7: The Alpha's expectations

**Jasmine**

I awoke to the smell of eggs, which made my mouth water and my stomach groan in hungered agony. *Fuck, I was hungry*.
I opened my eyes, but felt a sense of regret wash over me immediately as light overcame my senses. I then realised that it was not only the light, but the noises of banging, clanging and crashing surrounding me that began to completely overwhelm me and caused my already aching head to throb painfully. But again, that was not my only annoyance- no, it went deeper than that. My gums ached and burned and itched to the extent that I tried, with great difficulty, to keep myself from scratching at them with my nails. My fingertips ached too. They burned and throbbed, resembling the feeling akin to that of one cutting one’s nails too short.
"You're awake." I heard a familiar voice next to me. I turned to my left to see London sitting on a cute little wooden chair next to a bedside table beside me on top of which was a large lava lamp- items which I knew definitely did not belong to me. In fact, I never owned anything in this room; not the thick orange and blue blankets covering my sweaty body, not the soft bed I slept on, not even the pale blue curtains which she now drew apart making more light flood in. I hissed and shielded my eyes.
"Sorry, forgot. Your body is really sensitive right now, so everything is going to piss you off and irk you." She said with a sad smile. I now noticed the dark bags under her eyes and wondered whether she’d stayed up all night watching me.
As I stared at her, I couldn’t find it in me to muster up any words. Where did I start? It seemed as though the person standing before me was miles apart from the person I had grown to know over the past years. Thankfully for me, she began the conversation first.
"Listen, I um... I know you might not want to talk with me or... you might even hate me at this point, and I don't blame you. So, you just take your time-"
She was still turned toward the window, staring out of it and didn't know that I was now standing right behind her, which was why, when I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my head in her neck she froze. I was furious, yes. But I was also exhausted and scared and the only person that I had ever trusted in my life was London. She must have had a good reason to hide everything from me. There was no way I was believing that the only friend I had actually made in my entire life had any malicious intentions. Or at least, that was what I was trying so desperately to convince myself. I feared that if I believed something different, I would have fallen apart and had no way to put myself back together again.
"Tell me what's going on London, I'll listen." And with that she turned around, tears streaming down her face as a scared look invaded her eyes.
"I’m sorry it’s come to this Jasmine. I am conflicted in whether or not I am glad or upset that you’re my brother’s mate.” She then paused for a moment and then her eyes softened as she said, “He’s not a bad guy, but I’m afraid you’ve wandered into his life at the worst time possible. With that being said, I feel I should warn you. If you’re not careful, he might just break someone as fragile as you.”
*His mate?* The words rolled around in my mind over and over again. By ‘mate’ she didn't mean... no, it couldn't possibly be? But how else could I explain the teeth and claws and eyes. And so, I looked at London closely, and asked, once again, what the hell was going on. She gently took my hand and lifted it for me to see. At first, I just glanced over my fingers, until it clicked in my brain that there was something wrong. Claws were on my fingers where my nails should have been, dangling in the air- sharp and long.
"What the hell?"
"Wait until you look at your face." And slowly she began leading me to the bathroom, to the mirror, where I stared at myself in horror. My eyes were glowing white like a sort of angelic halo around a black pit. My mouth, which was now in a grimace had two sharp little fangs jutting out. I resembled Damon's beastly appearance.
"W-werewolf..." I muttered out, touching my fangs in disbelief.
London sighed in relief and said how glad she was that she did not need to explain it to me, that I had seemed to put two and two together.
"But... How?"
"Damon accidentally turned you the other night. You aren't fully transformed yet. You will only be able to fully take on your wolf form in two days, when the full moon is out."
This was beyond mind-boggling. No, this was impossible. Werewolves did not exist in real life… at least, that was what I tried to tell myself. But everything about my appearance and the way my body felt, seemed to be telling me something else.
"It's difficult to grasp, especially considering that you're a human. But I'll try to explain everything in detail so that you're all caught up. Then I'll give you some time to process it, okay?" By now she took my hand gently into hers and set me down on the bed. She then smirked and let her eyes flash a luminous, angelic white and then back to its normal brown colour.
"See, just like me." She said. Strangely, relief flooded through me. She was just like me. I wasn't alone.
"So," she began as she sat across from me. "Let's begin." And so, she told me the tale of Damon Caesar Michaels, the Alpha of the Blood Moon pack- explaining the red eyes instead of white. He and I were, as I’d already been informed, mates, and he had accidentally turned me by biting me too forcefully.
"...I think he was trying to mark you, and then he just lost it. You'd need to bite a human really hard and for a long time for them to turn."
I had also discovered that, as a werewolf, one was split into two halves. The normal, human half, and the half of the wolf- the beastly animalistic half. These two halves made a single person, but, depending on which half was in control, one was able to develop different qualities, perspectives and sometimes, depending on how strong one’s wolf side was, one could develop a different personality for the period of the beast's control. It was quite a lot to take in, and by the time she was done, I found my head aching even more as I tried to process everything. It was all so blurry and unbelievable, but I did find myself hanging on to one single thought. *This was all Damon's fucking fault.*
"So, now that you know what's going on, let us move to the rules of engagement." Speak of the devil. Damon stood in the doorway to the room I was in with his muscular arms crossed and the signature neutral look on his face.
*Rules of engagement?*
I refused to voice my questioning thought though and stared at him blankly as I repeated in my head, ‘This is all his fault. This is all his fault...’
Simply put, he did not deserve a single word from me, and he was definitely not going to get one. So, we both just stared at each other wordlessly. Our stares turned into a challenge, and the challenge turned into London breaking our silence in frustration.
"Could you two not just engage in a normal conversation? Damn, you two do not even know how to act around each other." She then stood up and left, to which I protested.
"No Jasmine, you need to talk with him. But remember to be careful." She said this almost pointedly and then exited the room after gently punching her brother's shoulder. He seemed to soften for a second, but it was so quick, I would have missed it if I had chosen to blink. I found London’s warning funny, even when I heard it the first time. There was no way Damon could break me. I was far too broken already.
Slowly, Damon moved toward me, and as he did, it was as though I’d lost the ability to breathe. It wasn’t hard to guess the reason for my sudden inability to take in air- the mate bond.
Damon stood directly across from me, eyes bored and lower lip between his teeth. "So," he began, "as you heard, you and I are mates. As the mate of an Alpha, however, I have a few expectations from you."
"Expectations?" I repeated slowly, unable to keep quiet at his formal tone, as though me being his mate was a simple job which entailed its own set of job requirements.