what is it?”

I sigh inwardly because, apparently, I wasn’t being myself. “To be honest, Mark, I have this feeling of not wanting to be here. But at the same time, I feel I have no choice. There’s no odd feeling to it at the end of the day, except the stress that comes with being on a fence,”

“Being an Alpha was never meant to be an easy job. If it was, you wouldn’t be in the position. No offense,”

“None taken. I see nothing wrong with what you said,” I tell him. And after tugging strands of hair off my face, I proceed to say, “Did you see what his brother was trying to do?”

“Who? Alpha Tyrone’s brother?” Mark asks, and I nod in affirmation. “Well, maybe I did. Other than him trying to flirt with you or something, I don’t think I saw anything else.”

“You make it sound like it’s an ordinary thing to do,” I sound annoyed when I speak, and it’s because I am. I almost touch my hair again but at the last second decided not to. “His intentions were clearly written on his face, and I find that mostly irritating because I never like my man that way. Or is that how he always is?”

“Asides from always having a smug expression on himself every time, I can’t necessarily say that is how he is. But when an obviously unmated wolf sees something blessed, what do you expect him to do? Look away?”

I don’t know why, but I suddenly reflect on his words. Mark never utters a statement without attaching something to it. It wasn’t making much sense, until...

“Are you indirectly trying to say I’m busty?” I ask him, ensuring I was looking at him straight in the face when I do so.

“Whatever you term my words to be is fine by me.” was his straight-up response.

A smile finds its way to my lips. “Awwwn. My best friend just admitted to the fact that I’ve got the right proportions for a woman. I would have loved to give you if you weren’t this close to me,”

“Pfft,” he scoffs. “You know fully well that I would reject without hesitation,”

“Trust me, you can’t resist my charm if it goes down to that,” I say almost flirtatiously, but then recall something we were initially talking about. “And back to Alpha Tyrone’s brother, he was actually one of the reasons I was eager to leave there. The major reason was what I said already. Y’know, about the odd feeling,”

“You might just have to get used to him because it’s going to take more than two days before we find out way out of here. I’m sure you can take of yourself,”

“Of course, I can. But Cassie doesn’t think the same. She believes I’m too wild for a lady. One of the more reasons I think she needs a brain reset to understand that this is how I am and will ever be.”

Something suddenly grabs my attention. Or should I say the sound of someone? And when I look in the direction of where the sound came from, I realized it was a kid that has just fallen to the ground. A boy to be precise whole judging from the hair. I could be wrong, though.

Mark gives me a brief stare and then starts to stroll up to where the kid fell. Apparently, there was no one around here except us so it was obligatory he did something to assist. Not that I couldn’t do the same, but I would rather not try due to how ‘kid unfriendly’ I am.

“Hey, kid. You okay?” I hear Mark’s concerned voice from the little distance away and it makes me wonder how he can switch personalities when he needs to.

I was right about the kid being a boy as when Mark helped him up, I could see him clearly. The kid’s face has this little familiarity, but I cannot dwell on it too long because someone is approaching us already. And this time around, it is a lady with long curly hair.

She starts to say something but I immediately get uninterested in what is going on that I turn around and start to walk away. But I haven’t taken more than two steps when I halt. It’s not because of the event going on not far away from me, but because of something else.

The pull. The same pull I felt when I was in the clubhouse some nights ago. It has been ignited again.

But I’m confused as to what is going on because there was no absolute reason for it at the moment. The last time had been as a result of the strange man I saw in the club, however, there was no one here.

I was about to try to shrug off the feeling when I suddenly feel the urge to let the pull take over me. It felt kind of strange to consider at first but before I knew it, I was finding my way through the premises of the territory I was completely unaware of.

‘Are you sure about what you’re doing? We literally have no idea why you suddenly felt that way,’ Rainia’s — my wolf — voice gets into my head, reminding me of the fact that I was acting out of instincts which shouldn’t be the case in this situation.

‘I know what I’m doing. And I need you to trust me.’

‘You don’t expect me to trust you when you do not know your way around here. You should stay put, let Mark guide you through.’

‘Not in this situation, Rainia. I have to figure this out myself. There should be a reason why such a pull would occur like it did the other night,’ I round a corner when I tell her that.

‘This seems a bit crazy, you know,’

‘Does it still?’ I produce a sly smirk when I utter that, and at the same time, I stop walking to observe my finding.

“It’s you again...” I whisper.