It started with a growl.
Low, Guttural. The kind that sent chills down Aria's spine before her mind could register why.
She was crouched near the fire, drying her soaked boots, when she heard it, the rumble of something primal stirring behind her.
Her legs trembling, Aria turned slowly.
His eyes were open.
But they weren't human anymore, shinning silver and feral looking.
He was already halfway shifted, his hands were clawed, his canines lengthened. He looked just like a predator about to strike with his muscles coiled tight.
Aria froze.
"Easy," she whispered barely audible. Rising to her feet, hands up.
"You're safe. I brought you here, you remember me right? I found you hurt in the forest and helped you."
He didn't speak.
His gaze locked on her, unblinking. He looked like he wasn't trusting a word she said.
Aria almost cried at the distrustful gaze he was giving her.
Then, movement.
In a blink, he was on his feet.
Blood from his bandaged side splattered the floor, but he did not flinch. The strength he shouldn't have had burned through him like wildfire. He grabbed her by the throat, slamming her against the cabin wall.
"You followed me," he snarled, voice deep and distorted.
"Who sent you?"
Aria gasped, her feet barely touching the ground. "I, I didn't."
His grip tightened."Tell me now."
His body trembled. fighting the shift. He was in pain you could see it. He was fighting to keep the beast in check, keep it inside him, but the beast was also fighting him for freedom. Veins bulged at his neck, his eyes glowing brighter with every second.
If he lost control, he knew his beast would kill her without a second thought.
Aria could feel him struggling to keep sane, she could feel the desperation to have his body in control, she knew it was not easy to fight your wold for control when all it wanted was to come out.
And so, she didn't plead.
She looked him in the eye and said, voice stead:
"If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have dragged your bleeding body here. I would've left you to rot in the woods."
Aria kept cursing her wolf in her heart, her struggle had made her come face to face with death. She was regretting her good Samaritan actions deeply.
His breath hitched.
His eyes flickered, just for a second, back to human.
Took him long enough. Aria thought.
Aria drove her knee up into his side.
He staggered, roaring in pain.
She ducked under his arm and rolled away, grabbing the fire poker from the hearth. She didn't want to use it, but she would.
"I saved your life,' she said, heart pounding. "I didn't know who you were. I still son't. But if you think I'm Just some helpless girl you can kill to feel better, try me."
Silence..
The Alpha stared at her, chest heaving, torn between instincts and reason.
Then, slowly, painfully, he dropped to one knee.
The adrenaline drained from his body all at once. The shift receded. The claws vanished, and the glow from his eyes faded, leaving his shiny silver eyes an ash-gray color.
He collapsed forward, bracing himself on his hands.
"I thought you were one of them," he rasped. "The ones who turned on me."
Aria hesitated. "Who turned on you?"
He did not answer.
Instead, he looked up at her and, for the first time, she saw something familiar.
Grief.
"I, I lost everything," he whispered. "My pack.My son. My heir."
He entrusted me with her but I lost her, so long ago that I don't think I'll be able to find her again.
Heir?
She swallowed, stunned. "You...had a child in the woods?"
He shook his head," no, not the woods, I lost him way before that. She had entrusted him to me, before the fire claimed all of my blood leaving a few surviving ones, barely surviving at that time, I thought I had him, while trying to save who I could, but."
Aria heart thumped. But what? she screamed in her head. Aria stared at the man who was now looking like a wounded lion, his head drooping down in a sad sight.
In that moment every part of her soul screamed the same truth:
He's not the only one with secrets.
And if what her birth mother had whispered before dying was the true
Then she was looking right into the eyes of her father's killer.
Or..
Her child's father.
Her