Chapter - 2

Chris' POV

I began to lead the way to my room. 

Why, I had no idea.

My bedroom was a sanctuary to me, the one place no one else entered but me.

But for some reason I wanted her to see it.

Her strawberry scent was driving me insane, having invaded my senses ever since I'd stepped into the basement where our holding cells were, making me feel protective of her almost instantly. 

I'd gone down there with every intention of sending her back to where she'd come from like nothing had happened, but one whiff of the intoxicating scent radiating off of her and I wasn't so sure anymore.

Pair that with her beautiful red hair and those emerald green eyes, and for the first time in forever, I felt like my iron clad control was slipping. 

Sure, I'd seen my fair share of beautiful women before but none had attracted me as much as her.

She wasn't my mate, though. At least I didn't think she was.

I hadn't had a mate before. With us werewolves, you only got one in a lifetime, and I hadn't met mine yet. But I'd heard stories about it all my life. About how you just knew it was your mate once you saw them. I hadn't felt that way on seeing Ivy but then again, I hadn't ever been attracted enough to a woman to lead her straight to my bedroom.

And that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that I didn't have sex on my mind either. 

All I wanted was to hold her, to have her close to me.

And it confused me like no other.

Why the heck was I feeling this way?

I opened the large wooden door which lead into my bedroom for her, motioning for her move inside.

Wide eyed, she did as was told.

I smirked to myself before following her in, shutting the door behind me.

She was probably surprised to see how large and well maintained the palace was.

I smirked harder to myself when I realised she hadn't even seen half of it yet. 

I watched as she took my bedroom in. 

The room was fairly large with a blue and grey theme. My bed lay smack dab in the middle of the room. Behind the bed were floor to ceiling windows which lead to a balcony outside. To the right was a small sofa set and a built in fire place. And to the left was the door to my walk in closet and en suite bathroom.

To be completely honest, I was pretty proud of how my room looked, not a thing out of place, just the way I liked it. And judging by her highly impressed look, she liked it too.

Finally, she turned to me, her bright green eyes zeroing in on my grey ones.

"Who...who are you?" Her sugary sweet voice asked. 

"I'm Christopher Black. You can call me Chris," I told her. I was sure she had a lot of questions, so I simply stood back and let her ask.

"Why am I here, Chris?" 

Goddess, I loved the way my name sounded on her lips. Suddenly, I had the strangest urge to hear her say it again.

"Say it again."

"Say what again?" 

"My name. Say it again."

She looked just as confused by my odd request as I felt but obliged all the same. "Chris." 

I fought to keep my face emotionless even though every fibre of my being told me to grin like a mad man. 

I didn't do grins. What the hell was happening to me?

When I didn't say anything in reply, she asked, "Why am I here, Chris?" 

I briefly closed my eyes. I obviously couldn't tell her the truth. She was a blissfully ignorant human who thought that werewolves were nothing but folklore and telling her anything threatened to burst that bubble. But again, for a reason unknown to me, I didn't want to lie to her either.

"My men brought you here." There, that wasn't completely a lie now.

She raised a perfectly arched brow at that. "Why?"

Now that was a question I couldn't quite answer without giving a lot of things away. So I chose not to, simply staring at her instead.

"Tell me, Chris, why did they bring me here?" she repeated.

"Because."

"Because what?"

I stayed silent.

She let out a breath through her nose when I didn't reply, getting impatient. Cute. "Fine, then tell me this, did you ask them to bring me here?"

"No," I answered truthfully. 

But I was secretly glad they did. 

"Then why did they bring me here?" she asked again.

I gave half a shrug in response. 

She sighed softly to herself before looking away from me.

I didn't like it. 

For some reason, I wanted her to keep looking at me.

I moved forward on instinct and put my hand under her chin, turning her face towards me. I felt small sparks shoot through my fingers from where I'd touched her and I pulled my hand away almost instantly before stepping back.

Weird. Shaking the feeling away, I looked down at her. She was much shorter than my six feet three inches frame. It was cute. Goddess, everything about her was cute to me. 

"Look at me when you're talking to me," I ordered softly.

Her emerald green eyes narrowed infinitesimally. "Sure, sir," she dragged the word out sarcastically. "Would you like me to curtsy while I'm at it too?" 

Had anyone else talked to me like this, they'd be dead by now. But with her, all I wanted to do was laugh at how adorable she was being. 

Outwardly though, aside from my lips twitching a little, I did not give her any indication of being amused. "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit."

"But the highest form of intelligence."

I raised a brow at that. The girl was well read, I'd give her that. "Oscar Wilde," I nodded at her. "I'd never have pegged you as someone who likes to read."

She stuck her chin up stubbornly. Cutely. "I'll have you know my mother was a writer. And I want to be one some day, too. So naturally, I'm an avid reader."

I already knew who her mother was and what she did for a living but I didn't know she wanted to be a writer too. I filed the new piece of information away. Speaking of her mother, "The same one who ran away after your father's death?"

She visibly bristled at my statement, her cheeks turning a deep shade of red as she looked at me with her piercing green eyes. Goddess, even in anger, she was a sight to behold. "She didn't run away as you so eloquently put it. She was with him at the time of the car crash. She's been missing ever since."

I cocked my head at her. "No, she was not. The only person they found in the car was your father."

"Which is exactly why she is missing. She left with him the night of the accident but the police only found my father in there. She was no where in sight. No one has heard from her ever since which means she is missing."

I raised a brow at that. My warriors had told me that there was only a man inside the car when they'd killed him. There was never any mention of a woman. 

Had they lied? 

But why would they do that?

"Are you sure she was there with him?" 

"Yes," she replied. "And I'll find whoever took her and get her back even if it's the last thing I do."

"What makes you think someone took her? She could've run away on her own for all you know."

"She'd never leave me. She loves me," Ivy replied firmly. "Besides, if she'd left on her own, don't you think she would've taken her belongings with her or at least taken the money from her account? Every single one of her things is untouched."

I nodded slowly. While the first part of her sentence was a completely stupid argument, the rest of it seemed logical enough.

"Fair enough. So you're going to look for her now?" 

"Yes," she said firmly, determination shining in her eyes. 

Before I could reply, my phone rang. 

I took it out of my pocket. It was my Beta, Ryan. So I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Alpha Chris, those two idiots have been taken care of. I have some bad news, though."

I briefly closed my eyes. I already had an inkling what the news was about. "Then what are you waiting for? Spit it out."

"There's been another attack. Another member of our pack has been infected with the venom."

I swore under my breath. 

Two months back, members of my pack and of others all over the world had started dying mysterious, painful deaths. We soon realised they were being injected with a venom which killed them slowly and painfully. Everyone had been trying to figure out a cure to the venom which had the potential to wipe out our entire race but we had not had any luck so far. 

Once you were injected with the venom, death was inevitable.

"Who is it?" I asked through clenched teeth.

Beta Ryan hesitated. In all the time I'd known him, the guy hardly ever hesitated before saying something so I knew at once that it was bad.

"I believe I asked something," I bit out.

"It's Lily, Alpha."

Fuck, no.

Lily was an orphaned little twelve year old who lived with her grandma in the palace.

For a moody tyrant, as people like to call me behind my back, I had a hidden fondness for kids, a knowledge only my Beta was privy to. And I had been especially close to Lily, playing with her when I had the time to.

Now, she was going to die.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

I realised Beta Ryan was waiting for my response. 

So like every other time where I was supposed to keep my feelings aside and make decisions based solely on logic, I did what I had to. 

"Shift her into the infirmary. Have the doctors do whatever is necessary. Call Gwen over too, see if there is anything she can do to help. I'll be there in a few," I ordered, hanging up without waiting for a reply.

I wanted to kill the bastard who had created the venom in the first place.

You've already tried, haven't you? A voice at the back of my mind murmured.

I looked over at the girl standing in front of me.

We had been given an anonymous tip that her father, Jonathan Emerson, a scientist, was the one responsible for creating the venom.

Before we could investigate further, the news had reached most of my warriors. And in a fit of rage, two of them had gone ahead and killed him, making it look like an accident so no suspicions aroused among the humans.

This had however happened without explicit orders from me.

Naturally, I'd had both the warriors executed even though they had brought me Ivy to me as some sort of a gift in exchange for their lives.

But rules were rules. You simply did not do shit like that without orders from me in our pack and not face the consequences.

And as I'd feared, we had later realised that it had been a false alarm. 

My warriors had reported to me after a week of thorough yet secretive investigations that the scientist had had nothing to do with creating the venom.

They'd also uncovered that his wife had up and left after the night of the supposed accident.

Hence leaving their only daughter, Ivy Emerson, who was standing in front of me now, practically orphaned.

"Chris?" Her honeyed voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah?" 

"A-are you okay?" 

I realised I was practically vibrating with anger and it was scaring her. I schooled my features into a mask of indifference before turning to her. 

"I have to go see someone. Stay here until I return," I ordered before turning to leave.