Sold to the Alpha (Alma Venus Shifter Brides 1)

It was colder than Avelyn had expected it to be, but at least they were finally out in the open air. She inhaled deeply, eyes closed, enjoying the rush of pine and earth scented air filling her lungs. Fresh, much-needed oxygen invaded her blood, making her feel more alive than ever. It was almost over. Almost. She opened her eyes and stared in the distance at the street lights of Dunkelstadt. It must have been 4 AM and they had to start moving towards the city. The ten minutes of rest they had decided to take had passed. Avelyn turned her gaze towards Sabine, who was sitting on a log, head down, hands squeezed into fists at her sides. She looked so tired.

“Are you all right?” Avelyn asked. She took a couple of steps towards her. “You look cold. I have a sweater in my backpack, and a pair of sneakers. Let me just take them out for you.”

“No.”

Avelyn froze with the straps of the backpack half down her arms. Sabine’s determined, firm answer had sent a chill down her spine. There was definitely something wrong. She had been too busy breathing in the fresh mountain air and massaging her sore shoulders to notice, but she could see it now. Something had changed. She hesitated a moment longer, then finally let the backpack fall to the ground. She’d put a warm sweater on Sabine’s frail body if she had to fight the girl into submission.

Sabine lifted her head when she heard Avelyn rummage through her things. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking out that sweater.”

“I told you I don’t need it.”

“I don’t care. You’re going to wear it.”

Sabine huffed, then released a chilling, high-pitched chuckle. Avelyn stopped what she was doing and straightened her back. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked wearily at Sabine. The girl was acting strangely, and she wasn’t sure how to react. She knew that her long years of confinement had surely messed with her sanity, but she had no idea how much. It was like she wasn’t the same person she had talked with through a closed door for a whole month. Sabine held her gaze. There was something in those eyes.

“You’re naïve,” she said. “So naïve that you’ve made me have second thoughts.”

Avelyn raised her eyebrows in confusion. She would have said something if Sabine’s words hadn’t shocked her into silence. It was probably better to wait and see what she had to say, just to make sure she didn’t react inappropriately. The girl had suffered so much. How did you deal with someone so broken?

“Fortunately, the four-hour walk through those sickening dungeons helped clear my mind and remember…” She took her time to consider how to end that sentence.

“Remember what?” Avelyn couldn’t take the mystery and weirdness anymore. This was bullshit. They had to keep going, not waste time in the woods. “What? What’s going on? I don’t get it.”

“… remember why I’m about to do what I’m about to do.” Sabine stood up and took a step towards Avelyn. She didn’t look all that pale anymore.

Avelyn sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but we should get going. I see that you’re feeling better.”

“Oh, I am better. In fact, I haven’t felt so good in many, many years.” She looked up at the full sphere of the moon. “You’ve no idea how many.”

Avelyn bit her lip, uncertain why she was suddenly feeling scared. She raised her eyes to the sky and saw the clear full moon between the tree branches, not a single cloud spoiling its perfect, white surface.

“I haven’t seen the moon in so long,” continued Sabine, “that I almost forgot what it looked like… what it felt like.” She closed her eyes and let the moonlight shine on her olive skin and dark eyelashes.

“Sabine…?” Avelyn had taken a step back, though she couldn’t have said when. It was like her body had reacted without her input. Sabine turned towards her, and Avelyn could swear she had changed. She couldn’t quite comprehend how, because she was still the same sickly skinny girl with wild hair and gaunt face, but her skin didn’t look as yellowish as before, and the muscles in her arms had somehow gained volume, as if to prove they had always been there, although invisible. Even though she was physically taller than her, Avelyn felt smaller and… vulnerable? There was one word that could encompass those two feelings. What was it? Avelyn’s arms came down to her sides. Prey. That was the word. She felt like she was the prey.

Sabine saw, or rather felt, Avelyn’s change of posture and mood. A green sparkle flashed in her dark brown eyes, and she let out a short, sinister laugh. “How could you think that I would let a petty human female steal Max from me? You thought I hated him, didn’t you? You thought I was a poor, fragile human, just like you, who couldn’t defend herself from the big, bad beast.”

“You’re not…” whispered Avelyn. It had taken her long enough to understand the change she had noticed on Sabine’s features. The moonlight that made her lips fuller and brought a faint shade of pink to her cheeks, the green tint that was now visible in her dark eyes… The girl wasn’t human, she was a werewolf. A human turned werewolf, to be more precise. That’s why her eyes weren’t naturally green. Finally, so many details made sense. How Sabine had heard her step away from the door when her shoes didn’t even make a sound, how she could see perfectly well in the dark… The pieces were falling into place, the puzzle was taking form. Except, it wasn’t taking the form Avelyn had initially had in mind.

“No, I’m not.”

The she-wolf looked threatening, but it wasn’t like Avelyn hadn’t dealt with a werewolf before. They could still sort things out, she just needed to be careful. Sabine was clearly unstable, but surely she could reason with her if she listened to her patiently and found out what she wanted.

“Who… did this to you? Max?”

“Oh, I’ve almost overlooked the fact that you’d have even more questions now. I guess I can indulge you for a couple of minutes… Yes, Max turned me.”

“But that’s illegal. That goes against the peace treaty.”

“He turned me before the end of the war, idiot. There was no peace treaty then. Not even the thought of it. If you knew him just a little, you’d know he’d never do something like that.”

“It’s been… over 100 years since the war…” Avelyn’s head was spinning, and she fought to keep her mind clear and alert. She had to focus. “This means you’re much older than… This means… How long have you really been imprisoned?”

“Sixty years.”

“Shit!” Avelyn’s eyes went wide with disbelief. She couldn’t wrap her mind around Sabine’s answer. “Shit. Shit. Shit. That’s… I can’t even…”