2 - Paybacks and Attacks

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

When he pulled back, I stared at him, gobsmacked.

This was not normal ‘alpha- member’ behaviour.

What in the holy hell was going on?

I didn’t have to wait long.

He told it to me straight out. Too bluntly for my little brain to grasp at once.

“I want you to sleep with me as payback.”

I stared at him. My mouth hanging open in a shocking silence.

Holy mother shitballs.

Eventually, I managed to whisper, “You must have lost your mind.”

He kept staring at me, wordless.

His hand went into my hair and with a gentle pull he tilted my head back again.

“You are not serious! You can’t do this to me! We are not doing that!”

“Why not?”

He was calm as a peach, one of his hands was tangled in my hair and the other arm was wrapped around my waist. His hand rested on my waist like we did little flirtings before bed every night of our lives.

“I am not attracted to you. You are more like an older brother to me.”

“Is that why you took half naked, almost inappropriate photos of me?”

Damn it.

“Shirtless?”

Shit.

“Almost boxerless?”

“Okay fine! I get it already, Jesus!” I broke into his expert, one-glance-at-the-screen-was-enough memory lane. “I thought you don’t get involved with crazyheaded clingy girls within your pack.” At least that is what Nyx had told me.

“You are not a crazyheaded clingy girl from within my pack.”

“I am the niece of the man that is a member of your pack- whom you have invited at this pack house to help you with investigations!”

“I wanted you to come here. Hector was just an excuse. I lied.”

My eyes bugged out at this piece of news.

“What?”

“Hector has already given most of the information we needed for our investigation. I wanted you to live in front of my eyes at the pack house. Taking Hector’s help is just an excuse to keep you here at the pack house.”

Holy mother of God.

“...Why?”

“You are twenty years old, and hung up on me. Keeping you in front of my eyes will help me make sure you aren’t going around taking pictures of any other men.”

For fuck’s sake.

“I am not hung up on you!”

He grinned. “Yes you are.”

I do find him attractive but I am never going to admit it in front of anyone in the entire world. And obviously, the phone filled with his pictures was enough proof for him to prove his point.

I narrowed my eyes and he kept talking.

“I don’t need any entanglements. I don’t want to worry about where you are and what you are doing or if you are clicking pictures of men instead of minding your own business. And I don’t want to turn around and find another phone in your hands with my pictures in it.”

I hated to admit, he made sense.

But I was not going to admit that in front of him either.

“I had Zack go to your house to invite Hector to the pack house. I knew that was the easiest way to get you here.”

He shrugged, nonchalant, like he didn’t care and that pissed me off.

What an arrogant jerk! His gaze remained calm while still talking to me, 

“I don’t like my privacy being invaded and I’m definitely not interested in finding you with another phone filled with other men’s pictures.” His voice was slightly edgy and a little scary. “Fortunately, you gave me the perfect opportunity to relay that to you by walking into my bed on your own tonight.”

Perfect opportunity, my foot!

He had no rights over what I do and how. And he definitely doesn’t have a right to put a leash around my neck to pull me to him as he pleased.

A knock came at the door, “Alpha, there is a call for you from Africa.”

“Fuck.” Marcus said, and glared at me, “don’t leave this room. I will be back.”

I nodded my head.

Like hell I won’t.

***

Nyx had yet to choose what she wanted to do in life aside from raising troubles all the time. Her ass can’t settle in one place for more than an hour and all things that she learned could never be a career choice for her.

Hence, the new hobby- keep track of Shadowblood Men.

Though she is a nice girl, she only clicked their pictures when they were in public places- hence making sure she is never invading their privacy. As crazy in the head as she was, she knew the boundaries she can’t overstep.

And of course, also because she didn’t want to be murdered by the hands of four alphas at such a young age.

When I met her the next day, told her about moving to the pack house and meeting Alpha Marcus, she was literally hyperventilating with excitement, having imaginations of Alpha Marcus wanting a night in the bed filled with sexual activities with me.

As I sauntered past the main doors, a cacophony of huffs and slams abruptly halted me in my tracks. The room was dimly lit, with a feeble stream of light struggling to make its way through a window. But it was enough to see what the heck was going on.

I walked in, and in the very end corner of the room, saw the bare back of a man, wearing a track pant. His body was moving rhythmically, letting the sandbag in the front come at him from different directions each time, and hitting it precisely with his fist. 

My insides tingled with a strange feeling. My stomach fluttering. My feet were planted at the ground, unable to move forward or backward.

Deciding that leaving was the better choice than to confront the strange man whose bare back did weird things to my stomach, I took a step back, attempting to make my exit as silent as a mouse on a stealth mission.

Then the man turned around.

His hazel eyes meeting mine.

“May I help you?” he turned full frontal. His hands ripping the boxing gloves off his hands and throwing them on the table in the corner in one swift motion.

He was gorgeous. Like literally the most beautiful man I had ever seen. 

Others would call him handsome or sexy, seeing that the body of his was wet from the sweat, dripping down the waist of his pants.

But for me… his eyes… I couldn’t breathe.

“Wrong room.” I said out loud, my voice weirdly high pitched.

I was itching to run. All this… whatever this was, I can’t take it anymore. 

“I know you.” he said gently. 

Say what?

“You do?”

“Stalker girl.”

SAY WHAT?

Run. Run. RUN!

I kept my mouth shut. I don’t know who he was or where he heard about the stalker thing, but this was outright not nice.

No, wait, this was just disrespectful!

“Who are you again?”

His magical charm was fading quickly. 

He moved, walking in my direction. That overwhelming urge to flee intensified again.

“Ares Sloan.” he replied.

Ares Sloan?

He is one of them? The Shadowblood Men?

Here I had thought that it only happened once in a blue moon when you came across them. 

“I know you. Stalker?”

"I don’t know what you are talking about." my face was burning.

I turned around, my heart racing, ready to flee from the room. 

But in my haste, I collided with a cold, unforgiving metal table, the sharp edge cutting through my crop top and grazing my waist, causing a sharp pang of pain to shoot through me.

"Ah," I moaned, clutching my waist and biting my lip, hoping to suppress the pain.

He swiftly approached me, his hand reaching out to touch my waist. He leaned down to examine the wound, concern evident in his eyes. Without hesitation, he stood upright and gently took hold of my hand, guiding me into a smaller room that turned out to be a fully equipped kitchen.

We halted in the centre of the kitchen, and he carefully tilted my hips, causing my top to ride up slightly, revealing the angry red cut on the side of my waist. It was a superficial wound, not bleeding, but still stinging.

He swiftly grabbed a fresh towel from the drawers, wet it under the tap and then pressed it against the cut.

His eyes that were staring intently at me were now taking my mind off the pain in my waist because he was making the breath in my lungs burn. And he was also making other places burn that were not really visible with my clothes on.

"I can hold it," I offered, trying to take the towel from his grasp.

“I've got it," he replied firmly, his eyes locked onto mine.

"No, really..." 

"I've got it," he repeated, his tone devoid of the usual playfulness and instead laced with a quiet determination and a touch of impatience that I had never heard from him before.

Ares was a good, sweet boy, always teasing, laughing, flirting and messing around as far as I had seen from Nyx’s videos.

Right now there was no messing around in his tone.

I stood tense and stiff, back to biting my lip while he held my waist from his one hand, the cold towel against the cut with the other. His fingers wrapped tighter around my waist and then pulled me forward. He was already close, but he brought me closer. 

“Do you have a problem being alone with me?” he asked, when he was so close, I could smell him.

He smelled nice. Like nicer than any man I had ever come across.

Marcus was there at the top. But Ares just became my favourite.

I kinda got lost in a daze. His closeness, his scent… my mind stopped working.

“Sorry?”

“Do you have a problem being alone with me?” Ares asked again, his eyes looking into mine and I was in a stark realization that I’d never been this close to him. 

He had great eyebrows and his dark eyes twinkled even when there was no sun shining in them.

I realized he had just asked me a question, which yet again, I had not heard properly.

“Sorry?” my words came out as a soft whisper.

I saw the corner of his lip curve up right before a smile spring up on his face. His hand slithered to my back to bring me even closer. So close that his body was pressed against mine and then he bent down to get closer to my face,

“I asked, do you have a problem being alone with me?”

“K- kinda. Yeah.” I said. My brain disengaging from my mouth.

His head bent lower. 

“What problem?” his voice was low, calm and warm.

His face suddenly slid past my cheek, close to my ear. 

“You smell divine.” he muttered. His thumb traced circles on my waist, leaving a trail of tingling sensations in its wake. 

Without another word, Ares closed the remaining distance between us. His lips captured mine in a gentle, yet electrifying kiss.

His hand slipped to the back of my head, his tongue sliding right in, and over the seams of my lips, and then licked my tongue. I stirred at once, a soft moan escaping my lips. His touch and scent was like a desirable fire on my skin. Sweet, minty… and faint hint of musk.

His lips detached from mine and his face slid into my neck. I felt him inhale my scent deeply. 

*Ding*

A notification sound of two water drops falling down in the water echoed from the counter on my side.

And then as if my skin had burned him with fire, Ares let go of my body at once and stepped back. I had to quickly grab the towel on my waist before it could fall down on the ground.

His hand snatched the phone from the counter, looking down at the screen.

A text from ‘Daisy’; the notification showed.

He swiped back the curls that fell on his forehead before lifting his head up to look at me again. His eyes no longer soft. A hard, frustrated, almost angry and unbothered look replaced his gaze as he then stepped to the side, and walked out of the room without a word.

It took a few minutes before the daze lifted and I came back to my senses and realized what had just happened.

I… kissed… Ares Sloan?

Shaken, I walked out, and had to lean against the wall to take deep breaths and get my mind back. After finally gathering myself, I directly walked toward my class in the other block of the building.

Something was wrong.

The entire building was silent. Too silent for my liking. There was not even the sound of any footsteps except mine, and that's what scared me. I walked inside, feeling strange, but nothing seemed out of the blue.

And that’s when I heard it. A rough, furious growl,

“Kneel!”

I flipped around, startled at the sound.

There was no one behind me. The voice had come from somewhere close. 

“Please… please… I can’t take it anymore.” a man sobbed desperately, his voice cracking, 

“it’s been three days. Everyone-” hick, “everyone ha- has been throwing my things away. They've taken everything from me. They threw away my belongings, hacked my bank account, drained every penny my parents had saved for my college education. T- they,” sob, “they don’t even let me eat at the pack table anymore. Alpha…” His cries grew louder, his anguish palpable, and I could feel my heart breaking into a million pieces from the desperation in his words, 

“Alpha please. I am begging you. Please… withdraw the black card.”

I followed the direction of the voice, the path leading me toward the empty cafeteria. 

I stood outside, about to peek inside the hall.

“KNEEL on your knees, dumb motherfucker!” 

I jumped at the sound, revealing myself out of the corner of the hall. 

And that’s when my gaze met a familiar set of dark eyes. They were cold, unfeeling, and fiery. 

I had never been able to forget about the entire wolf thing in this pack. But lord… his eyes brought a terrifying reminder about it.

Alpha Marcus stood in front of me. A man kneeling close to his feet, his face stained with tears. His body trembling like a dry leaf.

Marcus’ eyes shined with a look that I had never witnessed before in my entire life— a gaze filled with danger and threat.

But this time, his words were aimed at me.

"OUT!"