Chapter Two - Khai

She will die. My beta insisted we stay out of it but I couldn't, she was melting away in the snow. Her eyes were beautifully golden and I was suddenly too frightened to never see again. I wasn't used to these tendencies but for once, I felt mercy. I needed to feel mercy for this wolf. I had already, recklessly fought to near death with the Azraels for her. It wasn't our war; it was her war and I was fighting it. 

I didn't know her but I didn't have to. All I knew was that she radiated speciality. It was their pack they wanted but that didn't stop me from almost biting that guy's head off.

His eyes were dark and impossibly huge. He was above me as his deadly eyes looked into mine, a snarl as wide as my head. He had no emotion, just hunger. Blood at his claws, mine and hers. The scent of her blood caressed my nose. He was radiating heat and all he wanted was her. He didn't want her dead at all, he just wanted her and that didn't sit right with me. 

I growled back at him and rolled him over, biting into his shoulder. He howled and another wolf pushed me off him. It looked identical to him, just smaller. I slipped into the snow, my blood staining the white.

“Protect her, always.” I mentally told my pack. Yolanda pounced on the smaller black wolf, she was our strongest female with her sharp claws and tawny fur. She was a beast.

The alpha was coming for me. Sneering as he slowly approached me. I wanted him and only him. A lovely scent caught my nose and I noticed I was beside her. She was still alive. Her lips trembled and her teeth gnashed in the cold at immense speed. Her skin was like toffee and she smelled just as delicious.

His eyes were not on me but on her, I got on all fours and growled at him. He was not shaken by my snarling. To my dismay, a little smile on his face turned back into want.

Was I a joke to him? 

Was she food to him?

He wanted her and that drove me mad, I couldn't stand it and the fact that she was naked made it worse. I pounced through injury, onto him, bashing his head against stones that had uncovered in the snow.

We fought roughly and without mercy, trying to prove who was better. I was better. I had to be. We were outnumbered, not in numbers but in strength. It wasn't my thing to lose. I would either win or die. But after a while of scratching each other's faces and leaving scars that would haunt us later, I noticed I was fighting alone. He froze beneath me, looking into my eyes. He wasn't angry anymore, just looking at me with a blank stare. It became awkward. Had he seen something in my eyes? Had he suddenly fallen in love with me or something? I wouldn’t blame him. I think he caught up to what was going on. He pushed me off him strongly and my pack gathered around me. They had stopped fighting us and he started phasing into his human form. His feet took shape first, revealing his strong legs up to his heavy chest and jet-black shoulder-length hair.

Immediately I instructed Leo to carry her into the house before he could do any magic trick. The man watched him carry her limp body into the house. She wasn't dead, she couldn't be. I didn't want her to be, she couldn't be.

The man’s skin healed within seconds, faster than I’ve ever seen, leaving a huge black mark from his left shoulder to the beginning of his right abs. Another one came from his left hand, going up to his neck. It was like a giant stretch mark fading into his dark skin.

"I will not kill mate." He spoke with difficulty, with a coarse voice. He wasn’t used to being in his human form or English wasn't his mother tongue. 

"Keep her for now."

I was still panting in my wolf form as he started smiling. His hair in his face, he wasn't scary now. He was just bulky. I suggested the fight was over as my tanned skin took the place of my fur. All the others remained as wolves. We stood there naked in the snow. It was cold but it didn't matter.

"What do you want from her?" I questioned.

"Her blood," he spoke again in an odd accent. 

"But I won't take it, now. Time isn't prime. Take care of her, she is a special."

I knew damn well she was special; it was the only reason why I let her live. But something was in the way he said her blood. It seemed like more of a cover-up for what he truly wanted.

He started walking away.

"I will be back." He smiled fiendishly. His wolves strode before him and they disappeared into the thick forest. I felt my beta burning in anger.

"Jacob, don't," I told him. His dark grey fur was already flaring as he growled.

"Retreat," I commanded the pack through clenched jaws.

I wasn't the one to just drop a fight that easily. The usual me would never let him leave but, today was peculiar. A stranger landed on our territory and she was strikingly magnetic. Her aid was paramount.

Jacob phased too and took on his human of acne-prone skin and black hair. I tried walking as slowly as I could, trying to disregard the impulse to run into the house and see if she was breathing or not. 

Yolanda, my younger sister, walked at my side, taller than me and now in her human form with her long tawny hair that covered her chest.

"Alpha?" she called. Concern and wisdom awaited me in her tone.

"Not now," I shot back at her as I opened the door. The rest of the fighters in the pack followed in as humans, naked and seeking clothes.

"What was that?" my mother stood at the kitchen window; she had seen it all. Her white hair was tied up as her worry lines creased.

"Azraels," I muttered, walking out of the kitchen.

"And they just left you like that?" she asked from the kitchen.

"Yes," I was walking to my room when I heard her following me. Mom always loved to press.

"Why?"

She tailed me into the laundry room. I searched for a pair of jeans, trying with all the might in my body not to panic. 

Why did I care so much if she lived or died? Why was it so urgent? I didn’t know her.

"They wanted her," I spoke after a pause to look at her. Her bright brown eyes searched mine as she placed frail fingers on her hips.

"Is it her?" she asked. I knew exactly what she was asking.

Mom had been searching for my mate. I hadn’t bothered myself, I had a lot on my plate already.

"I don't know," I muttered under my breath and walked past her, putting on a simple shirt.

"Where are you going?"

My feet were already running ahead of me on the creaky corridor floorboards.

"She’s with Walter," my older sister told me.

"Thank you, Audrey." I nodded without a smile though she smiled so widely.

I decided to ignore mother or else her questions would never end.

"What’s up with that face?" I raised a brow to Audrey. She just kept on smiling, flashing her gapped teeth.

“What face?”

My eyes rolled enough to fall out of my head.

A part of me was afraid of seeing her too late. To find her dead, she was the only thing that has ever smelt so good to me. An image of her naked frame on the melting snow flashed in my mind and stayed. She was so restless in her rest. She was in pain but she just laid there wordless and shivering as if the cold was the worst thing ever. She had just escaped a pack of Azraels, how could I blame her for being scared for her life?

It was odd how the snow perfectly covered the right spots, like a snow queen.

Without hesitation, I took a step up the stairs to find Walter's room, which wasn't technically his room. It was our med bay, where we healed when our own healing process couldn't heal us fast enough. I found myself at his door instantaneously and I could already smell her. She was so sweet, like a good intoxication. A delightful drug. Sherbet.

I swallowed my nervousness; I was being foolish. I had never felt so uneasy to see a woman before. She was just another girl, wasn't she? Just almost dead, I guess that’s what made her special. She was dying.

"Khai," Walter called, almost out of breath in the dimmed room. I closed the door softly and spotted a bowl full of red liquid, the sharp scent of metal wafted by my nose. I wondered how Walter was standing it.

"Is that how you address your alpha?" I growled. He nearly trembled.

"Still getting the hang of it,” he smiled.

"After four years?" I scowled and walked past him to witness her beauty once more.

"Forgive me alpha."

Yeah, he better.

“How is she?” I could see her chest rising and falling. Alive for certain.

“She’s badly wounded but nothing is broken. She lost a lot of blood but she will live,” he confirmed.

She was curled into a ball on the bed. It wasn't a comfortable bed, more like a metal table. It made me angry at how foolishly they had handled her. Her lips were cut a bit and I noticed all her scars, all fitting their claws. Her toffee skin was pure and almost caramel. She had black long dreadlocks which were so thin and lovely. There was a deep scar on her back.

"Move her to my room." I almost growled, it made me crazy that he had seen her naked.

"Your room? I beg to differ alpha. We don't know her and to trust her in your room…" Walter looked up at me with his glasses.

A bored sigh escaped me. That was unwise.

"Move Grace. Give her the room." He paused and stared up at me "Today!" I added.

He nodded and left. I was left alone with her. I was glad she was alive but I knew what it meant. It meant that I had to prepare myself to be weak only to her. And only to her.