Chapter 1 #2
He limped to the exit. Alexander watched him go, trying to think of something to say. He didn’t make genuine connections with people often. That brief talk over a mop was the closest he’d gotten to intimacy in a long time.
The front doors slid open.
“Bye, Al,” Hot Scar Guy said over his shoulder.
Alexander gritted his teeth as he looked down at the accursed nametag Donna set up for him. “Actually, it’s—”
The doors slid shut.
“Alexander,” he finished, oddly dejected.
He gripped the mop and watched Hot Scar Guy limp off into the night, his gait speeding up with every step. Wherever he needed to be, he had to get there fast.
Alexander frowned, his mind reeling with possibilities as Hot Scar Guy vanished into the dark.
He’d caught a trace of another scar on the man’s shoulder the last time he came in, when that raggedy hoodie pulled to the side during a stretch.
That scar ran from the top of his shoulder down to his collarbone, and it even looked like there was another scar breaking off from it.
The pain could be chronic. Old scar tissue acting up.
Alexander dug his thumb into a divot in the mop. He looked down and found a woodchip. Hot Scar Guy had been digging his fingernails in so hard he left grooves in the mop.
For a moment Alexander was worried. Then he pushed the concern down and started mopping again, the repetitive movements sending him back to the thing he’d been ruminating on before he got sidetracked so unexpectedly:
Tonight was the night. Everything that happened tonight would start a chain of events that would end in his family finally taking him back into the fold. It was all coming together.
“Al,” Donna screamed from the counter, her headset twisted sideways. “Where did you put the sauce refills? Nobody can find them!”
Alexander held back a groan. “They’re in the bucket labeled SAUCE, Donna. Where they were always supposed to be.”
“Bucket? What bucket, there’s no—” Donna paused, staring mystified into a shelf that was a lot neater since Alexander’s shift began. “Huh. The rubber band bucket has a SAUCE label on it. Who knew?”
Alexander bit his tongue and mopped harder. The milkshake was gone, lifted by Hot Scar Guy’s shockingly thorough scrubbing, but he needed some method to calm his nerves.
Tonight was the night.
He would make sure of it.
The Alpha Club was a tawdry nightclub in the worst part of the city.
Conveniently, it was also two blocks away from Alexander’s apartment building.
It was dark and smoky and smelled like both old and new sweat, just like the last two times Alexander visited.
He wasted no time in heading toward the door at the back of the club and the second bouncer of the night: a tall, bulky bruiser who was significantly more intimidating than the glazed man outside the building who had barely glanced at Alexander’s fake ID before letting him inside.
“Bathrooms are over there, pretty boy,” the bouncer said gruffly.
“I’m not looking for a bathroom,” Alexander replied. “I’m looking for Muzzle.”
The bouncer narrowed his eyes and looked Alexander up and down. Alexander lifted his chin, trying to look like he didn’t have his jawbone knife strapped to his ankle.
The bouncer opened the door behind him, revealing an ominously dark staircase.
“Have a good night,” he said, still squinting suspiciously. Like he didn’t know how someone like Alexander had gotten the password.
The answer: he had broken an underage regular’s arm last night. A quick silver test determined that the teen was unfortunately human. Despite this, he had been very unwilling to divulge the password. A strange display of loyalty from someone who wasn’t even part of the wolf pack.
His loyalty had faded fast after Alexander snapped his radius bone.
Alexander had left the teen in the alleyway with a promise that if he told anyone, Alexander would come back and kill him.
Which he would, if he absolutely had to.
He had never killed a human before, but the official rule in his family was that if you helped a monster, you were practically joining their ranks.
Their souls are dust, as his parents liked to say. Just like the monster they helped.
Despite Alexander’s momentary lapse in judgment back in North Carolina three years ago, his soul was not dust. He just had to prove it.
He stepped into a stand above a dimly lit arena. The stands were crowded with screaming fans. Mostly men, all of them reeking of booze. Alexander’s nose wrinkled as he took in telltale smells. Beer. Blood. And underneath all of that, the undeniable stench of dog.
He craned his neck. There was a grievously wounded man lying in the corner of the arena, slowly bleeding out from a neck wound. He gurgled, his shaking hands raised defensively as a wolf circled him.
The wolf was small. For a werewolf, anyway. It was only as big as a regular wolf, which was an intimidating sight on its own. Its fur was deep brown, and a jagged scar ran down its snout.
Alexander frowned as he noticed the wolf’s eyes were glowing gold. Usually a wolf’s eyes only glowed like that during transformation. Was it under some kind of magical influence?
Static sounded over the arena, making both wolf and man flinch. A low, rich voice came over the speakers.
“I hope that was an entertaining lesson for everybody who was curious about what happens to people who endanger my pack,” the voice said.
Alexander pushed to the front of the stands, scanning the arena. There was a man in the highest seats, towering over everybody else. He was wearing a decadent suit, his long black hair tied back in a ponytail.
Muzzle, Alexander thought excitedly. He looked just like he’d pictured, only younger. And a lot less scruffy: that suit had to be the cleanest thing down here. He was flanked by two burly bodyguards dressed in identically pristine suits.
Muzzle pulled a golden amulet on a chain from his shirt and twisted it.
The wolf shuddered and collapsed to the arena floor.
Alexander raised his brows. If the alpha owned something that could make transformed wolves unconscious, he wanted one.
Muzzle slipped the amulet back into his shirt and continued over the speakers. “Let’s get the pit clean for the next round. Boys?”
A door slammed open on the other side of the ring. Muzzle’s boys wore no protection, and lifted the unconscious bodies with such strength they could be nothing else but fellow pack mates.
Alexander paced the stands, slow and considering. Tonight was just for gathering information. All he had to do was case the area, find weak spots, discover more about this mysterious Muzzle, and not run into that teen whose arm he broke.
Alexander caught sight of a familiar face and froze.
There was a teenage boy gaping at him from the next stand. He had his arm in a sling. As soon as he caught Alexander looking, he startled and shoved through the crowd toward him.
“Shit,” Alexander whispered.
Muzzle’s voice echoed back over the speaker about the details of the next match, but Alexander didn’t listen.
He was stalking through the stands, not bothering to check behind him as he scanned for an exit.
Looking back was for the imminently dead.
Alexander was from a long line of survivors, and he would not let them down tonight.
He burst into a concrete hallway. The stairs were nowhere in sight; he’d walked further around the stands than he thought.
The footsteps behind him were getting closer.
Alexander gritted his teeth and picked up his pace. He couldn’t afford to get caught. He could take the teen in a one-on-one fight, but what if he’d alerted the pack? Alexander was a capable hunter, but there was a reason they usually hunted as a unit: a lone hunter was a dead one.
A door appeared on Alexander’s left. He reached for it automatically, only pausing to read the sign hanging on the door.
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, it said. There were bloody pawprints instead of O’s.
The footsteps grew louder. That same thin, timid voice from the alleyway spoke from around the corner. “H-hey,” the teen yelled. “You can’t escape! Everybody knows you’re here! You might as well stop running!”
Alexander sighed and grabbed the door. It opened surprisingly easily, revealing a dark, cramped concrete room that he promptly shut himself inside.
He blinked, eyes adjusting after the stark arena lights. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Something snapped.
Alexander stooped and grabbed his knife from his ankle holster. He flipped it open and held it out toward the noise: a huge, shifting mass of fur and heavy breathing huddled in the corner.
A transforming wolf.
Another loud snap made Alexander wince. The wolf’s bones were changing under its skin, forming back into a human skeleton.
He crept up next to the beast’s head. Killing a wolf wasn’t in the plan, but he was trapped in a room with it when it was at its most vulnerable. He’d be an idiot to not take advantage of the situation.
He raised the knife over the wolf’s neck, ready to stab down. A clean, quick kill. Alexander never liked dragging it out.
Then he stopped.
Stringy clothing clung to the wolf’s skin. The pitiful remnants of a hoodie and sweatpants hanging from a body that was getting more human by the second.
Scars formed over the man’s shoulders, clearly visible underneath the destroyed clothing.
Shaggy hair sprouted from his scalp, almost fur-like.
The face was the last thing to form, filling Alexander with a slow, sickening horror as the scarred muzzle formed a mouth: plush and beautiful, a scar bisecting those familiar lips.
No, Alexander thought. Not him.
“Hot Scar Guy,” he breathed.
A pained laugh made him panic.
Hot Scar Guy’s eyes were open and just as gorgeous as ever. He stared up at Alexander blearily, a delighted grin spreading over his scarred face.
“What did you just call me?”