Alessia Stocklin and Ezra Withers are polar opposites, but they can certainly agree on one thing: their mutual hate for each other.
He's an Alpha deadset on killing every rogue he comes across, while she's a vigilante - known as Nightshade - intent...
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There was a silver lining to my impending and certain demise. With each stroke of the clock, Ezra's arrival grew closer so — in light of this — I allowed myself to wallow in the accompanying sweet, sweet misery.
After basking in my anguish at the Pack Hall for longer than necessary, I slowly made my way to my apartment. Without wasting any time, I flopped on my flimsy mattress and then glued myself to that position for hours. Link's concern for me swirled through my mind and touched my heart, but then Ezra would pop in, bursting my thoughts with shrill laughter. He would laugh until he was red in the face, tears streaming down his cheeks, waving at me as he locked me behind bars.
Ezra would be my undoing.
No matter how hard I tried to knock Ezra out of my mind, he'd come back intruding, like he had ownership of my brain waves. Maybe, in time, he would. I did not know the full extent to which he tortured the rogues he captured, but I could be close to finding out if he got his hands on me.
Apollo would surely put up a fight if Ezra decided to unleash his vengeance on me; I was his younger (barely) sister, after all. But Apollo was an Alpha in Waiting. He did not yet have all the luxuries the full title of Alpha afforded. If he had, I would not be so jolted by Ezra's presence.
Falling deeper into my self-inflicted misery, I vaguely heard Apollo try to reach out to me over the mind link. Grunting, still unmoved, I blocked him, knowing he'd want to know why I was late to the meeting earlier today. He'd want me to explain myself, and I did not have the mental bandwidth to deal with Apollo's overprotective concern.
Should I? I allowed myself to ask in a moment of doubt. Should I give up Nightshade?
It would be the safer option. It would be safer to expel Nightshade from my life, to rid myself of any proof of my attachments to my secret identity. But, Nightshade was the first endeavor I'd ever partaken in that was purely of my own accord. I became Enforcer because two former Enforcers passed from old age and no one else would fill their vacancy. I was just another number in the pack. But, when I put on my cloak and pushed Alessia aside, I was truly acting in a way I wanted for a reason I decided.
How could I give that up?
I wouldn't, I concluded. I made my bed,and I would have to lie in it.
It seemed my reinvigorated faith in myself would be put to the test. My watch buzzed. Still, in a self-inflicted state of misery, it took the second buzz to make me look at the notification.
The rogue alarm had been set off.
Prying myself up from bed, without another thought spend on my safety or my recent close calls, I raced to the hollowed-out tree I visited just hours earlier.
Even if I had decided to swear off Nightshade forever, I knew this alarm would have piqued my interest. Never before had the alert been sounded off two times in a day. From the little I knew of Ezra, I knew he'd revel more in unearthing my identity while he was on Byron's pack territory, so I did not go into the encounter imaging another setup in place. Hopefully, my judgment would not prove me wrong.
