Natalia

10 years Later

“Natalia!”

The blonde, blue eyed girl turned around, her heart skipping a beat.

“Yes, father?”

She stood, hiding the small necklace she had dug up from the ground.

She watched as her father rounded the corner to the garden where she had been digging, his anger obvious as he fumed.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to go outside? It is dangerous!”

“But father, there is nothing here. I just found this pretty necklace buried on the ground, and I thought it would look good on me. Please let me keep it.”

He looked at the necklace, and his gaze lingered on the finger she used to cover the pendant and turned to her. “Danger lurks around you. Danger is everywhere.”

“But father, you are always here with me, and you are so strong, father.”

He shook his head. “Not when he is involved.”

“Who?” she asked innocently. She was twenty years old, a mere girl yet to know what the world was about.

Her father had shielded her from the rest of it, allowing her to only find his kindness towards her as the ultimate behavior, and his soft anger, the highest level of anger. Little did she know he lived in a world of beasts, some that turned into cold, heartless humans.

“I won’t mention him, lest he catches on to the sound of his name. Please, Natalia. Promise me you will not go farther than the gardens, and if you do, I promise you I will let you go to the gardens more often.” He said, then remembered the necklace she had picked up. “And I will let you keep the necklace too.”

It was a generous offer for someone who doesn’t get to go outside a lot, and she readily agreed.

Her father, Nicholas turned away and left her in the garden, trusting the spell he had put around it .

Ever since she was born, the Midwife had told him, “She was born on the crimson moon night, when the blood is deep in the ground and the red moon highest at its peak. She is destined for the Alpha of whispers and she has his sign on her. She was born for him.”

It was a small crimson red moon right on the nape of her neck.

While growing up, she had come to accept her father’s explanation of it. It was a simple mark she got while she was too young to remember. From a small fire. It was believable, and with time she forgot all about it.

The necklace, a blue oval pendant that reflected looked like it had been in the ground for a while. It had some dark patches on it, and she used her fingers to scratch it out.

“Selina.” It read in a beautiful cursive handwriting.

She placed it around her neck, feeling the blue stone with her fair, delicate fingers.

Alpha Axton woke up with a start, his weak body regaining strength in that small flash. His eyes were wide as he felt the heart beating fast.

Whose heart was it?

He sat up, trying hard to control his failing body. “Who are you?”

There was just the incessant beating of a healthy heart and the sound filled his ears, causing him to lose balance and fall off, breathless.

He found himself crawling, dragging his body with him, forcing himself to move. He wasn’t sure why, but he needed to move, towards that beating heart.

“Alpha!” The beta said as he forced the door open, his left leg barely standing. “Alpha, where are you going to?”

He swallowed. “I have to go walk to this heart. It is the heart that can heal me. You told me yourself, I will know when I see them. I think I do now.”

“In as much as I want you to become your old self again..” He let his voice trail off, the sarcasm dripping hard. “You can not go right now. There is news of your illness and everyone, from every pack and clan are gathering, waiting for you in order to ambush you. There is a very slim possibility of you coming out alive if you go out there.”

“I like to think I am half dead already. What would it cost me if I die again? Nothing. But I will not die sitting here. I will die looking for the cure.”

“Alpha..” The beta’s eyes gave his next words their real meaning, and the alpha understood. He understood it way too much.

“I cannot guarantee your safety.”

Before the beta could say a word, he pulled out the knife he always carried with him, and placed in the beta’s hand, then on his own neck.

“You could have done it a while ago. Were you afraid I could overpower you?”

The alpha let out a small snicker and in a blink, the knife was on the beta’s neck instead.

“I may be down with a foolish witch’s curse who got an early, sweet death, but I am still the Alpha of whispers, and I will slit your throat when I want to. That, my friend, you should regard as a promise.”

The beta shrugged and walked away, distancing himself from the blade of the knife.

“Alpha, whether you want to accept it or not, you should understand that, you are not quite the same man you used to be. I would not fear you now, even though I admit that I used to. “

A small silence ensured between them, only to be broken by the small swoosh of the knife speeding through the air, and landed into the beta’s exposed foot.

He yelled, moving backward, the knife lunged in his foot.

“Next time, it will be your neck, I promise you.”

He limped away, his heart beating in anticipation. He wasn’t the perfect man, and he didn’t intend to be. He was wicked and he intended to stay that way, no matter how much whoever had that heart would hate it. He only needed then to cure him anyway.