Chapter - 3

Alpha Adrian looked surprised at Alpha Evan's words if his raised eyebrows were anything to go by. 

"She is not for sale," he finally said. 

I knew I wasn't. They hated me too much to let me go. Let alone to a pack where slaves were treated nicely from what I could gather. 

"Why not?" 

"She simply isn't. Now, I believe this nonsense has gone on for long enough. Let's all get back to partying," Alpha Adrian announced, pretty much ending the discussion. 

Alpha Evan clenched his jaw. He looked like he wanted to say more, an emotion flashing on his face, but it was gone too quickly for me to pin point what it was. In the end, he nodded stoically at Alpha Adrian, letting it go. 

I sighed quietly to myself, spying Raymond at the edges of the circle of people that had formed around us. 

The moment his eyes met mine, he gave me a 'what the hell happened?' face which I returned with a 'I have no idea' face. And I truly didn't. 

I had no idea why someone like Alpha Evan had come to my rescue like that. Nor why I was feeling so enamored by his scent alone. 

Speaking of him, the man was still standing in front of me even as the people around us dispersed and Raymond made his way over with a dust pan, broom, mop, and another server, Jamie, in tow. 

"Wrap that hand of yours in a bandaid," Alpha Evan told me, making me look down at the said hand. 

For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with him, choosing to stare at my hand instead as if it that was where the answers to all the questions running through my head lay. 

"Alpha Evan, I think we should let her go and do that," I heard the bearded man who had intervened between the two Alphas say. 

I nodded, still not looking up. 

Alpha Evan cleared his throat. "Right. Yes." 

Before I could turn around and leave though, his hand entered my field of vision, dwarfing my own. 

The same shock of electricity I'd felt before rippled throughout my body at the contact. And this time, I was sure he felt it too because I heard him suck in a sudden breath. 

"Why?" he murmured lowly, more to himself than me, prompting me to look up at him. 

His beautiful green eyes were narrowed in concentration as he looked down at my hand as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world, his forehead creased in what looked like confusion, almost as if he were trying to figure out an intricate puzzle. 

"You coming, Mel?" Raymond's voice made me turn my head to look at him. 

"Yeah," I replied. Pulling my hand away from Alpha Evan, I looked up at him again, only to find his eyes already fixated on me. 

I squirmed a little under his intense gaze, my throat suddenly dry. I swallowed thickly before speaking, "I uh, I should probably go."

He nodded. "You should." 

I nodded back at him before turning around and pretty much fleeing the scene, all the while feeling his eyes burning holes into the back of my head until I shut the door to the kitchen behind me with a dull thud. 

"What even was that?" Raymond asked as soon as we were in the safety of the kitchen, handing the cleaning supplies to Jamie who quietly left us alone. 

"I don't know," I admitted, shaking my head. "He is an Alpha, Ray. An Alpha to a whole entire pack. And he stood up for me. Plain, old me! He was ready to start an all our war if this guy who was probably someone from his pack hadn't intervened. Can you believe that?" I ranted, eyes wide with disbelief. The more I thought about it, the more unrealistic it felt. 

Why the hell did he do something like that? Alphas simply did not go around taking stands for slaves. And what was all that weird attraction I had been feeling towards him? Why had I been so bloody entranced with the way he smelled? 

Had he been feeling the same way towards me? Was that why he had come to my rescue like that? But why?

Goddess, none of this was making any sense. 

"I can't either. He looked livid from where I was standing," Raymond said, pulling me out of my thoughts. 

I nodded in agreement, not knowing what else to say. Today had been the weirdest day of my measly existence. This was something I hadn't thought of, not even in my wildest dreams. 

"Come on, let's get your hand patched up. Looks like that glass cut you deep," Raymond, ever the care taker said, nodding towards my hand still wrapped in the cloth napkin. 

I had been so engrossed in all that had been happening that I'd all but forgotten about my injury until now. I shook my head. "It's fine. Won't need any stitches or anything. Just a disinfectant and gauze would do." 

Raymond nodded. "Okay. Sit here and let me get those. And you're not going out there anymore. I'll find something for you to do inside once you're all patched up. Michel will have to understand now," Raymond said before leaving.

I sighed to myself. Michel was the head of the catering staff and he was the one who had assigned us duties tonight, making sure I was out there most of the night. But now that I'd gotten hurt, he would probably go a little bit easy on me and assign me something else to do inside the kitchen instead. Or at least I was hoping he would. 

It wasn't long before Raymond was back and had patched up my hand. He'd also somehow convinced Michel to let me work inside, plating the food, mopping any spills and such and I was extremely thankful for it. 

Sure, I was shouted at here and there but at least there weren't a lot of unknowns in here for me to feel all that embarrassed. 

Finally, the night came to an end and after some vigorous cleaning up, we were given some food and allowed to go. 

I was tired, yes, but I hadn't been able to get the night's events and Alpha Evan's scent out of my head. 

Feeling too wired to sleep, I decided to go to the one spot where I felt the calmest. It was a small, well hidden clearing behind the pack house, surrounded by trees on all sides where I often went at nights for a swim. No one bothered to go there during the nights and that was exactly the way I liked it. 

But tonight, as I made my way towards the clearing, I realised I wasn't alone. 

There, at the other end of the clearing stood a man. And it wasn't his physique which clued me in as to who it was. It was the familiar woody scent, a mix of amberwood and pepper that told me the man standing under the pale moonlight was none other than Alpha Evan. 

I turned around to leave, not wanting to disturb him when I heard him begin to speak something in a foreign language. 

It took me a moment to realise that he was chanting some sort of a spell.

Was he a witch? 

But how? He was an Alpha, wasn't he? 

What was going on here?

Before I could dwell on my thoughts much, the image of a man appeared in front of Alpha Evan, glowing bright blue, almost as if it were a hologram. The only difference was, that the man was actually talking. 

The man talked to him for some time but I was too far away to catch the entire conversation and make sense of it. The conversation went on for a minute or so before the man disappeared. 

Completely confused and extremely scared of whatever I'd just witnessed, I turned around to leave at once. 

"Where do you think you're going?" Came Alpha Evan's voice before I'd even taken the first step.

I winced, having been caught. 

I had a feeling the night had just become much more interesting.