Alpha Augustine

Chapter One- Hotel Horrors

There was something oddly magical about hotels. Hotel rooms, grand hotel lobbies, even the gleaming elevators all seemed to hold age-old secrets. How many people had been inside these walls? How many secret rendezvous? How many acts of betrayal? Acts of love?My mind always wandered to these things as soon as  I stepped foot into a new one.
   Serena, my best friend since practically birth, seemed uninterested however. Her startling yet oddly beautiful violet eyes hardly even gave the posh carpets and elegant furnishings of the lobby a second glance. I could tell she was tired of it, tired of running. I was starting to get warn out too, if I'm being honest.

This was never how either of us pictured our lives. We never had any intention of having to constantly migrate from place to place, never staying too long or getting too comfortable. Always having to look over our shoulders. It was exciting at first, exhilarating even. But it's been two years now that me and my best friend have been on the run, and each day it grows a little more tiresome, especially for Serena, who had never found new places exciting the way that I did. Plus she had left so much more behind.

Serena had always been the star back in our old pack. As the daughter of an alpha, she had been adored since the day she was born. Her father was an excellent leader. Every single person in our pack, Luna Crescens, was proud to call him their alpha. Her mother, the luna, was also well loved. Even Serena's older brother and the future alpha, Drew, was held in high regards, even though he was kind of a dick in my opinion. All across the werewolf world, her family was well respected, which is why it came as such a shock when our pack was attacked out of the blue.
   I don't remember much from that day, just screaming and smoke and terror accompanied by  the sounds of snapping jaws and teeth biting into flesh. That's all I had time to take in before Serena's bodyguard and one of our closest friends Mason took us both by the hand and the three of us ran through the woods, away from all the terror. As soon as we were far enough away to not draw unwanted attention to ourselves we shifted into wolf form and continued running, never looking back.

"Do you think he's okay?" Serena asked suddenly, her pretty face etched with worry. She meant Mason. She asked almost every day, at the most random intervals, not because I really had any clue if he was even still alive or not, but because she needed reassurance, someone to tell her that he was. She wouldn't be able to handle it if something happened to him.

"I'm sure he's fine.If anyone can take care of themselves, it's Mason. He's fast, he's one of the fiercest fighters our pack has ever seen, and he's smart. He's probably looking for us at this very moment".

Serena visibly relaxed a little, as she always did after I offered her my reassurances. Her and Mason had this bond, this connection I never understood. I had never seen any wolf more devoted to anyone than Mason was to Serena, and she cared for him deeply in return. It was something that surpassed friendship. I was her best friend, Mason was something else all together. Growing up me and my parents had always secretly assumed they were mates, but it turned out that that wasn't true. Mason had been devastated when he became of age and shifted for the first time. Nobody, not even Serena, had understood why, but I had an idea.

"Are there any werewolves in this area?" she asked nervously, glancing around the vacant lobby as if one might pop out at any second. It was considered an act of aggression to enter into another pack's territory without explicit permission from their alpha. However, there were almost 15 different packs just in the U.S. alone, another 8 in Canada. It was hard to keep track of where boarders ended and what was no-mans land. For the last two years I had been mentally kicking myself for not paying better attention in geography. Too late now. There was no way to tell if other werewolves were nearby. They would have to be within a 2 mile radius or so before we would be able to pick up their scent. If a wolf had a particularly keen sense of smell, they would be able to catch our scent way before we would sense his. And then we'd probably end up dead.

"I have no idea," I admitted. "Our best hope is just to stay out of the woods".

Serena nodded uneasily. That had been our plan so far. Stay out of the woods, hide among humans.
An elderly man in a finely pressed suit finally decided to make an appearance behind the counter. He looked at us oddly, most likely due to our unkept appearances and lack of luggage.

"We'd like to get a room please", I said, before he could have time to start asking questions. Hotel clerks were snoopy, from what I have come to learn.

Ten minutes, and an unnecessary amount of inquiries later, we finally had a key to our room. Room 205, on the second floor. The hotel only had four floors. It was rather small, nothing like the ones we usually stayed at. Serena and I tried our best to stop exclusively in big cities. Chicago, Las Vegas, Detroit. Werewolves didn't often come to the big cities, not unless they had specific business or wanted to go shopping or something like that. They stuck to the woods and the small towns that neighbored them, where they could live discreetly. Cities were infested with humans, as well as rouges, vampires, witches, but for us they were our best bet for staying out of trouble. At the moment though, we were between big cities and needed a place to rest for the night. Sleeping in a car would leave us too exposed, so this was our only option.

"We need to leave early tomorrow, I have weird feeling about this place", I said, glancing at Serena who was flopped down on one of the two twin-sized beds, her pale blonde locks fanned around her like a silky halo. Ever since we had arrived in town, my wolf has been feeling fitful and agitated,as if she sensed something here. Common sense told me it could only be danger.

"Weird how Davina?"

I spent the next three hours tossing and turning trying to figure out just that.

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The sound of shattering glass had me shooting straight out of bed with a gasp, my dreamless sleep extinguished, startling reality taking it's place. The soft gray carpet was now littered with shards of glass, but that's not what got my attention.It was the snarls of two wolves, utterly enormous in size, cruel and beast-like as they growled and snapped their jaws, their eyes first locking with mine before shifting across the room until they landed on their true target: Serena. The commotion had awaken her too, and she looked petrified, clenching her blanket up to her chest as if for dear life, the violet hues of her eyes reflecting nothing but pure fear. Although she was the daughter of an alpha, she was quite a small wolf. Her mother's wolf had been small, and she took after that. Her small stature and her gentle nature left her poorly equipped to defend herself. Mason had always said there had to be people still looking for her. The people who had attacked our pack, who had attempted to kill us all, they probably wouldn't stop until every last member of the Luna Crescens alpha family was dead. Being the daughter of a beta I was likely a target too. And now they were here, they had found is.

Time seemed to stop. I swear my heart stopped beating for a moment, and my breath got caught in my throat. The hotel room was so quite you could probably hear a pin drop. Everything was still bathed in darkness except for a strip of moonlight that illuminated the shards of glass on the floor between Serena's bed and mine. Even the two creatures of our nightmares ceased their snarls for a moment, as if they too, were caught in some surreal moment of suspended animation. Then it ended. Canines snapped together, and hideous growls filled the room, and then just the tiniest shriek from Serena, as she folded her arms over her face to protect herself. Within a heartbeat the two beasts were on top of her, teeth snapping. Before I even had time to shift into my wolf one of the horrendous beasts pulled her by the collar of her blouse. Within the next heartbeat they had already taken her, and leaped out the window, and just like that, they were gone.