"Why do you even care? Let me go!" I tried to snatch myself away from him, but he was rock steady.

"We are not leaving here until you tell me who you are." we stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. "I know that packs usually have unique characteristics and gifts specific to their packs, but I have never seen a pack that can control how fast they heal or whether they heal or not."

"Well, now you have!" I snapped, yanking my arm away from him. But before I could go any further, he pulled me back.

"Alpha, they are back!" Leonard ran into the room. He smirked a bit when he saw the position we were in, as if we were slow dancing.

I do not understand why he would be happy about that.

"How many of them?" Malik's voice was curt and sharp. But I could feel him tense against me.

"Only about six and four are seriously injured. They might not make it till the night."

I looked up at his face. There was no emotion. It was like he didn't care, but it was shocking because I felt distressed and I knew it wasn't my emotion. It was unusual, yet there was this relief. A sweet settling in my belly. That only I knew how he truly felt.

"Is she there?" He asked.

"Yes! The healers are trying their hardest to save the pup, at least."

His breathing halted, and like a dog whose ears would perk up when it was curious, I looked up at him. Who the hell is this she? His lover? Oh my gosh, this little cheat!

He released me immediately and ran with Leonard, and I followed behind. Hey, a chance at freedom and well to meet this 'she'.

When I stepped outside the mansion, it felt as if I was experiencing things afresh, the sun, breeze, and nature. But the entire pack was up and about moving around. Everyone was excited and anxious, and I was assuming it was because of the news.

"Alpha, in here she is asking for you."

I ran to follow but stopped in my tracks. This was my chance to escape. Nobody was paying attention. Who cared about her? I hated him and I didn't care if he had a lover. I'm out of here.

I ran to the place of the bonfire because the ashes were still there and I looked around to see if I could recognize where they kept us earlier. That must be where she should be, right?

I walked towards the bushes, and what do you know, I found it.

"Aria?" I yelled "Aria!"

"Iris?" a soft voice came back. "In here," it was the fourth cell, and I did not have any ideas on how to open the cage. The prison? Holding a cell? Whatever it was, they made the door of concrete and steel. I couldn't do this the way I would have preferred. I would have to use it.

"Aria, move back and close your eyes."

"What? why?"

" I would rather you didn't see this."

"What?"

"Please, just do it."

I took a deep breath. On a normal day, I wouldn't have done this, but in desperate times. I said the words just as I knew and as expected; the metal tumbled against itself, and the sound of the metal bending and stretching became so loud I was afraid it would attract someone. I took a deep breath and pushed the air around me away. No air, no sound, right? Eventually, it squeezed, looking like I took a paper and crumpled it in my grip, and flew away from its hinges.

"Damn!" Aria yelled. "What the hell just happened?" She asked as I panted, sucking in the air greedily when I took away the small vacuum I created.

"Oh my gosh, Aria!" I exclaimed when I saw her. She looked like a ghost, her pale skin paler and her eyes sunken. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I couldn't heal properly for the first few days so I couldn't eat," she shrugged as if it was a normal thing.

"Are you okay now?"

"Yeah, seen better days, though."

"Let's get the hell out of here."

She smiled. "What took you so long?"

I grabbed her and we ran out and started jogging into the woods. My chest felt heavier with each step. Stupid bond.

If it already felt this strong, I wonder what I would feel when he eventually marks me. I don't even want to think about that right now.

"Oh gosh," I panted as I set Aria down on a rock.

We had been running for hours and I found a river, at least it will be harder to smell me by water.

"You sure he can't smell you?"

"I don't know Aria. This was not exactly planned. I just saw an opportunity, and I took it."

She closes her eyes and placed her hand on her head, "you know, for such an old wolf, you are pretty stupid."

"Look I didn't plan for anything I haven't been out of that house since I got in there okay and I could not leave you in the cell any longer, okay, sorry if I didn't let you stay longer and figure out a plan when the perfect opportunity presented itself, because it did and I took it."

"Of course, complain, Mrs luna, while you slept in comfortable beds and ate like the Queen, you are. I had to live like a dog. Don't you dare complain and I waited for you thinking, she must be figuring something out. To prevent us from further harm or getting caught."

"You can't do that. You know I would switch with you any day."

"That's the problem, Iris, you can't! You are the one looking so plump and healthy and I'm the one resembling a vampire you are the one that hates the moon goddess but yet you have the gifts, heck you have a prophecy about you, you are the one that doesn't believe in love but yet the one who has found her mate! Although he is a crazed, brutal killer, he is yours! And you don't even want any of that. I want all of that, but I shut up and listen to you whine on and on and on about how your life sucks. I want to love and be loved Iris, I hate running for my life or fighting off people that you have angered. And now you have the guts to say you had it bad? Huh!" she screamed.

I was so shocked I just stood there. For the first time in my life, I was actually speechless. I didn't know what to say. I never knew she felt this way. It seemed like I have been living a lie. Nobody knows the burden I carried, nobody knows the pain I am in every day, I just always thought Aria knew more, that she didn't judge only based on the wall I had put to block it, the fake smile I wear. Well, I guess it was my fault. I never told her what I really was. I never told anyone.

She kept pacing back and forth. "You are mated to the most powerful wolf in the world and you don't have a plan," she chuckled bitterly. "Don't you realize he could find you in a minute?"

"He is distracted right now, he won't notice for at least a while."

"It's already dark. I'm pretty sure he is already out looking for you and-" She paused suddenly.

Almost immediately, an arrow pierced her through her back and I was certain it passed her heart. My eyes widened for a split second. Seeing the blood seeping out the hole into the entwined fabric on her shirt and how she fell to the ground.

"Aria!!!" I ran to her, catching her just before she hit the ground. "Oh, god! Aria?" She looked up at me. I could see the fear in her eyes as she silently begged me for her life. She had already started coughing out blood. I held her and broke the arrow's sharp part and pulled it out. Blood gushed out of the hole and splattered all over me. Yup, definitely the heart. I started to heal her when another arrow hit the ground beside me.

Shit.

She was so skinny that picking her up wasn't as difficult as it would have been. I tried to run, looking for cover, a stupid river, with stupid open spaces. I struggled to make it into the woods, then suddenly I couldn't move my legs they were lumped together, with what I'm sure was that flying rope thingy I didn't like. I fell to the ground with a loud thud that was not easy on Aria. She was losing a lot of blood and it was already dark out.

"Yet you say I'm being unfair?" That voice, oh my gosh how did he find me so fast?

I turned around and saw him standing so gallantly in the bushes, he stepped out and walked toward me.

"You, you can't be here. Someone is trying to kill us. Look, they already shot Aria."

"I shot Aria."

There was a pause at first. It took me a minute to realize what he just said even though I heard it.

"What?" I shook my head, struggling to understand. "Why would you do that?"

"You left me," he ignored my questions and kept walking toward me. I moved back and tried to get to Aria.

But I couldn't move. It was as if I was melting under his gaze. "I needed you today and you weren't there" his voice sounded so angry, but his eyes looked hurt. Hurt?

"How do you expect me to trust you when you go and break my heart like this, and if I'm cruel to you? I'm the wicked one?"

What the hell?

"Look, I don't care about anything you have to say. You can't blame this all on me! Aria is hurt and you just stand there acting all high and mighty, like you're the only one with feelings?" I huffed. "Your stupid arrow passed through her heart!"

"Oh, I shot to kill," he looked at Aria struggling on the floor.

"You know how much she means to me and you still have the guts to touch her!"

"You hurt me and disobeyed my logical orders, yet you expect me not to punish you?"

Logical?

"Then punish me!" I screamed. "What did she do?!"

I ran to her, "there is nothing you can do now. Just let her die peacefully," he said behind me.

"Oh, that's where you're wrong," I spat back glaring at him, I held my hands above her heart and pressed them on the wound, close my eyes, and imagined the muscles closing up and the skin jutting back in place. Suddenly, she stopped choking and relaxed. She fell asleep on my lap.

"It's you."