All I could see was mist.
Everywhere he looked, people shuddered.
I ran panting through a forest, trying to escape the carnal ghosts that surrounded me and seemed to be calling me. Talk, join...
But the deeper I went into the forest, the darker and more alive it became.
Some trees swayed like dancers. Others, with gnarled roots and spindly branches, looked like predators. join me chase me
Something in the dark was chasing me. Something inhuman.
And now the mouths stopped moaning. they shouted
At any second the darkness would reach me.
When I felt a root wrap around my leg, I tripped and fell into an open hole in the middle of the forest. But it was not a hole.
It was a mouth that would swallow me whole.
I tried to scream but I had no voice.
I fell.
Further.
Deeper.
Until I was one with the madness full of impulse... totally consumed.
***
I blinked. What have I drawn?
I sat on the riverbank, sketchbook in hand, looking at my own work in disbelief. He had drawn a very animalistic vision.
That could only mean one thing: The Haze was coming.
But before I lost another thought to the haze or my drawing, I was distracted by giggling nearby. I turned and saw a group of girls surrounding him.
Aiden Norwood.
I've never seen it here before. Not on the river bank where I go to draw and clear my head. You won't find many of our kind here. Because? I don't know. Maybe it's the silence where we're always expected to be wild. Maybe it's the water when there's a fire burning in each one of us. Or maybe it's just a place that I've only considered my own.
A secret place where I'm not part of the pack. Where it's just me, Sienna Mercer, a nineteen-year-old redheaded self-taught artist. A seemingly normal girl.
The Alpha walked towards the water, ignoring the crowd of girls that followed him. It seemed that he wanted to be left alone. He made me curious. He made me want to draw him.
Sure, I knew that drawing the alpha was a risk. But how could I resist?
I started drawing it. Standing at six foot eight, with tousled jet-black hair and golden-green eyes that seemed to change color every time he turned his head, Aiden was the definition of handsome.
He was starting to work on those eyes when he turned his head and sniffed.
I froze in the middle of a hit. If you saw what I draw...
But then, to my relief, he looked back at the water and was lost in a dark reverie. Even surrounded by others, the Alpha seemed lonely. So I drew it by myself.
I always watched him from afar. I have never been so close. But now she could see the size of his muscular arms, how his spine arched to accommodate his transformation. I imagined how fast he could move. In this case, hunched over, with searching eyes like those of a wild animal, he seemed to be halfway there.
A man, yes. But even more so, a werewolf.
His look reminded me that the Haze was fast approaching. It was the time of year when all the werewolves over the age of sixteen went crazy. The season where everyone - and I meanin– is hungry for something
Once or twice a year, this unpredictable hunger, thatneed,it would infect all of us in the pack. Those without a partner joined forces with a temporary partner in their place.
In other words, there was no one in the pack over the age of sixteen who was still innocent.
Looking at Aiden now, I wondered if the rumors going around about him were true. If that was one of the reasons he was here, ignoring the girls and brooding on the riverbank.
Some said that Aiden hadn't had a girlfriend for months that he distanced himself from everyone.
Because? A secret love? No, pack gossip would have tracked them down by now.
So what was it? What would become of our beloved Alpha if he didn't have a mate when the mist struck?
It's none of your businessI chided myself. What did I care who Aiden was with?
He was ten years older, and like most werewolves, he was only interested in someone his own age. I didn't exist to Aiden Norwood, the alpha of the second largest pack in America. Schoolgirl crushes aside, she knew he was better off this way.
Michelle, my best friend, was determined to find me a "mate." She had already mated beforehand, as was common with unmated wolves before Haze.
Trying to get in touch with three of her brother's friends, all of whom seemed perfectly decent and had openly said that I was a good time, Michelle couldn't understand why she had turned them all down.
"Pooh".
I could almost hear Michelle's voice echoing in my head. "Why are you always so damn picky, girl?"
Because the truth was, he had a secret. At nineteen I was the only innocent wolf in our entire pack. He was three seasons behind me and no matter how crazy I got, I had never given in to my carnal desires.
I know. Very unwolfish of me to worry about "feelings", but I valued my innocence. Not that I was a prude. There was none of that in our society. But unlike most girls, I refused to settle down until I found my match.
i would find it
I saved myself for him.
Whoever.
I continued drawing the Alpha when I looked up and to my shock and sudden fear saw that he wasn't there.
"Nothing bad." I heard a soft voice next to me. But the eyes could use a little work.
I turned to see that he was standing right next to me looking at my sketch…
Aiden.
Norwood.
Before I could catch my breath, he looked up, and our eyes met. I tensed realizing he was making direct eye contact and immediately looked away. No one in their right mind dared to look the Alpha in the eye.
My only option was to look away before it was too late and pray that he didn't misinterpret the meaning of my gaze.
"Forgive me," I said softly, just to be on the safe side. "You surprised me."
"I apologize," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."
This voice. Even the most polite words imaginable sounded threatening.
"Okay," he said. "Really. I don't bite..."
He was so close that she could reach out and touch him. I raised my eyes and risked a glance.
A brutish, jagged face that wasn't supposed to be pretty, but it was. Thick brows that felt rough, like a hint of his werewolf form.
And a nose, though a little crooked, no doubt broken in a previous fight, which didn't bother his distracting gaze.
The Alpha took a step closer, as if testing me. I could feel every hair on my body stand up in fear.
"Next time you draw me," Aiden said, "come closer."
"Oh…okay," I stuttered like an idiot.
And then, just as quickly as he had appeared, Aiden spun Norwood around and was gone, leaving me alone by the river. I sighed and felt every muscle in my body relax.
It was not an everyday thing to see the Alfa from the Packhaus, the headquarters of all the packaging shops. We mainly saw the Alpha at meetings or dances. Always something formal. What happened here today was weird.
I could already tell by the jealous looks from Aiden's fans who followed him here only to be ignored that this could quickly get out of hand.
Even a hint of interaction with a woman, especially a young commoner like me, would be enough to send the women into a frenzy and tear down the walls of the packing house just to taste it.
An event of this magnitude would certainly stress the alpha. And a stressed alpha meant a dysfunctional alpha, which meant a dysfunctional pack... you get the idea.
Nobody wanted that.
I decided to finish drawing with the little light that was left of the day to clear my head. Just me and the river in peace. But all I could see were Aiden Norwood's eyes.
And how badly he had drawn them. The Alpha was right. He could do better.
If only I could... get closer. But when would she ever be this close again?
I didn't know then what I know now. That in a few hours the Haze would start. That I was about to become a beast. And that Aiden Norwood, the Alpha of the East Coast Pack, would play a very prominent role in my awakening...
It was enough to make a girl cry.