I keep running looking for somewhere safe to hide, for all I could see was sex.

Everywhere I turned, there bodies naked shuddering.

Limbs shifting.

Mouth moaning from sexual pleasure.

I ran through a forest, panting, trying to escape the carnal Phantoms around me, which seemed to be summoning me.

Saying, join us...

But the deeper into the woods I ran, the darker and more alive the forest became.

Some trees swayed like lovers, others with gnarled roots and spindly branches, looked like predators.

Closing in on me.

Chasing after me.

Something out there in the dark was chasing me.

Something in human.

And now the mouths weren't moaning anymore. They were screaming.

Grotesque orgies everywhere turning violent.

Bloody.

Life- threatening.

Any second now, the darkness will catch up with me.

The sex was going to strangle me.

As I felt a root snake it's way around my leg, I tripped and fell down a gaping hole at the center of the forest.

But it wasn't hole but a mouth. With shape teeth and a black tongue, licking it bloody lips, about to swallow me whole.

I tried to scream but I couldn't find my voice.

I fell farther, deeper.

Until I was with the violent, sexual madness...

Completely consumed by it.

* * *

I blinked. What the hell was I drawing?

Sitting by the river bank, sketchbook in my hand, I looked down, at my drawing it was disturbing... And sexual vision.

That could only mean one thing:

The Haze was coming.

But before I gave the Haze or my drawing I just did and another thought, the sound of near by giggling distracted my thoughts. I turned to see a group of girls, surrounding him.

Rodriguez Braxton

I never seen him here before. Not at the Riverbank where I go to draw and clear my mind. Because that always gives me a peace of mind.

You don't find a lot of our kind hanging out around here.

Why? I don't know.

Maybe it's the clam when we're always expected to be wild.

Maybe it's the water when everyone of us burns with fire within. Or maybe it's just a spot I've only thought of as mine.

A secret place where I'm not one of the pack. Where I'm just me, Natasha Williams, a nineteen year old red hair self taught artist.

A seeming normal girl.

The Alpha walked toward the water, ignoring the gaggle of girls following him.

He looked like he wanted to be left alone. It made me curious. It made me want to draw him.

Sure, I know it was a risk to draw the Alpha.

But how could I resist it?

I began to outline him. Towering at his six feet five, with disheveled jet black hair and golden brown eyes that seems like it changes color every time he turned his head, Rodriguez was the definition of mouth watering.

I was just beginning to work on those eyes when he turned his head and sniffed.

I froze, mid-pen stroke. If he were to see me now, if he were to see what I was drawing...

But then, to my relief, he looked back out the water, becoming lost again in some dark reveries. Even surrounded by others, the Alpha looked alone. So I continue my drawing.

I always watch him from afar. I never been this close. But now I could see how his biceps bulged from his T-shirt, how his spine curved to accommodate his transportation.

How quickly he could shift, I imagined. He bent over, eyes searching like feral animal he seemed, in this instance already half way there.

A man, yes but even more like a werewolf.

His beauty reminds me that the Haze was fast approaching.

It was the time of year when every werewolf from the age of sixteen and older goes mad with list, the season where everyone and I mean everyone fucks like crazy. Twice or more a year, this unpredictable hunger, this physical needs would infect all of us in the pack.

Those who didn't have mates found a temporary partner instead and fooled around to their heart's content.

In other words, there was no one in the pack older than sixteen who was a virgin.

Looking at Rodriguez now, I wondered if the rumors swirling around him were true.

If that was one of the reasons he was here, ignoring the girls brooding by the Riverbank.

Some said it's been months since Rodriguez had taken any woman to bed, that he was distancing himself from everyone.

Why? A secret mate? No, the pack gossips would've sniffed her out by now.

Then what was it? What was to come of our beloved Alpha if he had no partner when the Haze strucks?

It's none of your business I chided myself. What did it matter to me who Rodriguez screwed?

He was ten years older, and like most werewolves, only interested in someone his own age.

To Rodriguez Braxton, the Alpha of the first largest pack in the United States, I didn't exist. Putting aside my school girl crush, I knew I was better off that way. Ami my best friend, was dead set on finding me a fuck buddy. She already paired up in advance, as was common among unmated wolves before the Haze. Trying to set me up with three of her brother's friends, all who seemed perfectly decent and who's been blunt that they thought me for for a good time in the sack, Ami couldn't understand why I turned each of them down. "Ugh." I could almost hear Ami's voice reverberating in my head " Why are you always so damn picky, girl? "

Because the truth was, I had a secret.

At the age of nineteen I was the only virgin she wolf in our whole pack. I have been through three seasons, and no matter how sex-crazed I became, I had never given into my carnal desires.

I know very un- wolfy of Mr to care about "feelings" And " First times," But I cherished mine. It wasn't that I was a prade.

In our society, there was no such thing. But, unlike most girls, I refuse to settle until I found my mate. I was going to find him I was saving my virginity for him. Whoever he might be.

I continue to sketch the Alpha when I looked up and saw, to my surprise and sudden dread, he wasn't there.

" Not bad." I heard a low voice beside me.

" But the eyes could use a little work."

I turned to see, standing right next to me, looking down at my sketch..... Rodriguez. Fucking Braxton.

Before I could catch my breath he look up and our eyes met. I tensed, realizing I was making direct eye contact, and immediately looked away.

No one in their right mind dared to look the Alpha in the eyes. It could only mean two things. You were challenging the Alpha's dominance AKA a death wish. or, you were inviting the Alpha to sex you.

Since I didn't intend to do either, my only option was to look away before is too late and pray he didn't misinterpret the meaning of my glance.

"Forgive me," I said quietly, just to be on the safe side. "You took me by surprise."

" I apologize," He said. " I didn't mean to startle you".

That voice. Even saying the most polite words imaginable, they sounded loaded with menace. Like at any second, he might rip your throat out with his bare human form teeth.

" It's okay," He said. " Really I don't bite... Most of the time." I was so close I could reach our and touch his rippling muscles and golden skin. I lived my eyes and chanced a look.

A brutal jagged face that shouldn't be handsome, but was. Thick eye brows that looked coarse to the touch, like a hint of his werewolf form.

And a nose, even though slightly crooked no doubt broken in some past scuffles that couldn't interfere with his so sexy it hurts looks. The Alpha took a step closer as if to test me. I could feel every hair on my head stand in trepidation. Or was it temptation?

" Next time you draw me, " Rodriguez said, " Come closer. "

" Oh.. Okay, " I sputteree like an idiot. And then, just as quickly as he appeared. Rodriguez Braxton turned and took off, leaving me by the river, alone. I sighed, feeling every muscle in my body ease.

It wasn't an everyday event to see the Alpha out of the pack house, the headquarters for all the pack business. Mostly, we saw the Alpha at gatherings or balls. Always something formal.

What had happened here today was rare.

I could already see, from the jealous looks of Rodriguez's adoring fans who had followed him down here, only to be ignored, that this could quickly spiral out of control. Even a whiff of interaction with a female, especially a young commoner like myself, would be enough to send the horniest bitches into a frenzy, tearing down the pack House wall just for a taste of him. An event of the magnitude was sure to stress the Alpha out. And a stressed Alpha meant a dysfunctional pack.

You get the picture no one wanted that I decided, wit the little light that was left of the day, I would finish drawing to clear my head. Just me and the river in peace.

But all I could see was Rodriguez Braxton's eyes. And how very wrong I had drawn them. The Alpha was right, I could do better. If I could just get closer. But when would I ever be this close again?

I didn't know then what I know now. That within a few hours the Haze was about to begin. That I was about to be a sex crazy beast.

And that Rodriguez Braxton, the Alpha of the South coast pack, was going to play at very prominent role in my sexual awakening it was enough to make a girl howl.