Chapter 2: The Lone Wolf

*Ken’s POV*

There was a long, tense moment, in which neither of them moved and they could each only stare. Then, the girl darted and Ken Tsuki had no choice but to race after her. It was hardly a contest.

In seconds, he had her in his arms and one hand clamped tightly over her mouth, careful to leave her nose uncovered so she could breathe.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, poised behind her with his arms locked around her in a vice grip.

To him, it was like holding a little twig, fragile and thin. He didn’t want to terrify her into a frenzy, but he couldn’t let her get away.

The girl wiggled and writhed against him, creating a troublesome amount of friction against his body, and Ken swiftly turned her around to face him, his hands still tight on her arms.

“Make one sound,” he growled, “and I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.”

The girl’s bright green eyes shone with unshed tears. Ken scanned her face. Her lips were chapped, and her cheekbones were a touch too prominent, a sure sign of a poor diet. Still, there was a delicate beauty to her porcelain features, and when he slowly released his hold on her mouth, he noticed the lovely copper sheen of her hair.

He lowered his hand slowly from her face. “What did you see?”

“Are you going to eat me?” she whimpered.

Ken scowled. Well, that answered THAT question.

Damn. Sota was going to kill him.

Ken quickly looked around to make sure there were no further witnesses, and then he snatched the girl close once more, lowering his face to hers. “Listen to me, girl. You keep your mouth shut and follow me. Speak a word to anyone, say anything about what you saw, and you will *deeply* regret it. Do you understand?”

She squeaked and managed a quick nod.

With no small amount of dread, Ken picked up the coat he’d discarded before his transformation and led the girl out of the park. They soon reached his waiting car, a silver Lexus parked auspiciously in front of a crumbling apartment building.

When some ragged looking men hovered too close, Ken bared his teeth at them, and they hurried away. It wasn’t a recommended move – after all, most humans did not growl at people, so it made him look suspicious – but Ken Tsuki was in a mood.

This was not unusual, truth be told, but the storm brewing was even more severe than usual. Despite his foul countenance, Ken opened the passenger side door for the girl, ever the gentleman. She stared at him in disbelief, then reluctantly lowered herself into the leather seat.

Ken shut the door without a word before rounding the car and placed himself gracefully into the driver’s seat. The car started with a low, well-oiled purr before smoothly driving off into the dark city streets.

“What’s your name, girl?” She muttered something, but he couldn’t quite make it out. “For goddess’s sake, speak up,” he prompted impatiently.

She peeked up at him, and he noticed the brightness of her eyes again, the fairness of her complexion. He actively pushed the distraction of her beauty from his mind.

“Emory,” she whispered.

“You don’t have a last name?”

“Not one that matters.”

Ken raised a brow. “Well, Emory, you’ve created a problem for me.”

He turned a swift corner, and they began driving to the edge of the city.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said quietly, eyes on her hands. “I was minding my own business.” She paused and looked over at him. “Did you… did you really kill those guys?”

Ken thought back on the dismembered corpses he’d dumped into the Bronx River. “No, they’re fine.”

Emory looked skeptical. “Where are you taking me?”

Ken tried not to look as anxious as he felt.

“My home,” he told her truthfully, because he could not figure out where else to take her, and he didn’t think it was worth his time to lie.

Emory took this news in stride, as strange and alarming as it likely was, and she fell quietly back against the heated seat and let her eyelids flutter closed.

Ken glanced over at her as they drove, noting the way her features softened and went slack as she drifted in a state of consciousness somewhere between waking and sleeping.

He turned his attention back to the road.

For all the technological advances made by his family since they’d left Japan to live in America, they hadn’t yet developed a way to erase memories. There was no magic for it either, no sorcery that could suddenly bewitch this simple human girl into forgetting everything she’d seen.

This, unfortunately, was a major problem.

Ken Tsuki lived in a sheltered world of wolf shifters, creatures caught between man and beast, born and not made like the werewolves of olden lore. Over the last two hundred years, they’d acclimated well to modern life, inhabiting crucial circles of business and industry in America’s most progressive and prominent cities.

It was a thin line they treaded, one that demanded they maintain the ways of their ancestors – the wolf shifters, with their lupine forms, wild nature, and savage strength – with this modern environment that demanded wealth, power, and prestige.

The Tsuki family had mastered it like no other. Ken’s great-grandfather, Mako Tsuki, was the one to organize the pack within the pack, the community of wolf shifters that lived simultaneously in their own world and that of the humans.

There were always rules, though, iron-clad and unbreakable.

Respect the Alpha. Stay loyal to your pack. Honor the goddess. And most importantly… no humans.

Ken glanced once more at this girl, Emory, who looked so very young and innocent, slumped against the luxurious, artificially warm leather seat of his car.

By the goddess, what was he going to do? And why had he risked so much for someone he barely knew?

No fool would ever dare transform in the middle of the city, and yet, he had done exactly that – and for what? Her?

Now what he would do?

If he were Sota, the pack’s Alpha and his own brother, he knew what would happen. Emory would be dead, and no one else in the pack would ever know about his mistake. Ken’s fingers clenched tighter on the steering wheel.

He was not like Sota.

Distracted by his thoughts, Ken didn’t notice Emory had opened her eyes and was watching him, her expression no longer terrified but thoughtful. He tried not to look as startled as he felt.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” she murmured, her voice strangely soft and relaxed.

It was probably the exhaustion, the adrenaline leaving her veins after witnessing such a terrifying event. Ken hesitated, kept his expression hard.

Still, he could not find it in himself not to answer.

“Ken.”

“No last name?” she asked, and now she was teasing him, mimicking what he’d said to her before.

Despite the tension, Ken’s lips quirked just a little. “Not one that matters.”

It was a lie, but he had a terrible feeling that lies were the best for everyone right now.

Emory seemed to think this over, and her eyes returned to the dark, cool night rolling by the window. The city was full of lights, even at this hour, but all Ken could focus on was the reflection of her face in the car’s window.

By the goddess, he thought to himself. This was even worse than he thought.