She dreamed of a red-eyed beast with big black horns that never wanted to leave her side and she was pretty glad someone woke her up. The knocking on her door became louder but still was gentle. She wondered for a moment who could that be. Then memories of last night flooded her mind and she puffed with irritation. For sure this wasn’t that jerk, he would have already barged in and shouted at her.

When she opened her door she found a small round woman looking at her back with a sheepish look on her face. She was probably in her mid-fifties and had a look of a fairy god-mother, plump with rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes that looked at her with almost motherly love. She instantly lowered her eyes and bowed her head and Gabi was stunned for a moment. Then it came to her. The “Alpha image” probably stuck to her as she was his mate and she lived with him. She had the urge to grunt in anger at that but decided not to as to not scare the woman any more.

“Hi” she started the conversation with a raspy voice. She still was sleepy as hell, but also hungry.

“Hello my lady Luna.” She couldn’t resist the urge to cringe and that scared the woman who immediately took two steps back.

“No no, don’t worry, nothing happened.” Gabi assured her sending her a smile. “I would just prefer you to call me Gabriella or Gabi… or just anything else other than my lady and Luna” she spewed the last words with disgust.

“Oh ok darling. So what would you say to topolina? It means little mouse in Italian, my native language” the immediate change in woman’s behavior surprised her, but she decided to go with the flow. She seemed pretty nice to Gabi.

“It’s okay, but why?”

“Because you hide in that room of yours from the moment you came here and eat almost nothing, like a little mouse! We were very worried about you, even the boss got mad when he heard you don’t eat enough!” she wagged her finger at her in a scolding manner but her ever present smile showed she didn’t really mean it.

“Well…” before she could say anything else Fernanda, because Gabi was almost certain that was her, grabbed her hand and almost dragged her downstairs to the kitchen. She sat her at the table and sprawled something close to dozen dishes on the table.

“Now eat! Dante promised me you would!” Gabi looked at her shocked. She wasn’t afraid of the Alpha?

“Oh don’t look at me like that topolina. Sooner or later you will also get a grip of him. He may be an Alpha, but he’s also a simple man. And I hope your mother told you what life looks like? Men are the head, but we women are the neck that guides them and carries all the burden for them. In other words, they can’t live without us.” She blabbered on and on and Gabi couldn’t take her eyes off of this small old woman that talked about the fearsome Alpha like he was only a stubborn child. Then she laughed.

“Sorry, it’s that you’re a first person I have met here that doesn’t pee in their pants whenever Alpha is in the room.”

“That’s the trick topolina. You can’t show him you’re afraid of him. The animal kingdom works the same way, and we come from it. Show the predator fear and he will eat you. Don’t show it and he will be cautious of you, because he won’t know what you have up your sleeve. That’s my advice for you for today.” Fernanda winked at her and Gabi couldn’t help but smile back at her. With that woman around, even the worst situation was a little bit brighter.

“And now eat! I’m going to clean up the library a bit and when I come back, I want to see everything eaten!”

Her eyes rose on Fernanda at that from her food. He has books in here? She thought he had them only in his office.

“Library?” Fernanda looked back at her like she had just fallen from the sky.

“Of course, topolina. Didn’t he show you through the house?” when she shook her head for a “no”, Fernanda started aggressively saying a string of Italian words under her breath.

“That stupid rascal.” She ended her rant and Gabi laughed at that. Rascal. It was so out of place. “When you finish your breakfast, you can join me.” She pointed in the direction of the passage between the fireplace and staircase. Gabi nodded and started to eat faster. She was a bit excited about what was in the library as she really loved books and was already fed up with the TV. Even though her stomach was grumbling a while ago, after eating a bit she was already full, probably from eating not enough for the last days. She tried to push herself but still she couldn’t finish everything that was plated before her.

When she stood up, she felt uneasy heaviness in her belly and grunted. This was too much to handle for her right now.

Slowly she made her way in the direction Fernanda showed her.

With sparkling eyes and mouth wide open she entered the library that resembled her the one pictured in “The Beauty and the Beast”. Shelves filled with books to the brim were reaching up to the ceiling, covering all of the walls except the glass one, that right now let warm autumn sun rest on her face. In the center of the room there was a sofa and two armchairs resembling those she already had seen in Dante’s office, but they were grey as most of the furniture in the penthouse. Between them there was a glass coffee table with an opened book on the top along with some empty whisky glass, which meant that the Alpha liked to sit here quite often. She quickly scanned the book closely and a glint of surprise showed in her eyes when she read the familiar lines.

“He reads Master and Margarita?” she asked herself loudly, not really expecting an answer, and when Fernanda spoke up, she jumped up a little.

“From what I can tell he likes classic literature, but by far this one I see the most when I’m cleaning.” She took the empty glass and swiped the non-existing dust from under it, but she didn’t touch the book.

“You can come here anytime during the day sweetie if you don’t want to meet him. From what I can tell he comes here only after work, and that means during the night.” She told her, seeing Gabi’s awe at the sight before her. Young woman could only nod her head as she mindlessly run her hand on the hard covers of the books on the nearest shelf.

“Ah, I almost forgot to tell you.” Fernanda exclaimed, earning a half-interested look from Gabi.

“Matteo wants to meet with you in the afternoon. He will come pick you up around two, and he asked that you wear something loose and comfortable.” Gabi frowned at that and finally came back from her cloud nine. She felt how alerts started to come off in her head.

“Do you maybe know what he wants from me?” Fernanda only shrugged her plump shoulders and diverted her eyes to the non-existent dust on one of the bookshelves.

“I don’t know my topolina. The only thing I can tell you is that was a direct order from the Alpha.” Gabi couldn’t help but snort loudly. That idiot again.

Probably he wants to get revenge for yesterday. What other tortures he has for her?

“You’re a good girl. Don’t let them trample you down.” A little shocked she looked at the older woman who was now looking at her with a serious expression on her face. After a few seconds Gabi smiled back at her. Weirdly, the last night accident woke her up and she felt more alive than in the last few years.

“Don’t worry, in the end I will be the one on top.”

Two hours later she was standing in her bedroom looking critically at herself in the mirror. She didn’t really know what Matteo had planned for her, but given the fact that he mentioned something loose and comfortable, it involved a lot of moving. That’s why she wore her old trainers (the last time she run in them was about two years ago, when her condition was still not that bad as now), grey long sweatpants and a black sleeveless shirt. Her hair were now pulled up in a messy bun as not to constrain her. Now she should be ready.

She looked at herself once more and hid her face in her hands. Who she was kidding, she was acting all high and mighty when with Fernanda, but in reality she was scared shitless. She wasn’t prepared for all of this and she really didn’t want to do any of this. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. She slowly started to forget how it was when she’s got one.

Gabi inhaled deeply the air a few times to calm herself down and almost didn’t budge when the door opened slightly and Fernanda’s head popped in.

“Matteo has come to pick you up.” Her throat was so constricted she could only nod her head and follow the woman out of the room.

The man was waiting for her just outside the apartment, but what made her even more confused was that he was in a full suit, shaved and with his hair neatly arranged. When she appeared, he was looking at his, for sure ridiculously expensive, watch.

When she compared their attires, she just wanted to turn around that second and go back to bed.

Unfortunately, the door already closed and she didn’t know the code. So instead of running like she was used to, with a heavy sigh and gloomy face she went up to the man. Before she stopped beside him, he looked up and with a serious look scanned her clothes. Deeming them good, he nodded his head approvingly.

“Good, I was a little bit worried Fernanda will forget to mention the clothes.”

“Well seeing your clothes on the other hand, I feel like you’re planning on making a laughing stock out of me.” Gabi replied, feeling irritation under her skin. After all she didn’t know what he and his devil boss had planned for her.

“Oh, don’t mind this Luna.” She cringed and hissed at the word, but Matteo seemed to not mind. “I’m going out for some business with Alpha Dante, I’m only here to pick you up and escort you to Luca.”

“What for?” her mood was becoming more and more dark with each passing second.

“Alpha Dante seemed to notice yesterday that you need a little bit of… moving” he looked at her with his eyebrow high, as if he was wondering what they had done yesterday that made Alpha interested in her wellbeing. She scoffed but didn’t say anything. Let him wonder, for fucks sake.

Seeing that he won’t get the answers he wanted, Matteo only sighed a little and shook his head with a smile that said he was amused by the situation, and Gabi felt the urgent need to punch him right in his face. It was his fault to begin with that she was in this situation.

In silence they made their way down the hall and Gabi stopped for a second seeing where he was taking her. The elevator. She was denied being outside for the last week, and now she felt a little bit of joy at the thought of the warm feeling of the sun on her skin.

Just when Matteo stuck his ID card to the computer beside the elevator, they heard a click of the door in the distance. Remembering that only one particular door where close to the elevator, she felt how her heart started to drum wildly in her chest. As if on cue Matteo stepped back when they heard footsteps in the distance and after seconds her eyes met those of her mate.

A glint of red passed through his eyes as he scanned her body (and again she felt like meat at the butchers!), but all in all his face stayed cold and unemotional as always. She swallowed the snort that tried to make its way out of her mouth at that. Arrogant asshole. As always, he was wearing his casual attire, which meant black long-sleeved shirt and black pants. It perfectly wrapped up his narrow hips and broad shoulders and she felt how heat started to pool down in her abdomen and cursed in her mind. This whole soulmate bond was making her loose her mind. Fortunately for her she hardly ever blushed.

“Alpha Dante, I was just taking Luna to the training ground as you’ve instructed.” Matteo said and Gabi frowned a little. What she was supposed to do there? It confused her for a moment, almost making her ignore the fact that Beta once more called her his Luna.

Dante didn’t say anything, only nodding a little in his Beta’s direction and Gabi felt like her wolf once more howled in pain at his negligence. She on the other hand was just pissed. Yesterday he wanted to kill her and then kissed her, and now he treated her like air!

They heard a loud “ding!” when the elevator came, and when the door opened Dante immediately made his way in. Only then Gabi noticed a fragile looking man in glasses that was all along standing behind Alpha’s back. He looked at her with as much curiosity as she did at him, and he diverted his eyes only when they heard a warning growl from the elevator.

She then noticed that Matteo had already left her side and also went in, and so with a sigh she followed him. She wanted to stand between him and the wall to be as far away as possible from Dante, but because the two men were both muscular it was impossible and she was forced to stand before Matteo, with her face facing the doors as not to have to look at the Alpha.

The unnamed man still looked at her with a little bit of shock on his face, as he seemed to hesitate whether to enter the elevator or not. Finally, a loud irritated growl from Dante snapped him back into his senses.

“Diego either you go down by elevator or you go down through window. Which one do you want?” he growled and she trembled with fear at his low hoarse voice that now showed all of his murderous intents. Her mate really was a monster. Diego rushed in, nervously adjusting his glasses and letting out a string of apologies toward his boss.

Matteo pushed a few buttons and the doors closed. The air inside was thick and filled with tension and overpowering Alpha’s presence. Even though he wasn’t standing behind her, Gabi felt the heat emanating from his body and almost unconsciously she knew he watched her with his fiery, red gaze. At the same time, she was hundred percent sure that if she turned around he would stare every other way but her.

He was such a pain in the ass.

After a nervous minute and a half, they stopped and the door opened, showing her the entrance to the big, right now almost empty gym.

“Alpha Dante, I’ll be sure to join you in a few minutes. Come Luna, it’s our stop.” Matteo said urging her to step out. Hearing that Dante wasn’t going with them she went a few steps ahead and suddenly turned around with a frown on her face, making Matteo stop in his tracks. She made sure that the doors to the elevator started closing, when she exclaimed loudly:

“I told you to stop calling me that! I refuse to be anyone’s Luna!” with satisfaction she saw how the door closed and she was sure she heard a low threatening growl from behind them. Matteo looked in the same direction as her and sighed loudly.

“You know it’s going to do nothing good to you, right? He’ll get you for it. And to top it off poor Diego will have to deal with him now, he’ll probably die of a heart attack in there.” Gabi only shrugged her shoulders, still too immersed in her own small victory to ponder on the consequences.

“If you wanted me to behave you should have stopped calling me like that.”

“I can’t, because YOU ARE my Luna.” He exclaimed the two words, and that made her grit her teeth.

“I’m not, for goodness sake! I never agreed to this!” she stomped her feet, feeling too frustrated at the moment to stop the childless behavior. Matteo sighed, now also irritated.

“It seems our Alpha thinks the other way around, as he ordered everyone from the pack to call you according to your status, Luna. No one wants to deal with the consequences of not doing so.” He finally said, and that shocked Gabi so much she didn’t muster another word as a response.

Matteo looked up and his expression from irritated changed into a relieved one.

“Good you’re here Luca.” He greeted his friend and Gabi slowly turned in his direction. Lucky for her he was wearing some shorts and a loose T-shirt.

“Hi Luna” he greeted her with a smile, but seeing her expression saying “Et tu Brute?”, he looked surprised at Matteo.

“She doesn’t like the word.” He only said, looking at the watch on his wrist. “Listen Luca, I’m leaving her with you, we’re going with Alpha Dante to a meeting, and before it starts I have to try to restore what our dear Luna managed to destroy” he said, looking at her with disapproval, but she was still too shocked and angered to answer him.

“Luna? What such a frail creature could destroy?” Luca also looked at her, and Gabi was done with it. She scoffed and went into the direction of what seemed like a big open terrace.

“His calm. She fucking destroyed him with one sentence, and to top it off she did it when the doors where closing and he couldn’t do anything.” Matteo moaned, thinking about what was waiting for him. Luca on the other hand raised his brows in amusement and laughed.

“Promise me you will tell me all about it.” Beta only looked at him with daggers in his eyes and went back into the elevator.

Luca found Gabi on the terrace standing by the railing, basking in the early afternoon sun, too immersed in the wind tousling her hair and sun kissing her skin to still be angry with the blonde man.

“So tell me, what have you planned for me and why now?” she said turning to him.

“Well, yesterday you’ve fought with the Alpha. After the fight he must have concluded that you need a little bit more exercise… to be accurate a pretty lot more.” he sent her an amused smile when she raised her brows in disapproval. “He said, and this is a quote, do something with her freaking puppy moves.” Gabi felt how anger once more started bubbling in her.

“And what does he expect of me, to just willingly agree and do everything he says? Of course, I won’t do that!” she furrowed her brows and felt how even her wolf was in rage at the critics of her fighting style.

“Now now Luna, don’t be so angry at me and please listen to the end. I must confess I peeked yesterday a little at your fight, and although in most part I have to agree with Alpha Dante, you still have a potential and some good moves.”

“Was that supposed to convince me to give in?”

“Partially. I hoped that the part where you have the possibility of kicking Alpha’s ass will do the trick.” He winked to her and Gabi looked at him warily.

“I smell something fishy here. What’s the hard part to it?”

“Nothing much really. You just have to oblige with my training and my requests in order to achieve your goal.”

“And how do you know my goal?” she snorted.

“Isn’t it obvious? Your freedom.” He smiled mischievously when he saw how everything clicked in her head.

“And why do you want to help me? Isn’t he your boss?” the possibilities he was giving her were tempting, but she didn’t believe he would do all of this for free. There was nothing free in this world.

Luca only shrugged his shoulders as if it was no big deal.

“I just see that under all of your calm and fragile posture you’re a pretty fierce beast, and I want to see this. Besides, I also want to see if you’re a good candidate for a Luna.”

“That doesn’t seem like we have the same goals now.”

“Oh we have” he smiled once more, but with a mysterious glint in his eyes. “If I deem you worthy of my Luna, this would mean you could take on Alpha Dante and win this time, and win your freedom if you wish to.”

“He will get you for this if he finds out.”

“IF he finds out. And that only depends on you.”

“Aren’t you scared of what will happen if I manage to escape from him? He’s already terrible as he is, I assume he will be even worse when he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“I’ve always liked danger. I’m willing to risk in favor of some good fun.” He once more shot her an innocent smile, and Gabi made sure to make a note in her mind to watch him closely in the future.

Luca could turn into a reliable ally for her but he also seemed to be two-faced, and she couldn’t just ignore her gut feeling. She eyed him for a few more seconds before she sighed and finally gave in.

“Fine, let’s get to it.”

“Great! So for now let’s get inside, I want to know what we’re working with.” Luca urged her to go inside the building, directing her to the room farthest away from others.

“We’re far away from others because…”

“Yes, I know. There are not only werewolves in the building.” She interrupted him and got straight into flexing her muscles. Luca looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face at that.

“Can I ask you a question, Luna?”

“Only if you stop calling me that. And if you can’t, like Matteo said because that idiot told you to, at least shorten it to L. I can endure only that much.” Gabi responded with her brows furrowed. If she was going to stay sane and keep to her plan, they had to stop acknowledging her as their Alpha’s mate. And the first step to do that was for them to stop calling her Luna.

“I can’t help but notice how much you’ve changed in those few hours. You’re more open and saucier in some sense. Did the fight with the Alpha impact you so much?” Gabi couldn’t help but snort with indignation at Luca and shot him a sharp look.

“His arrogant ass can impact only the ones that will allow it. The fight only reminded me to stand for myself, even if the whole world is against me. So, do we begin now or I can take a nap before you come back to me?” she added raising a brow, seeing a dumbfounded expression on Luca’s face.

Gabi tried to play hard, but the trainings really got to her, literally. As soon as Luca was leaving her alone, she was slumping to the floor, thanking the heavens for its cold and stability. After the warm up that made her too trustful of her abilities, the real training began and it involved not only the gym exercises, but also elements of boxing, MMA style of fight and even capoeira.

Luca said that it was important to strengthen her human body and mind before training her wolf, but she was sure he only made her go through all of this to make her suffer.

After the first day she was so worn up she went straight to sleep, not even caring about Dante’s wrath she was sure to witness when he comes back. But nothing really happened. That day, or any other for the next week.

Because she was meeting with Luca every day after lunch to train, the only time she could go into the library was on the mornings. That’s when she noticed that the book Dante was reading was there all along, still on the same page. That meant he either went straight to sleep, or he didn’t have time to come here right now, and from what Luca had mentioned to her (not that she was really interested to ask in the first place), it was the latter. He, along with Matteo and Diego (who as it turns out is Moretti’s lawyer and also a part of the pack) were supposed to close a big deal with some other prominent tech company in a few weeks, and they were devoting all their time to do it.

Gabi would lie though if she hadn’t admitted that she was a bit curious as to why a werewolf was so immersed into the world of humans to the point of leading an international company, instead of keeping a pack house deep within the woods as most of the Alphas did. She even asked Luca about it, and although a bit flustered, he answered her shortly that Alpha Dante wasn’t just an ordinary werewolf.

It clearly wasn’t a full answer and he knew Gabi was aware of it, but for now she let it go. She tried not to attach herself too much, and that meant not asking too many questions.

Now it was Sunday, and Luca allowed their lesson to end earlier so that Gabi could bask a little bit more in the last rays of warm September sun on the terrace beside the gym. They were sprawled comfortably on the training mats they brought here from the gym, directing their faces to the sun and not saying a word. For the last week they became pretty comfortable in each other’s presence and the silence between them was almost reassuring. The sun was tickling Gabi’s skin in a slow manner, making warm sparks erupt in her whole body. Her head became dizzy from the warmth and peacefulness, and slowly she started to fade away into a peaceful slumber, feeling like all the tension from her tired limbs slowly faded away.

Just then the idyllic atmosphere was broken by a phone call. She winced a little but soon remembered she didn’t have a phone on her and relaxed once more, not even once opening her eyes in the process. Luca let out a dreamy sigh and looked at his screen.

“Matteo.” He said into the air to no one specific just before he answered the phone. In the next second though he jumped to his feet fully awake and started shouting to the phone in Italian, clearly not understanding what was being said to him.

He startled Gabi who now also woke up fully and with irritated sigh stood up. Seeing the distressed Luca however, her irritation slowly started to change to a little bit of worry.

When he ended the call, she wanted to ask him what was wrong, but he didn’t let her. With one swift movement he took her hand and dragged her almost running to the elevator.

“Luca what’s going on?!” she shouted, not understating a thing and trying to match his long steps with hers as to not fall over on her face.

“Something’s happened. We’ve got to go now.” He only said when they entered the elevator and he pushed a few buttons on the console.

“I already figured it out. But what happened?” she gasped, feeling the soreness of her whole body and trying to push the pain away as to not slump to the ground right there.

But Luca didn’t answer her, as he was already picking a new number on his phone and soon started a heated talk with someone, still in Italian.

She sighed and looked at the console. They were going up. Did something happen to Dante? She felt a pang of worry at that, but pushed it aside. Maybe it wasn’t anything really bad, maybe he’d just finally gone berserk and was making a mess.

But when the elevator door open, she felt how her legs gave up under her and a wave of fear struck her. Something really, really bad must have happened.

The white marble tiles of the hall were all pooled with blood.