Chapter 3

The man picked me up like I was a wet rag doll. “What a pretty little mermaid I’ve caught,” he murmured with a twisted smile. A shiver ran down my spine as he yanked my wrist to hold it tighter, but I had no strength left. When I looked at him more closely, he was hideous. His skin was greasy, and scars covered him. And on top of that, he was a bit overweight.

“I’m going to mark you, little cub,” he said in a lascivious voice, his eyes raking over me. “You’re ours.” He tried to tear off the animal skins that covered me, and I fought desperately.

“Don’t make this harder,” he added, tightening his grip. “You’re ours.”

My body reacted instinctively. Like a reflex from a civilized woman, I tried to slap him, though I was both angry and terrified. A strange mix of emotions boiled inside me. But when my hand struck his face, something was different. When I looked at him again, my nails, now long like claws, had ripped into his skin, and blood splattered into the air.

The man let out a roar of pain, grabbing his face as he stumbled back. “Damn it!”

As the overweight man staggered, a wolf appeared in the distance. He was… different. He limped and barely had any mobility. In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a thin man with a crippled leg. His ribs jutted out under his skin, his beard was long, his hair dirty, and his teeth yellow and rotting.

God, what is this? Aren’t wolves supposed to be handsome men? These are disgusting no matter how you look at them.

“You’re a difficult one, huh?” said the crippled man with a twisted smile. “Doesn’t matter, we’ll put a pup in your belly.”

Panic took over me. No! That can’t happen.

I looked around, desperately searching for an escape before the cripple could help the overweight man. Maybe I could handle one, but not two.

“Eva, help me, transform this body, attack his throat!” I pleaded.

“I don’t know how to do it,” I shouted in my mind.

“You’re useless as a human,” Eva responded, her voice laced with frustration. “You won’t be able to beat them.”

With an impulse of pure adrenaline, I punched the obese man in his lower parts, feeling his huge body slump forward with a grunt of pain. I seized the moment and started running along the edge of the river, looking for a narrower part to cross.

I ran, ran with all my might, the sound of the water and my own accelerated breathing echoing in my ears. But I didn’t get far. Only a few minutes had passed when I felt a brutal tug on my head. “No!” I screamed. The obese man had caught me by the hair this time, his grip strong as an anchor.

My hands instinctively went up to my scalp, trying to untangle his fingers, but it was impossible. He was pulling at my hair like he was dragging a doll.

“Let go of me!” I screamed, but my voice didn’t seem to affect him.

Screams escaped my throat, echoing in the treetops, as the lame man slowly approached.

With a jerk, he tore off the furs that barely covered my body, as if they were strips of paper.

“Damn you!” I screamed, my body naked and shivering, exhausted by both the fear and the cold that enveloped me.

Suddenly, the obese man pulled me so hard that I was knocked backwards, losing my balance and falling. The weight of his sturdy body fell on top of mine, crushing me as his hands clutched at my legs, trying to force them open. My mind was panicking, and my body was struggling desperately.

The crippled man’s whimper pulled me out of my fighting frenzy, but it was abruptly cut short. I turned my head just in time to see something terrifying: the fat man’s head went flying, decapitated, rolling to the side like a scene out of a war movie uncensored, brutal, and bloody.

His heavy body collapsed on top of me, motionless.

Oh my God… I gasped, the weight crushing me as I desperately pushed his corpse off to free myself. With one last effort, I managed to shove him aside and got up, trembling, looking ahead.

There, standing in front of me, was a man. His presence was imposing, and although I couldn’t fully process it yet, he was the one who had saved my life.

His hair was white, as pure as snow, but he wasn’t an old man. His eyes… God, his eyes were amber yellow, as if they held the world’s greatest treasure within them. His face was a masterpiece sculpted with divine precision. Handsome. Incredibly handsome. The perfect and harmonious expression of masculinity and beauty, with full, rosy lips, a square, chiseled jaw, and a bear skin cloak draped over his shoulders, leaving his toned abdomen exposed, crossed by a crescent-shaped scar on his chest.

My mind was blank, completely stunned by his perfection. It’s like I know him… I thought, trying to remember from where. But before I could continue in my trance, Eva’s voice rang out in my mind, breaking the spell.

“Mate!” she shouted, euphoric.

I, on the other hand, was too busy looking for scraps of fur to cover myself. My hands trembled as I tried to hide my nudity. “Mate? What are you talking about?” My head was spinning as Eva screamed with joy. And I’m the lunatic here, I thought, exasperated.

The man, without losing his calm and serious demeanor, stepped closer, and in a deep, steady voice, he asked, “Are you alright?”

“A female shouldn’t wander these woods alone,” he said with a cold, deep voice, his amber eyes locked onto mine. At that moment, I felt Eva emotionally pushing me or at least, that’s what I thought. Her euphoria was so intense that it made my heart race frantically as if we were sharing the same pulse.

I tried to stay calm. “Thank you… thank you for saving me,” I said, my voice trembling as I grabbed one of the fat man’s furs to cover myself. My hands were still shaking, but I tried to dress myself as best as I could. “Thank God you intervened in time.”

The man didn’t respond with the same relief I felt. Instead, his gaze turned colder, more distant.

“Save you?” he repeated, his voice icy. “Who said anything about saving you?”

I froze, confused, as the meaning of his words began to sink into my mind. Before I could react, more men appeared, emerging from the trees like shadows, each one armed and bearing a hardened expression. They moved with an organized precision, clearly experienced in battle. Ezra’s presence among them only reinforced what he truly was—a warrior.

This can’t be… I thought, horrified, as the cold reality hit me like a slap in the face.He’s their leader.