Chapter 2 Mission One: Save The Insufferable Alpha

Liora

The second thing I noticed about the man standing in front of me  besides how glossy his hair was  was that he was handsome as hell. Like, otherworldly handsome. Even more than Kael, and just so you know, Kael was the most handsome man I’d ever seen.

Yes, my world was quite small.

I returned my attention to the handsome man standing in front of me. He stared at me with a mild look of surprise on his face. But that was it.

I was tempted to ask if he always walked into his room to find stray cats just lounging there, because this didn’t seem to faze him.

He glanced from me to the open window behind me, probably deciding that was where I’d come in from. Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. That’s not where I came from. Apparently, I just… appeared.

“Say something,” Echo urged.

“I’m a cat,” I reminded her. “What exactly am I supposed to say? Meow?”

The stranger tilted his head slightly as he stepped fully into the room. I could see the color of his eyes clearly now – blue like water – and they moved over me slowly. Finally, he came to a stop in front of me and crouched to my level.

Which somehow made him more intimidating, not less. He looked at me very directly.

This time, I meowed. I had no idea where that sound came from.

“And where did an adorable little cat like you come from?” he asked, reaching out a finger to smooth my fur.

I had the urge to bite off the finger.

Obviously, I didn’t answer. I was a cat. But inside my head, I was having a full conversation. “I came from a Tuesday morning that was supposed to be like every other ordinary Tuesday morning. But it wasn’t, because guess what? I died. Now I have to complete these silly missions to get my life back and finally confess my feelings to my best friend.”

“That’s a lot, girl,” Echo said.

“Shut up!” I snapped back.

The man studied me for a long moment, then stood to his feet and started walking back toward the door.

“He’s leaving,” Echo said, completely panicking. “Do something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. It looks pitiful.”

I was already pitiful, I wanted to shout at her. What could be more pitiful than waking up as a cat, having an existential crisis on a stranger’s bedroom floor? It didn’t get more pitiful than this.

But the man didn’t leave. He stopped at the door and called out, “Dax! In here, now.”

A moment later, I heard footsteps outside his door, and a younger man appeared. His eyes moved to me immediately and widened. Yeah, now that’s the reaction I expected. The look of shock on his face was somewhat satisfying.

“Where did that come from?” Dax asked.

“I have no idea,” the man replied, his arms folded across his chest as he stared at me. “That’s why I called you. Where did it come from?”

The confusion on Dax’s face deepened as he looked from the man to me. “I don’t know.” He took a step closer and crouched. “Looks like it’s a girl. She has no collar around her neck.” He turned back to the man. “Do you want me to throw it out?”

“No!” The man almost shouted. It was the first time I was seeing him show another emotion besides calm and collected. But I’d known him for what – two minutes?

“Should I at least find out –”

“Just bring her food. She looks hungry.” The man said. That I was, but I wouldn’t let this man treat me like an animal, even though I was very much one. “We’ll keep her here until anyone in the pack reports a missing cat or something.”

He looked uncertain as he spoke.

Wait, did he just say pack? Where the hell did that swindler send me? I glanced around the room again with fresh eyes. What was a pack house supposed to look like? The only experience I had with things like this was what I saw in movies.

Could I even trust that?

“Echo,” I thought slowly. “Please tell me I’m not in a werewolf pack.”

There was a beat of silence before she replied. “You’re not in a werewolf pack. You’re in the most powerful werewolf pack in the entire territory. This is the Alpha King’s pack. And one of the men in this room is the Alpha King.”

Oh, fucking no.

I stared at the man’s back as he tried to leave, getting a view of broad shoulders, hair that just brushed his shoulders, and the easy posture of someone who carried all the authority in the world.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the Alpha King.

“He is,” Echo answered my thoughts almost immediately.

Of course he was. Of course that swindling lady sent me to save the most powerful, probably the most dangerous man in the entire world. Of course my first mission was something as vague as finding who wanted to kill him.

Everyone wanted to kill a man like this. A man like this would have so many enemies. And in a world where power probably meant everything, his enemies were countless. I had just four weeks to find out who it was and stop them – in a cat’s body – or risk losing everything forever.

I glanced up at the ceiling, willing the woman to appear there. She didn’t. Did she send me here on purpose, knowing I couldn’t complete such an impossible mission? Did she ever intend to send me back to my life?

“Don’t you think it’s too early to give up?” Echo said inside me, but I ignored her. At this point, she was becoming more of a nuisance than anything else. “Did you forget I can hear your every thought?”

I winced but said nothing. What was there to say? I died at the worst possible time and had no way of going back except by completing this totally impossible mission. I should appreciate the fact that I even had an option, but still

“Look, I understand why you’ll be frustrated, but there’s actually a way we can find this person.”

I would roll my eyes if I could, but I was a fucking cat. I took a deep breath instead. “Yeah, like how? This mission is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We can’t possibly ”

“Can you just shut up and listen?!” Echo growled, making my skin crawl. “Good. Now, you’re probably right the people who will want to harm such a man are countless. But they have to be close to him to harm him, right? For now, we’ll start by watching those close to him. We have four weeks. A lot can happen in that time. An Alpha King usually has two Betas I think we just met one. We need to figure out who the second is, and who else is closest to him.”

Right. She was right. I swallowed and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. For calling you a nuisance. I didn’t mean that.”

Echo brushed me off. “It doesn’t matter. I think the Moon Goddess paired me with you for a reason, and I’m beginning to understand why. Plus, I have my own mission as well.”