- "ill trip ouakednd niff verynch f ou."

I'm lost in my thoughts as I stride down the parking lot, contemplating all the events that had transpired today. That's when two guys fall into step on either side of me and I inhale a sharp breath of fear, my brain already conjuring up images from the countless times the same thing has happened to me with Chance and his goons. But then I realize that they're unfamiliar faces too, and their sizes are much, much bigger than Chance's friends.

I breathe out the barest sigh of relief.

These two must be the men Alpha Seneca mentioned.

Jonathan and David. Huh, I guess everyone in her Pack is tall, muscular and fit. I take another small glance at the two bulky, dark-haired men.

Their faces are set in a hard mask, so similar yet so different to Alpha Seneca's. While she seems to maintain a hard, cold exterior and carries an intensity in her eyes that just about sucks in the person who looks into them, these two men seem to carry an air of professional impassiveness, with their emotionless faces and, their sunglasses-clad eyes seem to be scanning the surroundings with careful precision, almost as if looking for any possible threat.

Ha! Yesterday in this same place, I was asked to clean the pigeon shit off someone's car's glass, and today I have freaking bodyguards to protect me from anyone who dares to come near me.

Isn't that hilarious?

I mentally shake my head, still unable to take in the strangeness of the situation, at the sudden 180° spin in my life.

The car ride home is silent. The moment the car pulls up in front of my house, David and Jonathan bow slightly in unison. "Aleph." They chorus in their deep voices, and a strange sensation travels through me at the new moniker. "P-Please call me 'Mike'," I insist out of habit and they exchange a quick, incomprehensible glance that speaks volumes.

"Let us know if you are in need of our help, Aleph." David or Jonathan, I still don't know who is whom —and haven't had the courage to ask either—says in a low voice, blatantly ignoring my request that they call me 'Mike'.

"O-okay," I reply, nodding frantically, fumbling with the seatbelt in a hurry to get out. I almost weep in happiness when the complicated buckle in the huge SUV finally comes undone and quickly unlock the door closest to me, getting out. I slam it shut and glance at both the men in the front seats fleetingly, only to realize that their eyes are fixated on me, probably waiting for me to get inside safely.

Jeez, these guys take their duty way too seriously.

Little do they know that the real danger is lurking inside and not outside . . .

I exhale roughly and place my hand on the doorknob, giving myself a second to ready myself to face the nightmare that's my mother, who is waiting—no, probably passed out if I'm lucky—inside.

Time to face reality Micajah. Just man up and do it.

Finally pushing my understandable reluctance to the back of my head, I turn around and flash a brief smile to my new protectors, and brave opening the door, quietly slipping in before shutting it. I lean my back on the thin, flimsy wooden frame, and crane my neck to peer cautiously around the living room and the kitchen, checking for any signs of my personal hell.

Nothing.

Phew. Maybe she's passed out in the bedroom, after all.

With that last thought, I allow myself to hope, feeling warm in the tiny ray of sunshine it brings in my dark world. I amble to the stairs slowly, stepping carefully over dirty laundry and broken things scattered sparsely over the termite-infested wooden flooring. Just as always, the house is eerily quiet, not even the sound of a ceiling fan or the buzz of a light heard anywhere.

That's because our house is void of any electronic gadgets that might still work.

Except for the washing machine and the inbuilt radiator, since it's kind of hard to pick it up and throw it around.

Just as I place my foot of the first step of the dingy staircase, a hand comes out of nowhere and before I could comprehend what's happening, it grips my neck and slams me roughly against the wall. Pain shoots from the back of my head, clouding my thoughts completely and making it impossible to think anything for a second.

My fingers claw desperately at the hold on my neck, and I watch through tear-filled, blurry eyes the silhouette of my mother, Victoria, glaring up at me. She tightens the painful grip further, and I choke for air, my passage burning with the need to fill it with oxygen.

"It's all because of you! My life would've been so much better! If only you weren't there!" She spits venomously, her slurred words packed with malice and absolute hatred that send a sharp ache to my chest every single time I hear them. Yeah, I'm used to them, but it doesn't hurt less every time I hear these words repeated, no matter how many times.

"Pl . . . Please." I choke out, but she doesn't seem to be hearing me at all, and the glassy, crazed glint in her pale blue eyes that resemble mine so much, shows that she is inebriated beyond rational thought and that nothing I say now would pierce past her drunken haze.

"Why?! Why couldn't you have just gotten lost somewhere?! But no, you had to come along and ruin everything!" She screams at my face, her slurring words sending spittle flying everywhere. I flinch back in disgust and hurt, pressing my head to the wall to put as much distance as possible between us.

"You made me lose everything," She mumbles softly. All of a sudden she lets the that was hand squeezing my neck drop to her side, and she turns away abruptly. I fall forward at the sudden action, clutching my palms to my knees just in time before I crash to the ground face-first. I take slow breaths, trying to pull myself together long enough to escape to the safety of my room. And then I hear sniffling.

Goddess. She's crying.

Again.

Okay. I'll address the fucking elephant in the room. She's not sane.

That's right.

My mother is mentally ill. The sheer pain from losing her mate combined with her suddenly lonely life as a single mother to a kid she resented made her lose her sanity. She has had intermittent periods of minutes when she actually knows what's going on, but it's mostly the same cycle of depression and anger for the rest of the time.

"Just go." She wheezes out in between loud sobs, and I don't stick around long enough to see if she's okay. I ignore the burning pain in my throat and bound up the stairs two at a time, wanting to reach the false sense of comfort and security that my small room provides.

Once I'm in my bed settled comfortably - as comfortable as one can get in my thin mattress and the hard cot - I slowly dig out my Accountancy textbook from my bag that's lying on the floor beside the head of the bed, and skim through today's homework, not wanting to become weak in the only thing I'm strong in.

School.

After a night of restless sleep, I force myself to wake up and get going, to carry on with the motions of getting ready to face yet another day. I'd avoided any further communication with my 'mother' last night after that, preparing a simple dinner from the supplies available in the fridge and escaping to my room before she'd noticed me.

That's another thing though. The fridge is stocked with some basic groceries and alcoholic drinks always, and she pays the bills as well. I don't know who, but someone transfers money to her account every month. I've seen the slips from the bank, but the sender is always anonymous and has remained a mystery I can't quite figure out. But I still work my job as assistant Chef in the local diner, Ross' Kitchen, during the weekends, to buy my own clothes and spend for my own necessities.

I glance at the mirror, at the shaggy pale blond hair that almost looks white, and very light blue eyes that look grey in dull lighting. The finger marks that were an ugly purple yesterday, have faded to a yellow, but they still peek through the collar of my shirt and are impossible to not notice.

But then again, who's going to pay enough attention except Nora to notice that?

Our Mate. My Wolf supplies, being the ever helpful one. Guess I'll make something up to convince her that it's nothing.

Besides she's not going to prod that much. Right?

We barely met yesterday and she's not going to worry about what happened to an almost stranger. It stings to think of myself as a stranger to her, but that's the truth. There's no denying it.

I wrinkle my nose at the thin, bony teenager in the reflection, so unlike the other muscular guys in the Parker pack.

No use in worrying about what I can't have without lots of good food and an opportunity to work out.

I run a hand through my hair one last time and skip downstairs, knowing that she would be in a too deep of a sleep - due to the excess drinking last night - to hear me trudging around loudly.

For her breakfast, I grab the cereal carton and a bowl and pour some into it, leaving a spoon beside it. That's enough for her. She won't care anyway. She'll be too intoxicated to think straight. I skip the meal and make nothing but a cup of coffee for myself, slowly gulping it down as eating anything hurts my throat. I then sling my backpack over my shoulder and begin my journey to school.

The first period passes by quickly, and Nora had seen the bruises and had started to cry. She had then given me one of her infamous bone-crushing hugs, but this one had seemed to last longer than usual. I had tried to get her to stop worrying, but she'd continued to stare at me with pain in her eyes, saying that I could've been killed the previous day if she —which refers to my mother —had not had a sudden change of mind.

I come out of Honors English, and stop short when I see the magnificent sight of Alpha Seneca leaning against the wall opposite the door of my class. She's dressed impeccably in a pair of dark washed jeans, and a neatly-pressed button-up shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her dark red hair frames her beautiful face in big bell curls, and I realize that that's soon becoming one of my favorite things about her appearance. Her posture gives the impression of her being casual, with her arms crossed and one ankle placed over the other, but her stiff back and watchful eyes give away the fact that she has not let her guard down.

She, as always, looks as powerful and daunting.

I stand there and drink up the view of the majestic being greedily, not ready to announce my presence just yet.

But of course, nothing goes unnoticed by an Alpha.

The most powerful Alpha at that.

Her sharp grey eyes, that look almost an ethereal silver, zero in on me the instant I stop. She scans me from head to toe, stopping suddenly as her eyes narrow in rage. She pushes herself off the pristine, white and red striped wall and I watch in shock as her eyes fill up with murderous fury. Her soft lips pull back and a mighty snarl erupts from her, making the students around us jump back and scurry away.

What did I do? That's when I become aware of her eyes glaring down on my neck, rather than my face.

Uh-oh.

"Who the fuck dared to touch you, and what the fuck were Jonathan and David doing then?!" She roars, stepping closer to me with every word. I back up with every step she takes forward, and feel trapped when my back hits the other wall of the corridor.

"Uh,"

"Answer me, Cage!" She yells, her form visibly shivering with anger.

Cage? I wonder what kind of a nickname that is —

No time to think about that.

"Uh—I, um. I-It's n-nothing. And, it d-didn't happen when t-they were with m-me." I mumble, pushing down every instinct that is screaming at me to run away before she lashes out and hurts me. A part of me hopes that she would never do that, but another part is absolutely terrified of this side of her, this powerful side that could break all my bones with her bare hands.

Seemingly feeling the fear I'm oozing, her eyes soften, taking on a tender look that I would've thought was impossible and she slowly reaches out one hand and cups my cheek. "I won't hurt you, Cage. I can never hurt you. I hope you know that. Now, can you please tell me who did this to you?" she asks in a low voice, looking concerned.

My heart fills with unadulterated joy when she says that she wouldn't hurt me.

"I . . . " I hesitate, torn between telling my Mate the truth and protecting her.

"I will strip you naked and sniff every inch of you, until I find the scent of the offender if I have to, Cage." She warns, and the seriousness in her eyes tells me that she isn't kidding. My cheeks suffuse with color at the mental image of that sentence, and she seems to know what I'm thinking because one side of her mouth tilts up with a knowing look in her eyes.

"Now, tell me." She cajoles in a soft voice and that breaks my resolve. I give in.

"I—It was my . . . um, it was my mother." I confess in a low whisper, but I know her keen ears definitely picked them.

Because it is safe to say she looks stunned.