Chapter 3

“So heavy! What did I even pack?” I whined as I tugged on my hefty boxes.

My question ricocheted off the walls of the empty parking lot. At four o’clock in the morning, there was no one to ask for help with my overloaded luggage.

Strength was something I unfortunately still lacked to an extent. I had trained tirelessly with knives and always had at least two on me at all time, including now. Toughness however was still not my forte.

What I had mastered was agility and speed in both human and wolf form, I had Ian to thank for all that.

For a moment, calling him to ask for help popped into my head but I immediately shook the thought away. He was not supposed to know I was leaving.

Knowing him, he would end up coming with me.

I just could not let that happen. He seriously hated the negativity that came with the pack’s corrupted politics and hierarchy. When I thought of how unhappy it all made him, the last thing I wanted was to be the reason why he went back to our pack.

I finished shoving the last of my boxes into the trunk of my pitiful Peugeot and jammed it shut.

With a deep breath and a couple of false starts from my horrible car's engine, I was on my way to Greymoon.

By the time I arrived on the Greymoon territory, the sun was high in the sky and my back was sore from the seven hours drive.

I used my hand to shield my eyes from the harsh rays of sunlight. The territory had grown over the years and I felt a little sad to have missed it. In the end, Greymoon was my home even if the people here made me feel invisible. A little way from the main pack house was a lodging where I would be staying.

The perfect means to return to the pack had come up two weeks ago in the form of a job. Ian and I had gotten information that they were looking for instructors to teach the young pups how to fight in human form. It was important to have a good basis in combat before learning to fight in wolf form.

I had snatched up the opportunity. Ian thought I was kidding when I applied but it was a well-timed chance. I was supposed to arrive tomorrow for the screening but my impromptu need to avoid Ian brought me here a day earlier. Oh well.

The screening process promised to be enlightening. Werewolves valued their kids a lot so the Alpha himself was going to be involved in selecting the perfect person to train them.

Just the thought of seeing Kaiden set me in edge. I couldn’t help but wonder how he would look now.

“Ugh Yara, focus!” I reprimanded myself, threw the shift back into gear and drove up the rest of the way to the visitors’ cabin.

I lodged in with the help of the polite staff at the cabin. All their faces were unfamiliar but from their scent i could tell they were werewolves. All I wanted to do was collapse in bed but I still had to dye my hair before the screening tomorrow. So I grabbed my keys, asked for directions and headed to the nearest shopping mall.

As I entered the mall, my mood was immediately ruined by the long queue at the counter.

“Don’t you guys have better things to on a Saturday afternoon?” I muttered.

Making a swift beeline for the hair product aisle, I snatched up a box of hair dye and raced to plant myself in the crawling line.

The lady in front of me had the most voluminous blonde hair that I could never ever dream of pulling off, and a mouth-watering caramel scent. It could either be her perfume or maybe she had a jar of candy on her.

Either way, the lovely scent just made my stomach growl which reminded me that I still had not eaten anything today.

I finally snapped out of my hungry daydreaming as the line moved along, then prayed to any god watching that no drool was on my chin. To distract myself, I turned over the box of dye in my hand wanting to read to the description.

“Shit!”

My cuss earned me a stink eye from caramel lady but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“Yara, how fucking dumb can you get?” I grumbled.

Blonde dye? Seriously? I was trying to be unrecognizable, not turn myself into the next neighbourhood ghost. With my pale skin, I would look transparent with blonde hair, getting noticed by the Alpha would be impossible then.

Bitter but resigned, I stepped away from the line and sped back to aisle from before.

Black. I need black hair d–

My train of thoughts were cut short as I turned the corner and crashed straight into a brick wall.

A scream tore out of me as I fell and my eyes squeezed shut as I braced myself for the impact but it never came. My fall was halted by a pair of strong calloused hands on my waist.

Slowly, the stranger pulled me up and my palms instinctively settled on his chest for balance. All the while, all I could do was whisper shit repeatedly beneath my breath because this day just kept getting worse.

“You’ve got quite the potty mouth there, Red. Maybe next time watch where you’re going.” The indifferent tone finally had my eyes flying open and I realised three things at once.

Firstly, the “brick wall” I thought I had apparently run into was in fact the broad chest of an insanely attractive man. His jet black hair coiffed to the front almost had me weak kneed if not for the remaining two things.

Second thing was, Mr Tall and Handsome over here had a scowl on his face, one would think it was his butt that almost kissed the floor a few seconds ago and not mine.

Third fucking thing was, he was standing right in the middle of the walkway thus this whole unfortunate crash was his fault so I had every right to be as potty mouthed as I wanted.

I stepped away from his grip with an annoyed huff and took my hands off his annoyingly defined chest. “Watch where I’m going? Watch where you’re fucking standing, this is a walkway for a reason.”

Between my irritation I couldn’t help but note that the hand of this handsome stranger had fitted rather nicely on my waist.

The handsome stranger took a step closer. “So you can’t talking without swearing then?”

“So you can’t talk without sounding like a narcissist then?” I retorted, refusing to back down.

He scoffed at my reply. “You know” He said lowly, his voice sounded deliciously gravely. How annoying. “Usually people say thank you when someone saves their ass.”

I could feel myself getting more worked up. “Well sir, my ass wouldn’t need saving if you had just stood right in front of the shelves like every other shopper, would it?”

He stared at me silently for a while and a slight feeling of familiarity surfaced but I shoved it aside.

“Really wish I could keep on with this but” he tapped the watch on his wrist while his eyes stayed fixed on mine as he talked. “people to see, places to be. See you around, Red.”

With that, he sidestepped me and strolled away without looking back.

“My hair is ginger not red, you colour-blind moron.” I muttered.

I was definitely changing my hair colour. Now all I had to do was choose an alias to go by.