CHAPTER 6

Pip pushed through the pain until one in the afternoon, then tiredness coursed through his body, turning his bones to brittle. At lunch, he barely had the energy to speak. His fingers throbbed painfully.

"Pip!" a voice ran loud through the staff room, and he almost dropped his sandwich. "Someone said you were put on the tills because you hurt your hand. I'm the manager. You'll talk to me about it next time."

Pip looked up timidly. "Sorry," he mumbled, smiling apologetically at Debra.

"Let's have a look then," she said, sitting next to him and holding out her hand. Pip lifted his injured fingers, and Debra frowned. "Where did this happen?"

Pip simply shrugged, he couldn't tell her he was at the institute, though Debra stared thoughtfully like she knew something was wrong with his lack of an answer

"Have you been to see a doctor?"

Pip shook his head to say no.

"Well, you must go, even if it'll heal fast. Have the rest of the day off. I'm sure they're broken. You'll get the right support for them to heal if you see a doctor," she said, tilting her head at Pip's attempt to tape his fingers together.

"I can't afford the rest of the day off."

Debra looked around before leaning closer. She whispered, "As far as anyone else is concerned, you're here till closing time. Nobody will notice if I, you know, accidentally forget that you weren't here today. In my old age, it's easy to forget these things."

"Debra, you're twenty-nine."

"Yeah well, with a name like mine, people assume I was born an old woman."

Pip chuckled for the first time all day. He was full of untrue smiles while working in the cafe, but Debra was always lovely to him and sometimes talking to her was the best part of his day, if he were working all day. "I'll go then if you're sure it's okay?"

"Absolutely. Let me know how you get on."

Pip was glad to feel the cold wind on his face when he left the cafe. He hurried down the street,

bundled up in a thick winter coat and a scarf covering half his face.

The doctor's surgery wasn't far from where Pip worked, and he was sure they would make him an emergency appointment. Pip just hoped they wouldn't send him to the hospital that was five miles away. Pip had no car, no bike, and no friends who could drive him there.

Krey dreamt of the boy from the cellar, the boy who dared to stare, the boy who broke into the institute.

In Krey's dream, the boy didn't cower in the corner of a cell. He was sitting peacefully in what looked like a library, wearing a burgundy hat, dark blue jeans and a grey knitted jumper. Books and homework surrounded the boy. He even had his nose buried in some sort of fiction novel.

Krey was looking at him from the corner of the library, through some sort of tinted glasses. The boy didn't know Krey was sitting there and Krey felt both glad and agitated about his obliviousness.

Even in his dream, Krey was painfully aware that he was looking at his mate. And even in his dream, Krey felt the agony of needing him. Krey shivered at the thought of turning into his wolf and nuzzling his nose into the boy's jumper. Krey wanted to know his scent. He wanted to smell it before everything else. He wanted to wake up to the smell and go to sleep to the smell, and fill his room with the smell.

He felt himself lean forwards, biting hard on his bottom lip. Look at me, Krey thought to the human reading his book. His eyes hungrily trailed him up and down. When Krey looked back up to the boy's face, the human tilted his head. As soon as his blue eyes shifted in Krey's direction-

Krey woke up.

He Jolted upright, breathing heavy, hot, and completely fixated on his dream. I knew that face, he thought and clambered out of bed, almost tripping on the duvet. Krey rushed into his bathroom and gripped the sink. "Stop thinking," he growled and filled the sink with cold water. Krey splashed his skin.

The boy's face wouldn't fade in his mind.

Krey submerged his head in the water until he couldn't hold his breath for longer.

Still, the human's blue eyes were as vibrant as if they were right in front of Krey.

The dream wasn't something he would struggle to remember. The vision was carved into his skull and was a part of him until the dream became a reality.

Krey would have to find the boy. If he tried to run away from his destiny, then his fate would be to run away from his destiny.

In the end, fate always won.

Krey couldn't do anything to stop it now that the had the dream.

"FUCK!" he yelled and slammed his hands down on the marble sink. He trembled with rage.

Krey stared at himself in the mirror. His black hair was messy like he had been tossing and turning as he slept. He had a grey streak at the front of his head. His mother used to have it too before she got older, and the rest of her hair caught up.

His brown eyes, more intense than usual, stared back. Krey was angry. If he chased his mate as his instincts screamed at him to do, the human would have the biggest target on his back in less than twenty-four hours.

"A fucking human." Krey ran a hand down his face.

He hadn't just dreamt of any human, Krey dreamt of the boy who had broken into the institute. The boy who had cried more tears than Krey had shed in his lifetime.

When Krey thought about how terrified the boy looked, his heart pained his chest. Krey shook his head with frustration. He didn't like to feel. He stormed back into his room and threw himself down on his desk chair.

He opened his laptop to track his enemies.

Nobody could know that he had the dream. Not even his mother, or his pack members. If people knew, then whoever Krey came into contact with was in danger.

Krey would have to play it safe. He couldn't run

from his destiny, but he could make it discreet enough to be kept a secret.

He tried to concentrate on his laptop screen, but all Krey saw were dimples and the way the boy tilted his head. Krey felt hot all over and closed his eyes.

He breathed deep. The longer he tried resisting the memories of the dream, the more vivid they appeared.

High pitched ringing got louder, and louder, and louder, until Krey muttered, "Okay... okay." He stopped trying to think of something else and let the human flood his head. "You couldn't have picked someone else? Someone who at least looked like a werewolf?" The human's height would give him away in a room full of wolves, even if he tried to mask the scent.

Krey rubbed circles into his temples. He was so used to being angry, irritated, or tired. Emotions he hadn't felt in years stirred in his stomach. Krey would deny it all he could, but his heart thumped every time those blue eyes came into view. Krey's subconscious was excited. Krey's wolf was hungry for the boy's scent. Krey was eager for his touch.

He got up, kicking his desk chair away in frustration and sat by the window. He looked down to the field and watched the werewolves train in their human forms. By night, they trained by wolf.

Krey's mate would have been eaten alive if he had chosen one of their training nights to trespass.

Krey's wolf shuddered at the thought. If a mate

died, the other would lose their wolf.

Krey thought about his mother and how she still had all her wolf instincts, but no wolf to transform into when all she wanted to do was run freely through the night. He would catch her sometimes, staring longingly into the trees, imagining herself shifting and running on all fours with her tongue in the cold air and the wind rustling through her fur.

Krey's mind blanked as soon as someone knocked on the door. He wanted to ignore it, but the vexed dream had shaken him, and all his anger was streaming out of him like steam from a kettle.

"What?" he snapped, his low voice vibrating through the door.

"Alpha, it's your Beta wolf, Jordan. Can I come in?"

Krey pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered a yes.

The door slowly opened and Jordan, with his scarred face and lips always on the brink of a smirk, stepped into his room. "Alpha, we're setting up for a hunt this evening. The wolves in the east are on the move. We-"

"No," Krey interrupted. "Not tonight. I have something else to do." Blue eyes. Blue eyes. Blue eyes.

"But Alpha-"

"I said I have other plans!" Krey stood up, and Jordan bowed his head, gluing his eyes to the wooden floor. "The wolves on the east are no real threat yet. We want the wolves on the south to move." Krey bent the fingers on his left hand. They were still stiff, and suddenly, he knew why.

Jordan had broken the human's fingers the night before.

Krey hadn't done anything to stop Jordan, but the thought of him hurting the human, taunting him, making him scared was enough for Krey to want to throw Jordan out of his window and onto the stone yard below.

"Get out," Krey muttered, turning away. Don't hurt him, he thought. You're just as guilty for letting it happen.

Luckily for him, Jordan did as he was told and scurried out, closing the door behind him. Krey felt heavy and dropped his weight on the end of his bed. The guilt that swarmed his heart was enough to make Krey hold his chest in despair.

He had messed everything up before anything even began. He laid back on his bed, still clutching his chest and stared at the black wooden beams stretching along his ceiling.

"Of course," he said bitterly with the boy's face clouding his vision, "a human would be my downfall."