4

"I could just transform myself and run away. Do you think I care about your handcuffs?" I broke the silence after a while, staring at the passing houses while it slowly got darker and darker around us.

"Do you seriously think you can escape me?" he retorted, and when I glared at him he grinned so stupidly that I wanted to smack him, even though I thought his dark eyes were beautiful.

"I'm fast... pretty fast," I said proudly and looked out of the windshield as arrogantly as I could, whereupon he burst out laughing so loudly that I was a little startled.

"Darling, no matter how fast you run and no matter how far you get, I'll always get you because you're all mine now," he explained, grinning, biting his bottom lip again while holding his hand in mine wanted to interlace, but I immediately jerked mine away and glared at him provocatively.

"Like I said before, I don't belong to anyone!"

"We'll see," he said with a wink and then focused on the road in front of us again, while I let my gaze wander out the window and could hardly believe that I was really chained to an alpha I didn't know.

Of course I had often chased away werewolves who wanted to mate with me during my period, but there was never an alpha among them. Otherwise I might have been pregnant or something. Alphas had a natural ability to subdue you just by looking at them. They were faster, smarter and more cunning than us normal wolves and they were also selfish and unscrupulous, which sent a shiver down my spine.

Who knew what he would ask of me...

"Do you want to hear anything in particular?" he asked at some point and opened the glove compartment in front of me, where several CDs were lying, which I only glanced at to keep staring stubbornly out of the window.

"Listen to what you want," I snapped back at him, leaning my head back to take a deep breath of frustration.

He didn't say anything else and turned on the radio, which immediately blared out to music from the '80s, to which he suddenly started humming along loudly.

I stared at him in confusion and watched him steer the car with one hand, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat. At least someone here was in a good mood...

After we drove through the pampa for hours, I was getting more and more tired, but I didn't want to fall asleep because I also had to go to the toilet urgently...

"You?" I spoke to him and only then realized that I didn't even know his name, which made the whole thing even stranger than it already was.

"Keno," he replied, and I pondered that name for a moment. Somehow I liked him and that's exactly what I didn't like at all. I didn't want to find him attractive, didn't want to find his stupid name pretty, and even less did I want to get lost in his brown eyes again, which just happened again and made me even more angry than I already was.

"I have to go to the bathroom," I said and he immediately parked at the side of the road, which made me look at him perplexed, since there was nothing around us but forest.

To my amazement, he took out the key to the handcuffs, opened them on my hand and immediately took my chin to give me a warning look.

"5 minutes, Aria... and not a second longer! Please don't upset me. My wolf can get very nasty."

"Nice for your wolf," I snapped back at him and hurriedly got out to walk clumsily across the cracking forest floor into the darkness.

"Who does he think he is!! Pasqua would never have let me pee in the woods," I mumbled angrily, thinking of the blonde I was already missing.

When I was far enough away from the car, I sat down behind a tree and relieved myself while choosing an escape route. It would be best if I just ran straight ahead into the forest, that would give me the best chance...

I got up, pulled my panties and pants back up, and took a few unsteady steps further into the woods to see if I could smell anything but the woods and keno. I didn't really want to meet a vampire alone in a strange forest.

"Aria?" I suddenly heard Keno call out behind me and I immediately started sprinting without losing a second.

"Shit, shit, shit," I cursed with a racing heart and almost ran into a tree, which I skilfully dodged at the last second. I ran faster and faster, gathering all my strength to transform at any moment, but when I smashed my face into a branch I hadn't seen, I fell unconscious to the ground and saw only black around me hereabouts.

-

I slowly woke up with a pounding headache and the first thing I noticed was that I was covered in a black down jacket that smelled pleasantly of keno and made me feel good. Even if I didn't want to, I snuggled even closer into the jacket in search of security while I listened to the soft music with my eyes closed and took deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" Keno asked from the front seat, but I didn't answer. Did he really think I would be grateful for anything? It was his fault that I hit a tree, not mine...

"Aria?" he demanded an answer from me and I groaned in annoyance and rose slightly from the backseat to glare at him in the rearview mirror.

"Yes," I snapped at him and wanted to fold my arms, but strangely enough that wasn't possible. I stared at my hand in confusion, which again revealed the handcuffs that held me to the doorknob. "Are you serious?"

"You deserve it," he said arrogantly, looking at me in the rear-view mirror. "Earn my trust and your life will be more comfortable. Screw it up and I can make your life hell."

"I'm already in hell," I replied, rolling my eyes and he raised his eyebrows with a smile.

"Ohhh, Aria. You don't know hell. Not even close and I hope you never will."