Unknown’s POV
The bar was thick with smoke and the murmur of voices. The fire crackled in the hearth, sending flickers of orange light dancing across the darkened corners of the room. Outside, the wind howled through the trees, the kind of storm that seemed to promise danger. But in here, everything felt still-too still, like the calm before the storm.
I leaned back in the booth, the scent of cheap liquor and sweat clinging to the air, and scanned the room. My eyes flicked to Finn, who was staring at the doorway, eyes narrowed like a predator waiting for a rabbit to appear. Riker sat across from me, fiddling with his knife, his boots tapping absently on the wooden floor.
“Nothing yet?” Finn asked, his voice low and tight with frustration.
“No,” I muttered. “We’ve been searching for weeks, and all we’ve found is a lot of nothing.”
The werewolf girl we’d been sent to find was still nowhere to be seen. The one who’d been asking too many questions-about packs, about the wolves hidden in the shadows. It didn’t take much to put the pieces together. She had to be a threat to the leader’s plans, which meant she was ours to find.
We’d been chasing her for so long, following every whisper, every trail. She wasn’t easy to track. She didn’t leave much of a mark, didn’t leave anything obvious behind. But we were close-at least, I thought we were.
“We’ll find her,” Riker said, almost as if trying to convince himself.
I rubbed my thumb over the rim of my glass. I wasn’t so sure. Every lead had gone cold. Every time we thought we were close, the scent would disappear, and the trail would vanish.
“What’s taking so long?” Finn muttered under his breath, standing and pacing toward the window. His eyes flicked to the town square. The place was quiet tonight, too quiet. It gave me an uneasy feeling in my gut. A sense that something wasn’t right.
As I stared into the fire, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were missing something. The girl we were after was out there-somewhere-but we couldn’t find her.
It wasn’t until the door to the tavern opened, a gust of cold air sweeping in with it, that I felt the shift. The Alpha stepped in.
The room seemed to go still. The low murmur of conversation died, and the flickering light seemed to dim. Every eye in the room was drawn to him, to his presence, like a magnet pulling at steel. His aura was undeniable-a force of nature, powerful and commanding.
“Now that’s interesting,” I muttered.
Finn straightened. “That’s the Alpha?”
I nodded, watching him move through the room. He was alone-no pack members, no warriors. Just him, as if the entire bar didn’t matter. His gaze flicked over the room with a sharpness that made my skin crawl. He moved toward the bar, and for a moment, I thought he’d leave, but he didn’t.
Instead, his eyes found a girl behind the bar. Her posture was relaxed, and she went back to the bar, sipping something. But I could tell-just by the way she sat there, completely unaware of the storm brewing around her-that she was important.
From what I could tell, she was the bartender.
He stopped. His gaze locked on hers, and there was a quiet moment-something unspoken passing between them. Something that felt like it belonged only to them. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt it. The connection.
“Who is she?” Riker asked, his voice tight.
“No idea,” I said, watching the girl intently. She was just a human-no wolf scent, no danger that I could detect. At least, not yet. But there was something strange about her. Something that didn’t fit.
“I think we’ve found something interesting,” I added as the Alpha finally spoke to her. His voice was low, controlled-yet there was a certain tenderness in his tone that caught me off guard. I couldn’t hear the words they exchanged, but it was clear there was something between them. A familiarity.
A spark.
I leaned forward, my curiosity piqued. This wasn’t just any girl. She wasn’t some random human in the bar. There was something more here. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
We watched in silence, the tension thick in the air. The Alpha leaned in, speaking to the girl in hushed tones. I watched her face closely-her expression unreadable, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes. Confusion? Curiosity? Or maybe a little fear?
Then, just like that, it was over. The Alpha turned and walked out the door, and the room exhaled a collective breath. The girl, too, remained still for a moment before she took another sip of her drink, her eyes lost in thought.
“Do you think she’s connected to the Alpha?” Finn asked, voice low but urgent.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, still staring at the door he’d just exited. “But something isn’t right. She doesn’t belong here.”
We had no idea who she was. But we were getting closer.