Humans were damn near extinct by now, but the idea that she would be able to survive out there on her own seems pretty unlikely. Either way, the days of her living in the woods are over. Of course killing her would’ve been the easy thing to do, but something in her eyes made me want to know more about the girl who showed no fear to the deadly beast threatening her life.
There’s more to her than meets the eye, and I look forward to uncovering it. Her future belongs to me, and I know exactly what I’m going to do with it.
Chapter 2
The dark clouds slowly inch across the sky, signaling a storm is coming. It feels like a dense fog has taken up home in my head as I try to remember what happened.
“Look who decided to wake up.”
I instantly sit up to find a man staring at me with a sinister look in his eyes. His naked body is covered in mud and filth a few feet from me, but there’s a chain-link fence separating us.
He mutters something else, but I hardly notice. I’m too caught up in taking in my new surroundings. Mud coats my body and face, but that’s the least of my concerns. Beyond the man beside me lies a row of four others, each locked away in their own cage.
“What is this?”
The man shifts into an upright position, exhaling a low laugh that sends a shiver racing down my spine.
“What’s it look like, Human?”
“Welcome to The Pound!” another guy shouts from a few cages down.
The one next to me must notice my confusion, because a second later he transforms into a giant white wolf. I instantly stumble backward and catch myself against the wall of my enclosure, gripping the fence for support.
The werewolf paces back and forth along the fence that separates us, drool dripping from his mouth like he’s readying to eat me whole. The other captives soon shift into their wolf forms, howling in unison.
“ENOUGH!”
I nearly jump out of my skin when a man approaches from behind, running a baton across the metal fence as he heads for the wolves. I can tell by the white irises that he’s a vampire, but he doesn’t bother using his speed, and I wonder if it’s part of his intimidation tactic.
The wolf beside me tucks his tail while a couple others begin whimpering. The chocolate-brown wolf three cages down from me bares his teeth at the man, but quickly regrets it when he’s electrocuted with the end of the baton.
What hell have I woken up in?
The werewolves revert back to their human skins and retreat to the back of their enclosures. I’m still on edge when the guard with the baton heads straight for me and stops in front of my cage. For a second, I think he might unlock it, but instead, he hisses, revealing his deadly fangs.
“You’re going to wish he had just killed you,” he warns with a smirk before walking away.
“Who is he referring to?” I ask the man next to me, who now looks more like a punished child than a dangerous beast.
The sinister look he wore before has been replaced with something much worse.Pity.
Silence fills the space between us, and I release a sigh, accepting that he isn’t going to tell me. I decide to make myselfcomfortable like the rest of them and sit with my back against the fence, locking my arms around my knees. I close my eyes and begin replaying the events of today, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Just as I’m starting to lose myself in the memories of the day, the man finally speaks. He only offers me one word, and although it’s not a name, I know it’s just the same.
“Alpha.”
When night falls, the wolves shift, and a part of me envies their thick fur coats. The storms that rolled through earlier have softened the ground, but my clothes are still soaked and quickly becoming colder as the temperature drops. I’m not sure what time it is, but if I had to guess, I would assume somewhere around eight o’clock, which means I haven’t eaten anything in at least thirteen hours, and my stomach definitely knows it.
I take a lap around, stretching out my body that has grown stiff from the cold before settling back in for the night. Much like the wolves, I curl up into a ball in the corner, trying to gather as much heat as possible. My body shakes violently, and I know that sleep will be nearly impossible, but still I try.
“Get up, Human.”
I immediately scramble to my feet and find the guard from earlier unlocking my cage. Scenarios of possible escape routes play out in my head as my eyes dart around, taking in all of the variables. As if he read my mind, the guard lights up his baton, and electricity crackles in warning.
“Don’t even think about it,” he growls before entering my cage. I flinch when he reaches for me, but his vamp strength overpowers me, and he drags me out effortlessly.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Thewhereisn’t what you should be concerning yourself with.”
