Chapter 7 The Possessive She-wolf

• “Is she waking?” I heard the voices of two strange men while I was stuck in darkness with aches all over my body.
• “We didn’t hit her. Why isn’t she waking?” The other man sounded irritated. “Goddess, I don’t have time to waste.”
• “I didn’t know you were this enthusiastic to see Scarlett,” the other man snickered.
• “Pick her up.” The man being teased ignored the joke. “Pick her up let’s go.”
• “Hey, wait. W – What do you mean pick her up?” The other man’s voice pitched higher.
• While the men argued, I tried to open my eyes. A sense of urgency prevailed over me although I couldn’t remember what the need for urgency meant. Even in my state of semi-consciousness, I knew I was running from someone, from something, and I had to run faster.
• My eyelids were too heavy to open and my body felt like a boulder rested atop me, crushing me to the ground and making my tight chest tighten more.
• ‘You’re wasting time,’ my inner voice berated me.
• My body temperature rose as I tried to force my eyes open to escape the blanket of darkness around me but nothing happened much as I tried.
• “Do you want us to leave her out here?” A harsh voice snapped. “Pick her up and put her in the car let’s go.”
• “Y – Yes, Alpha,” a third voice reached me in the darkness as hands reached for me.
• “But that’s – That’s kidnapping, isn’t it?” The more normal of the voices asked. “We can’t just take a random person from the roads while they are unconscious.”
• “Orion, you’re getting on my nerves.” A growl that sent a shiver down my frozen spine sounded in the darkness of the night. “We either leave her here or we take her along. I don’t have time to waste waiting for a fainted girl to wake up.”
• “You’re too harsh, Killian.” After that, I sank deeper into the cold abyss of darkness.
• The next time I regained a fraction of my consciousness, I was on a soft bed and someone was cleaning me with a cold rag. Strange voices sounded around me and the side of my face burned as if someone was glaring at me.
• “You said he brought her?” A strange woman’s voice entered my ears. The voice was filled with disdain and anger – a voice that could have belonged to Bella if it didn’t carry the distinct power of an Alpha she-wolf.
• “Yes. He carried her in his arms and brought her here then he asked us to watch over her,” another unfamiliar female voice responded. She was the one cleaning me if the proximity of her voice was anything to go by.
• “Do you know what their relationship is, Scarlett?” Yet another feminine voice.
• The heat at the side of my face intensified and it seared me awake. The darkness around me receded but I didn’t blink my eyes. My danger senses were going off the roof. I didn’t know what I would meet when I opened my eyes so I kept them shut, intent on observing my surrounding with my other senses.
• Where was I and who were these people? Last I remembered, I was fleeing Noah and his pack, then I fell unconscious in front of someone’s carriage and they carried me. Did they take me to a clinic?
• “I know you’re awake,” a voice colder than ice touched my skin.
• Almost on instinct, my eyes opened and I came face to face with a girl with fire-red hair and emerald green eyes peering into my face with a harsh glare. The look in her eyes told me she wanted me to combust and for my ashes to vanish into thin air. That look was familiar, one I had seen a lot of times but I’d never seen such a look directed at me by someone who I didn’t know.
• “Who are you?” The lady demanded, her emerald eyes darkening. “And what’s your relationship with Killian?”
• Killian. Killian. That name sounded familiar, like a name I should know, but my scrambled brain didn’t attach a face to the said name so I assumed I didn’t know the person.
• “Who – Who are you?” I asked. To my chagrin, my voice sounded broken and tired – weak.
• Her eyes sparkled when she heard my voice. It was as if it confirmed her suspicion that I was nobody to be concerned about.
• “You don’t know who I am?” Her expression tightened but her eyes were merry. Great. I ran away from one psychopath only to run into another. “I asked first so you have to answer me first.” Her merry words spread a chill through the room.
• The other women had gone silent before but now they went still. I may not have a wolf and I may have awful instincts, but I knew danger well, had courted it often, so I recognized the power she imbued into her voice as she questioned me with a false smile and light tone.
• “C – Carrot.” I stuttered my name with blood draining from my face.
• “How dare you.” My insides trembled and my heartbeat sped up at the calm question that hit me like a tornado.
• This – This woman was not one to be taken lightly. I heard it in the way her tone deepened, felt it in the way her glare sharpened and saw it in the way her eyes grew cold and hard. The aura she exuded overwhelmed me. It may be because she was the first Alpha she-wolf I ever met, but I knew it had to be more than that. It was more than that.
• “How dare you mock me.” My eyes bulged as her hand wrapped around my throat and she squeezed. She had dainty soft hands but when they tightened around my throat, my mouth dried up like a dessert and my chest tightened to the point of pain.
• It was just the other day that Luna Grace wrapped her hand around my throat and squeezed with both her hands but her strength was nothing compared to the strength of this woman. She cut off my air supply and had me gasping for air, clawing at her hands taking my life.
• “Scarlett, is this – this isn’t a good idea,” someone said,
• My life flashed before my eyes. I thought of my plan to ruin Noah, to destroy Red Lake and to find my family. All the plans I made in the dungeons were about to be destroyed because I wandered into this strange place and met this strange woman.
• No, no!
• I can’t die like this! I never even lived. How can I die like this after I managed to escape Red Lake? Did the goddess curse me? How could one person be so unfortunate!?
• When Noah shoved me out of his mother’s balcony, when the Luna tried strangling me to death, when they starved me in the dungeons, when I ran into a racing carriage, none of those times brought me as close to death’s doorstep as quickly as this girl did.
• “Killian brought him herself, Scar,” a frightened girl muttered. “If you kill her like this –“ She left her words to hang.
• “Did he bring this whore here to taunt me!?” Her grip on my throat tightened. I clawed at her hand but she did not budge. “Who the fuck is this hussy that has the audacity to call me carrot!?”
• The fight left me. A familiar cold spread through my insides and I opened my arms to embrace it. Black dots spotted my vision.
• “Scarlett, there are done with the meeting!” A boy rushed into the room and saved my life. She jumped from the bed, her hand falling from my throat as if she wasn’t just trying to kill me. A smile bloomed on her face but then she caught my gaze and grew cold again.
• “Killian is mine,” she snarled. “I don’t know who you are but stay away from him.” I wanted to ask who the hell Killian was but I shut my mouth. “Leave this place before I end you myself.” With that she left the room with her friend, leaving me alone with the woman who’d been nursing me.
• “Ah, you have to – You have to avoid him now.” The woman seemed mournful. “Scarlett is a nice girl but she – you know, Alpha wolves are quite possessive and she has her sights set on him so it’s best to give up whatever thing you have together.” She gave me an imploring look that I did not understand. “You should leave now, before she returns.” She handed me a shabby dress.
• I didn’t need telling twice. After escaping Red Lake, I wasn’t going to wait to be killed by a random crazy wench who thought I was dragging an unknown man with her. Pushing to my wobbly feet, I exited the house and broke into a run.
• ‘It’s a whole wilderness outside of a pack,’ I thought to myself. How many hours ago did I escape Red Lake only to run into enemies?
• I was about to slink into unfamiliar woods when I saw an unattended carriage.
• ‘This is a bad idea,’ a part of me thought but the other part understood that I had no wolf. It would be easier for me to escape this place in a carriage and the goddess provided this one.
• I hid in the luggage compartment of a stranger’s carriage, my heart in my throat and my clammy body sweating buckets.