The Stargazer's Alpha

Ch. 10: Attacked

The sound of my scream and the attackers' gruff laughter hurt my ears. I cowered, wishing that Blake was there to protect me.

"She has a throat on her, doesn't she?" Bea the Elder said. Her voice was so cool and collected, shame cut me through like a knife.

You want to earn a Mark of Luna? Want to be worthy of Blake? Stop acting weak and protect these two old ladies.

I gritted my teeth, but opened my eyes. "The rogues won't touch you," I promised the sisters, though I had no idea how I could defend them.

"Ha! Let them try," Bea the Elder said.

I gaped at her, because she suddenly appeared taller, and this wasn't even the most amazing change. Her cheeks lost the rosy tint in favor of salt-and-pepper fur. Laugh lines around her eyes deepened into a harsh squint. Then, her features gave way to a wolf-like snout and bladed teeth, while her fancy outfit stretched with the ease of a superhero's suit.

"Woah." When Blake had shifted before my eyes last night, I was too stunned to even notice what had happened to his clothes. But his werewolf form was far larger, far scarier...something we could have used right now!

"Won't be the first time we put cocky men in their place, won't be the last," Bea the Younger growled at someone behind my back. "Fluffy, Puffball, have at them!"

I whirled, and sure enough, the second sister had also shifted. She struggled to open the French doors with her wicked claws—trimmed to perfect points, with a coat of pearly nail polish—and two tawny wolves hopped just outside the door in a growing frenzy.

My jaw hung so low, my tongue probably lolled out like theirs. I wish I could snarl like them too. And shift like Blake, and those two old ladies, and literally everyone in Grauberg, except for me.

Finally, the doors gave in, and the wolves crushed through the tailors' studio, scraping the floorboards as they skidded. Bushy tails waved like flags. The sisters charged after their wolves, all four beings howling for blood.

"Holy crap." Emboldened by their courage, I shook myself, picked up the skirts of my new dress, squashed the fear calling for me to run to the garden, and took off in the opposite direction.

Toward the rampaging rogues.

The once-serene shop met me with a scene of chaos and carnage.

An immense man in a studded leather jacket drove his bike through the biggest window. He still straddled it, roaring the engine to fill the room with violet fumes. Even through the dark visor of his helmet, hatred in his gaze sent a shiver down my spine.

Another one, half-transformed, pulverized Beas' display cases with a sledgehammer. Broken glass hailed on his clawed feet, size nineteen-ish, and crunched underneath them.

Tufts of fur pushed between obscene tattoos on his muscular forearms and chest, left bare by a jean vest flickering in and out of existence from his frame.

If anything, human parts made him look more beastly in his wreck-it fest.

The third intruder hung out by the doors as a lookout. He menaced the tourists with his tobacco-stained teeth, but he didn't shift. He laughed whenever someone lifted their phone and snapped pictures of the invasion.

I would have ignored him as a minor pest, except he was my freshly bitten jerk...landlord.

My stomach turned: a rogue werewolf had rented me an apartment! He tried to force me into cohabitation. I thought he was just a disgusting incel, but he was someone more sinister. How many others of his kind stalked the streets of Seattle, waiting to pounce on the next innocent victim?