I have passed this road many times and I always see this woman leaning against a brick wall as if she had just given up. She was always in the same spot and the look in her eyes just screamed death to my ears. This woman's tiny frame was always draped in filthy rags while her hair was matted to the point of no return yet her eyes were always hollow like her soul had left its shell early.

It didn't make it better when I saw how skinny she seemed from far away. The wind could literally whisk her away if it wanted to but even as time went on, I never really stopped to make sure that she was ok. She was a battered soul that had given up on life and I didn't have time for that. She looked like she had been tossed to the side like a used rag and I didn't have the nerve to clean her soul. So even as I passed this woman countless times and saw how broken she was, I just couldn't drive by while this woman pecked at my conscience.

"Janel."

"Hm?"

Janel was my right—hand woman and she was also the beta of my pack. Her loyalty to me was something to be feared and I wasn't the type of wolf that kept to the tradition of our kind. A woman can be just as capable as a man and a woman can be just as strong as a man, maybe not physically but I find that women can compensate for what they lack with other attributes.

"Stop the car when we get to the normal road, Janel," I told her while sitting in the back seat of this insufferable SUV that was required at all times for alpha transportation. "The one with the girl Alpha," Janel asked curiously and I simply nodded.

It would be an understatement to say that I wasn't interested in the woman that managed to remain motionless on the ground like some sort of doll. "Of course Alpha," I heard Janel say before everything around me began to fade into the background and I was left alone with my thoughts.

I'm alpha…

I never wanted to be alpha…

I never wanted a life like this…

In my world, everyone looks to me for guidance and in my world, my kind is stuck in the olden days in my opinion. The council values keeping our culture alive more than allowing us to move forward with the changes happening around us. Werewolves can't just stay in the middle of the woods and playhouse when the world around us has already made dragons extinct and cut elven numbers by eighty percent of their population.

Humans have guns…

They have numbers…

They have weapons of mass destruction…

We won't survive living like this…

"We won't survive," I mumbled lowly while trying to think of anything that would move my plans forward instead of the pace that they're at now but when I felt the car stop, my mind roamed elsewhere.

I wanted to know why I was paying so much attention to this broken woman and I wanted to know why she always wore the same rags, why she was barefooted, and why she could never meet my own intimidating gaze.

I thought my interest in women had died when my mate was killed in front of me when I was eighteen years old. I thought that I was basically dead inside when I didn't hear my wolf anymore but I was entirely wrong. After years of only hearing my wolf when important things came up, I could feel him more than I've ever felt him before and it was because of this woman.

"Stay in the car," I ordered Janel and she happily responded with, "Yes, Alpha Milan," before I got out to approach this woman. I could feel my wolf pacing back and forth and I even heard him howl with excitement when the woman had finally met my gaze.

I noted the smell of rain while looking at the girl who was leaning against a brick wall, her limbs sprawled randomly and she didn't move a muscle. This woman was stunning and as seconds ticked by, I felt like I was being suffocated by something that I couldn't explain. The girl looked no older than sixteen but I couldn't tell at all and when I heard the thunder crackling in the background I ordered the woman to get up.

She stood up and began walking away which threw me for a loop at first. Instead of going after her immediately, I watched as she walked away from me and watched as the rain began to pour on her tiny frame. The rain didn't seem to faze her but it didn't change the fact that I didn't like to be ignored. Maybe it was because I was a werewolf or maybe it was because I wanted this woman to acknowledge me strangely. So, as my stride quickly ate the distance between us and I grabbed her by the waist, locking her against my chest, I could feel my wolf coming back from the dead and I could feel something in me flicker as well.

The woman fought me every step of the way and it was hard to move her. She was strong and sturdy from what I was seeing and she still had a lot of fight in her. When I heard the door click open and met a pair of concerned eyes, "A—Alpha," I reassured Janel before she could do anything else.