18

"Hold still!" "But that burns!" "Yes, of course it burns. That's what disinfectants are all about," I teased at Calvin, one of Nikla's friends' boys.

After the spectacle in the forest, some of Damian's people had taken the body to the pack doctor and still others had carried the injured wolves into the pack house. Since the doctor was busy, I had taken care of Drokor first, who was the most badly wounded of Damian's pack.

I had disinfected the bite on his shoulder and then bandaged it. In a few hours the wound would heal. I also disinfected the wounds of Niklas and his friends. After a while Amelia came over and helped me with the wolves' doctoring.

Niklas, who was looking around the room suspiciously and avoiding Damian's eyes, was watching Amelia so intensely that I almost felt out of place.

Amelia also seemed to feel uncomfortable, because after we had taken care of Chris's wounds, a rather brainless muscle man, she said goodbye with an "I still have something to do urgently".

Lerhome had provided chairs for the eight werewolves. Then he sat down in an armchair and drank a coke with relish. The other tightest wolves who had fought alongside Damian also made themselves comfortable. All tension fell from them and they waited anxiously for what was to come.

While Damian walked slowly through the light-flooded room, Jack leaned against the door frame and kept a close eye on everything. Ethan flopped down on the sofa next to me and gave me a happily wink. At my confused look, he murmured, "Now it's going to be fun."

You're not going to give them hell.

Oh no? Won't I?

No you will not.

I didn't even understand why you stopped me in the forest, although I'm very grateful to you for that. The idiot wanted to kill you. But the fact that we then have to bring them here and even treat them is clearly going too far.

Think about it, Damian. Why would they just attack you like that? How did you know about the body?

Damian fixed the eight boys and stifled a growl. In all his anger and suppressed rage, he hadn't thought about it. I knew that.

"Why did you attack us?" he finally asked in a dangerously calm voice. Chris looked at him disdainfully and spat at his feet. The next moment he was thrown backwards as Damian punched him in the face. I got up angry.

Get a grip on yourself.

He makes fun of me. He's being disrespectful.

The boy is seventeen, what do you expect?

I grabbed Damian's arm and maneuvered him onto the sofa next to Ethan, where I was sitting a few seconds ago. "I take over." I heard Ethan giggle behind me. "I told you. Now it's going to be fun."

I turned away from Chris, not assuming he knew why he and his friends had attacked us. He was probably just following some instructions. Instead I turned to Niklas and smiled at him.

"My dear Niklas. We've always gotten along really well." He snorted, but refrained from commenting. "You want to tell me why you attacked us, don't you?"

He turned his head away. Pretty childish, but somehow I could understand him. "Okay, then I'll say it differently. If you don't answer my questions, then I'm sure that Damian also knows many other ways to elicit a few answers from you. I just have to ask him kindly."

Nicholas looked at me again. "You've always believed in yourself, but that's going too far even for you. You honestly think an alpha does what you say?" "You're right," I said. "You're absolutely right. In fact, I even know."

Niklas looked at me in disbelief and then turned his gaze to Damian. Whatever he saw there, he definitely seemed to believe me now. He cleared his throat. "Actually, you already know. We wanted to take over the pack. So we decided to attack the alpha. And having you there was kind of a plus."

He leaned forward and said softly, "A lot of people know that the great Alpha of the Shadow Pack has taken a liking to a human girl. I'm really curious to see when the first will have an impact."

I heard what he said, but really didn't care. Because I just knew he was lying to me. I sighed once.

Can I finish him off? Damian couldn't suppress his anticipation.

No. I am not ready yet.

I circled Niklas chair and then put my hands on its backrest. "You know, Niklas, I've known you for a while now and although you really can be an incredible ass, you're not stupid. There's more to your little head than meets the eye at first, so I don't think you're trying seriously to take over this pack. You know the odds of you succeeding are slim to zero."

I positioned myself so that I could see all the werewolves. "So I ask again: Why did you attack us?" Niklas looked at me with hate in his eyes. He gritted his teeth but didn't reveal anything.

It was Calvin who finally spoke up. "We had gotten a call," he said quickly. "Shut up, Calvin," Niklas said immediately.

I went closer to Calvin. "What call?" "We don't know. The number was suppressed. But a female voice told us that you kill people and that there was a body. She described the spot to us and then we saw you there." "You think we kill people?" Damian asked incredulously.

"Yes," Niklas finally snorted. "You always do that, don't you? You roam the world, expanding the pack and leaving a trail of dead behind you." "That's the biggest bullshit I've ever heard," Ethan muttered.

"We found the body. We examined it and compared it to the first one." "Wait, has this happened before?" "Yes, a few days ago. Same pattern," I replied. "So you've already killed several." "We're not killing anyone here."

"Why do you care so much?" I asked Niklas. So far he had only ever used his time to annoy people. That he cared so much for her now confused me. Nicholas shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know either. I like it the way it is. I don't like changes."

I looked at the boy. Maybe there was more than I had previously thought. "So you got the call and then you came to the spot. You saw us and concluded that we were the killers." The boys nodded.

"That's kind of ironic," Jack said. "At first we thought you were going to kill her to blame us." They looked at us indignantly.

So my previous suspicions were confirmed. The werewolves had nothing to do with it. One look at Damian was enough to see that he had come to the same conclusion.

I walked over to the sofa and Ethan moved aside to make room for me. "That doesn't make it any easier," I said and let myself fall. "What do you think?" Jack looked at me confused. "Someone, probably the killer, is trying to turn us against each other. We're probably supposed to eat each other." I sighed.

A few days had passed in which Damian and Jack even managed to convince Niklas and his friends to join the pack. Damian also wanted, as he said himself, to get more involved in training the young wolves. I decided to withdraw a bit and also went to school for a short time. But since I lacked concentration and desire, my aunt wrote me off sick.

When I told Damian that I was going back to my home, he reacted as expected. "That's a terrible idea." I just rolled my eyes. We weren't that far apart, and besides, we'd been hanging out with each other for the past few days. With a bit of persuasion I finally convinced him and even got the assurance that that his people would leave me alone.

Total nonsense, as it turned out later. Because I was 100% sure that I was always being watched by at least one werewolf. It bothered me at first, but now I don't really care. As some normalcy returned to Damian and my life, Mr. Tally also went home. And from the looks of him, he was probably really looking forward to a home without werewolves.

I especially spent a lot of time with Amelia, who I had liked from the start. That's how it happened that we met in a café today to chat a little. Something oddly normal, considering everything that had happened in the past few weeks. "I'll have a piece of the apple and cinnamon cake." The waiter nodded and then took the menus from us with a smile, while his gaze lingered on Amelia a little longer.

"So," I began, leaning back in my chair, "how is your grandma by the way?" Amelia sighed. "Well it's getting better. Mum tries to distract her in any way she can but it's very difficult for her." Two days ago, Amelia confided in me why her grandmother was ill. 40 years ago she lost her soul mate in a pack fight. Since then, things have been particularly bad for her and she also looked older and older.

Losing your soulmate was a terrible thing. It was bad if the connection wasn't completely closed, but if one died from a soul connection that had existed for ages, it was unbearable. The werewolves were particularly plagued by mental pain.

It felt like the innards were slowly being ripped out. A pain like this was incomparable and actually such an event also quickly led to death for the soul left behind. That Amelia's grandmother endured this pain for so long was a testament to her strength and will. She probably wanted to live on for her family. A quality I could only admire.

"But Mum thinks when it's my birthday in four days she'll have enough distractions. My grandma makes the best chocolate cake ever." At the same moment the waiter brought our food and my coffee. Again, he lingered at our table a little longer than necessary to stare at Amelia. However, she didn't notice anything. When he was gone, I leaned across the table and said, "You did notice the waiter had his eye on you, didn't you?" She looked at me in surprise and then looked at the counter of the café, from where the man was still staring at her. Not funny or anything. Amelia shrugged, then eyed her cake.

"My life is still too young to think about something like that." With these words she tried out her piece and then sighed with relish. I giggled. "Why? How old are you getting?" "16." I looked up from my coffee in surprise.

"You're only 15? But you're in the same grade as me." "I skipped a grade back then." Smiling innocently, she shrugged again. I also tried my cherry cake and had to digest this information for the first time. At the same time, I also realized what that meant. I would soon match her with a soul mate. A wide grin crept onto my face. "You okay?" Amelia asked laughing, pointing to my grin. "Yes, everything is great."

"Very good." She wiped her mouth clean with a napkin, then fixed me with raised eyebrows. "Then we come to you now, my beauty." I chuckled. Of course I was aware that there would be such a conversation.

"Yes?" "So you and the Alpha?" "Seems so." "You like him, don't you?" "Possible." "You don't sound that interested but that's not so bad. I'm sure Celine will be happy to take your job." I growled at the thought of the overbearing wolf girl and how she had made a move on Damian. Amelia laughed again. "Very well. Let me ask the question again: "Do you like Damian?" Defeated, I replied:

"Yes." Excited, she began to sway her legs. "Oh, that's so exciting. Finally a connection between soul mates that I can witness. And then something special. After all, it's not every day that a connection between a human and a werewolf happens." I nodded in agreement. Amelia watched my reaction closely.

"Do you know why I like you so much? You're not afraid of me. Of us. You just stand there and speak your mind. It doesn't matter how strong the person is towards you." "And how you're handling the soul mate thing," she continued. "I mean, a lot of people would be really upset or worried. But not you. You won't let it get you down. Sometimes I even think you're stronger than all of us when you say something."

I smiled gratefully at Amelia. It was nice to hear something like that from someone you really valued. I was about to reply when two Characters I knew entered the café and approached our table without hesitation.

"Drokor," I said with a smile."How's your shoulder?""Everything's healed, don't worry. I'm like new again." With a grumble, he pushed himself onto the bench next to me. "How did you know where we were?" Embarrassed, Drokor looked at Amelia. "We guessed?" I snorted. Yes certainly. "But that doesn't matter right now," he said.

"First of all, I would like to say that we are not here on Damian's orders. I probably shouldn't even be here and especially not do what I'm about to do." Frowning, I gestured to Benjamin, who was still standing and clearly uncomfortable. "Then what is he doing here?" "Celine has been really annoying me lately and I just had to get away from it." Understandable. "And what do you want from us or her?" Amelia asked.

"A pack has come to visit. Or rather only the most important representatives. The Wester pack. Everyone was totally surprised when they suddenly appeared in front of our door, except Damian." Drokor rubbed his chin.

"They've had murders too. All in the same pattern. Damian, Jack and the other usual suspects have gathered with them at the packhouse. They want to discuss the situation. I snuck out because I want Alina to be there too."

"What?" I blurted out in surprise. "I know that the others see it that way too, only Damian just wants to protect you. But you were there from the beginning and you are Damian's soulmate." "He told you?" Drokor nodded. "We were incredibly angry with him for keeping this information from us. It changes everything. You are our Luna and we didn't pay attention to you in the fight. Anything else could have happened to you." And there it was again. That annoying protective instinct of werewolves. However, for the good of all, I didn't bring that up.

"Damian will be mad." "It's worth it." I shrugged my shoulders. "Okay." Then I looked at Amelia. "If you don't mind, I'm in." Amelia grinned. "A human barging into a gathering full of werewolves and calling the shots? Oh, please."