Chapter 11: Two Steps Backward

Mikalya's P.O.V:

I was fuming as I stormed out of the kitchen.
The nerve of that man!
How dare he roam around my house like he belongs here! How dare he talk to my people like he has the right to? How dare he! Does he think I’m joking with him? I turn my back on the man once and he goes around exploring my pack house like it’s an amusement park with a ‘free exploration’ tag.
I needed a run. That arrogant, dominating, stupid, selfish, ALPHA was getting on my last nerves and I needed to sweat him out of my system for good. I know I’ll have to bear with him sticking around for a couple days and I also knew that his reasons for staying were entirely personal no matter how much bullshits about it being a ‘mission to find out if the pack is a violent one’, that doesn’t mean I’m liking it one bit. I want him gone as soon as possible and I’ll see to it that he runs out of excuses soon. After all, no Alpha can stay away from his pack forever.
I rushed out of the solid concrete pack manor and tore off my clothes as my bones cracked and reformed and muscles bulged to take the shape of another being. Light engulfed me as the pain and pleasures of the transformation tore through my body. Soon, Mikalya Carnell was gone and the white wolf took off running towards the snow covered woods on the mountain slopes.
But I wasn't alone. I could almost feel him following me. His scent that of the sun and sand and of the green forest that bordered his lands. I ran harder, faster, determined to leave him eating my dust, because right now, if he got any closer, I feared I'd rip him to shreds.
I’m not usually violent with strangers, but if someone threatens my pack, my family, then it’s a different story altogether. Some people might think of me as an ungrateful, unfeeling bitch, but that's what I let everyone see. That’s what I let everyone else believe. No one truly knew the real me anymore and sometimes I wonder if there was even a bit of myself left in me. That part of me that had once yearned for the comfort of the mating bond has gone through too much to trust wholeheartedly ever again. And those who had known the real me are no longer alive.
No one knows what it feels like to be stripped of your dignity, your sanity. No one knows what it's like to be treated as something worse than dirt, just because you're different. No one knows but me.
I had been so distracted by my thoughts that I hadn't realized when my pace had slowed and that it had given a chance for Rhys to catch up to me.
One moment, I was running through the snow covered mountains and the next I was rolling down a snow covered hills, with Rhys on top of me. The slope wasn’t too steep so we came to a landing soon after, but I did not like the fact that Rhys was taking that opportunity to stand over me like he was in a superior position.
'Get off me!' I growled, snapping my teeth at him.
Contrary to popular belief that wolves could only communicate with its pack through the pack bond, wolves could actually communicate with any other wolves that they wanted to communicate with, especially between Alpha’s. It's just like human language, we can communicate with other people who know our language easily, but the unknown language takes a bit longer to understand. Since Rhys and I were both Alpha’s, the communication becomes easier than communicating with his pack.
'Now don't get snappy with me, mate,' I could hear the arrogance in his voice.
'We are not mates! You don't belong here and as soon as this stupid investigation of yours is done, you will be getting the hell out of my land before I do kill you for good and start a damn war!' I felt like a goddamned stuck tape recorder having to say the same words over and over again. When is he going to get the point across that I’m not interested!
'Change,' he said, sitting on his hind legs.
'I don't take orders from anyone,' I snapped at him, turning to leap off, but his angry growl stopped me.
'Change, so we can talk,' he snapped back at me, skin pulled back taunt over his muzzle, exposing his sharp fangs. His wolf was a dark red in color that looked brown in the moon light but it was magnificent in size for an Asian desert wolf.
I didn't answer to his demand, just turned and leapt off, leaving him gawking after me. It was so ridiculous to watch a huge red wolf, with eyes wide and moth gaping while sitting in the snow that it almost made me laugh, almost.
But he wasn't sitting for long, he bounded after me right away, he was really testing his boundaries. With a start I realized that I liked that he was chasing after me. It’s been a while since any wolf has been able to keep up with me in the past few decades and I was enjoying the chase. My wolf felt free…and happy. And I wasn’t sure if it was because of the mating bond or not.
He followed me through narrow mountain passages, through glaciers and snow covered woods. He followed close behind, giving me space as well as keeping an eye on me so as not to get lost in this unknown land. But this was my home. These mountains, these glaciers, these snow capped woods and the vast sky above with millions of shining stars; they were all mine, my territory. And I wasn’t about to let it become a warzone once again by letting Rhys get on my nerves.
I don’t know for how long I had been running, but I knew that it had been a long time based on the tightening of my muscles. Nevertheless, it was a good run and it helped clear my mind. I had always been able to think rationally after a run. Which is why I decided to take a detour and take Rhys to the main attraction in my territory. After all, he’d been a good boy and followed behind me everywhere I went without any further complaints. The chase had actually been fun with Rhys trying to keep up with me even though he had been in unfamiliar lands. I’d purposely taken him through some of the most difficult tracks in the mountains and he had still been there every time I had turned to make sure he was following behind.
This time, I took him down a different path through some rocks and boulders. This path didn’t have any trees, only large rocks and more snow. It snowed eight months a year in this range so it was very normal to see all the snow and even during the ‘summer’ this part of the land still retained most of its snow and ice. When I drought Rhys to the clearing, I felt my breath catch along with his. I’ve seen this view a million times before, but it somehow never gets old.
There was a clearing in front of us which soon fell into a cliff and just beside it, was a huge waterfall. It's blue waters a stark contrast to the white all around it. The force of the water seemed enough to crush anyone to death if they were ever thrown off the cliff and it made a constant crashing noise as it fell to the earth below forming a pool of blue water. However, the waterfall didn't continue its course as a river after melting from the glacier and plunging downhill, instead, it disappeared back into the earth in a dark crater, going deep down into the jaws of the earth. No one has ever been brave enough to explore the little pond like structure it made at the bottom, the force of the water was too strong for that and wolves didn’t like to feel claustrophobic.
'It's beautiful,' Rhys whispered in my mind as he stared at the sight in front of him.
'It's called the Jharna,' I told him, deciding to be civil for once. ‘This entire place, my territory is named after this, the Jharna. This is my favorite place to be.’
'You know...I would love to stand and ogle further...but I'm kinda freezing here.' In all his excitement, Rhys seems to have forgotten that he was a desert wolf; his fur wasn't thick enough to endure the cold that too of a snow covered mountain, for too long. As a result, he was now chilled to the bone and shivering as he stood next to me and pretended to have a calm and composed demeanor. I’m surprised he even admitted he was cold in front of me.
I rolled my eyes at him and huffed, unwillingly turning back to head to the manor, but before I could take two steps, a voice from behind stopped me in my tracks.
I turned in the directing of the voice, my ears picking up as the sound came again, a very familiar voice. It sounded like a whimper and it was followed by a low growl.
I looked behind me to find Rhys frozen in his spot, listening to the same voices as I was, and from the looks of it, he recognized the voice as well. I could feel my canines lengthening, my lips pulled back in a vicious snarl.
Both of us Alphas walked slowly towards a hurdle of rocks just on the border of the clearing. Something heavy settled in my stomach as I moved stealthily towards the rock formation with Rhys right beside me.
Turning the corner, in one swift movement, I came face to face with one of the most horrifying sights I had ever seen.
There, pressed up against a rock with no room to escape was Aya, in her sweater and snow boots with her hands pressed against Zyane’s chest as he trapped her in with his hands on either side of her. And the worst part was that Zyane’s eyes had gone completely wolf and his fangs were mere centimeters away from Aya’s neck.
A vicious growl tore through the night.