CHAPTER TWELVE
ASHER’S POV
“Kai, I need you to turn off your scent and stay neutral” I call out to Kai and he immediately sprints up and stays alert.
“Where are you going?” He asks concerned.
“To the Black Wood Pack”
“Are you going to pick her up?”
“No, dummy! I just want to see her”
“And how do you intend to do that when you don’t even know in which part of the castle she lives and then you have the audacity to call me a dummy”
“I very well know her smell, I will use it to track her”
“Why are you stubborn, Asher? What kind of danger do you want to get us into now?”
“What do you mean by now? It’s not like I’ve ever put in danger before?”
“Really now? Do you want me to refresh your memory?”
“Please do”
“Alpha Asher, where are you going?” One of the guards ask once I step out of the castle and that startles me to the point where I come to an abruptly halt and stiffen on the spot. I calmly turn around to face the guard who just asked the question.
“Louis, I’m going for a walk” I lie smoothly.
“Alright then, I’m coming with you”
“No, that will not be necessary, I can do this on my own”
“Alpha Asher, I can’t let you roam about the pack all by yourself at this hour of the night” he insists a d I close my eyes for a while and then open them.
“Louis, go home and read bedtime stories to your kids. It is an order” I command with a dominant Alpha voice and he quietly bows and walks away without uttering another word.
“Seriously? Read bedtime stories to his kids? The guy doesn’t even have kids!” Kai corrects and that’s when it clicks on my mind that Louis truly doesn’t have any kids.
Ugh!
He must think I’ve lost my mind.
“You are such a dumbass!”
“Thank you Mister know-it-all” I say sarcastically as I walk into the woods. “Have you done what I asked you to do?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Cool, we are gonna go for a run.” I announce and he starts skipping around in my mind. His best time is when I let him out. He loves the freedom.
I chuckle and shake my head as I take of my clothes and hang on a tree branch so I don’t shred them into pieces when I shape shift.
Once I’m completely naked, I stand gracefully in an open area and stretch out both my arms with my eyes closed. Kai starts taking over me and as does that, the bones of my phalanges start breaking and reforming into paws with very sharp claws on them. I feel my brown pupils change into red and the hair on my body starts transforming to fur.
I take a step backwards and jump forward and as I land on the ground, I land on my large paws and give a loud howl.
In my wolf form, my sight is excellent even in this total darkness.
My sense of smell is heightened and right now I can pick up even the faintest scent.
My ears can hear sound over a hundreds of kilometers away and that will enable me make safe trip to the Black Wood Pack.
“You’re in charge right now Kai”
“I do not need a reminder for that.” He brags as he takes off at high speed and all I can do is smile and let him have his fun.
Kai is a big bad Alpha wolf. He is stronger, faster and has way sharper senses than any other wolf in this pack. He also has quite a temper and that’s why I always try my best to keep him at bay. He is not known to torture, but to kill.
Some dangerous wolf he is.
As we flee past the woods, I gushing wind mercilessly whips his fur and the grasses he tramples on cry in agony. The woods are as silent as a graveyard and that’s supposed to give me some chills but it doesn’t.
If there is one feeling I’m not familiar with, it’s the feeling of fear and that should be because I’m an Alpha.
Even in the human world, my friends were always terrified by the kind of activities I took pleasure in doing and they nicknamed me “The fearless”
The only reason why I keep taking orders from Alpha Adolph right now is because I want to protect my subjects, I don’t want him to harm them. The moment I finally figure out his plans, I will strip him off everything he has and he will be sorry.
Right now he thinks my Pack is weak because he believes I’m inexperienced, but I’m a true born Alpha, I’ve got Alpha blood flowing in my veins and I very well know how to lead my people.
I’m going to come at him so hard that he won’t …
“Shhhh…” I whisper to myself as Kai comes to a halt, we have arrived at the boundary which happens to be a running stream. The moment I cross to the other side of the stream, I will be in the Black Wood Pack and I’ll lose all connection with my pack, except for the mind link though.
Kai cautiously skips over the running stream and as he lands on the ground, I feel the connection with my pack break. I suck in a great amount of oxygen and stay still for a while, trying to smell, listen and see if there’s anyone around, but I don’t sense anyone.
Kai suddenly takes off at top speed and I let him use his animal instinct to locate the castle.
Astrid is a castle servant so she must be residing there at the servant quarters.
I come to a halt when I see some guards patrolling around the castle premises, a few of them are sleeping by the corner and I feel so sorry for them. They are being forced to serve a tyrant for an Alpha while their rightful Alpha is despised and treated like a slave.
What has the werewolf world turned into?
I wait further the guards to go a bit further from me and when they do, I’m about to step out of the woods into the field when I see a figure sneaking out of a dark corner.
A figure I would recognize even if I was blind.
It’s Astrid.
I watch in silence as she looks left and right for any approaching guard and when she doesn’t see any, she runs across the field and gets into the woods with a bowl in her hand.
I urge Kai to quickly step into a dark corner of the woods so she won’t see us and get scared.
Kai has the tendency of scaring everyone at first sight.
Once she gets into the forest, she turns on a flashlight and sits on the dry leaves, obviously caring less about the fact that snakes could…
What the hell!
My heart leaves my heart when I see what she does. She opens the bowl in her hand starts digging in like someone who has been starving for months. She keeps looking left and right as she hungrily eats the food and I swear I fight my urge to cry.
“Kai, do you see that?” I ask in my mind.
“Let’s get her out of here Kai” He replies with his deadly tone.
Yeah, it’s what you think. We both have the name Kai.
Crazy coincidence that was.
“We will, just not now”
“Why not?”
“You very well know the reason”
“Just look at her, she’s eating in the woods at midnight! They are not only making her do all that hard work, but they are starving her as well, we have to get her out of here”
“If we do that now, they will notice her absence and try to find her and when they do, they will punish the pack keeping her, do you want that for your wolves?” I ask and he goes mute.
I very well know Kai, if I don’t try to make him see reasons with me, he’s going walk over to Astrid right now not caring if she’s going to give her a heart attack or not and right now I’m not ready to start running naked in another man’s pack, chasing a scared girl.
That’s too embarrassing a thing for me to experience.
“Kai, this hurts you as much as it hurts me, but we have to try to strateg…”
“Is any one there?” Astrid’s calm and soothing voice asks and I sense the fear in her voice. Kai lowers himself to the ground behind the tree we are current hiding and peeps. She keeps pointing her torch light left and right in fear as she eats on.
Sweet Moon goddess, why are you letting this happen?
“She’s going back” Kai signals me and I look up to see Astrid rising from the ground. She wipes the dirt off her skirt and starts walking back to the field.
As I watch her leave, I fight my urge to go over and steal her away.
She’s suffering real bad and I have to do something about it.
I watch her sneak across the deserted fields back into the castle.
I came out here to see her so I could have a good night’s sleep, but after what I have just witnessed, I don’t think I would ever be getting any sleep until I do something about it.
Without warning, Kai takes on his heels again and speeds out of the pack.
Plans!
Rowan and I need to draw plans!