Fantastic. Another person who gave me orders.

I raised one of my eyebrows.
"What are you going to do if I don't do what you tell me?"

He approached me and rested his hand on my shoulder. "Do you really want to stay here?" He whispered close to my ear, then he lowered his hand to my arm and caressed one of my wounds. "I don't see that you're having a very good time."

I flinched at his touch. The pain from the blows became greater and greater after the adrenaline left my body.

He was right. I didn't want to stay in this horrible place but there was no guarantee that the other option would be better.

He is our mate, he can't hurt us.

How naive. I wasn't going to fall for that nonsense like my wolf.

We will go with him only because I don't think anything could be worse than this place. Don't get the wrong idea. I answered to my wolf.

Of all the moments she had to bother me, she chose the least appropriate one. I couldn't understand why she chose to use the energy she had left to convince me to follow that guy.

I grabbed the rogue's wrist to stop him from touching me. Warmth expanded in my hand which made me release it immediately.

"Lead the way," I told him.

He smirked at me, apparently he thought he had won the argument. We will see if he keeps smiling after he gets to see the real me.

"I hope you don't find blood gross," he commented, turning toward the door.

I followed him, making sure to step over my cousin and spit on him before leaving. It was a shame that I wasn't the one who killed him but I wasn't complaining about it either.

"You look better this way, rat prince," I whispered.

"Can you shift into your wolf form?" He asked me as soon as we entered the hallway. "It will be easier to escape that way."

"No."

"If we have no other choice our human form will have to do for now," he said, pulling two knives from his pants pocket. "Stay behind me, I don't want you to get in the way."

I didn't argue with him. I didn't have the strength to do it or to defend myself in case things get dangerous.

I could barely keep up with him as he walked through the mansion. My exhaustion was such that my mind began to block out the screams around us, they sounded like a murmur to me, it was similar to when a television was left on while I was cleaning. That's what the screaming and crying were to me, unnecessary background noise.

The rogue, unlike me, moved like a predator chasing its prey. His movements were precise, each one was probably calculated, and with a speed that surpassed all the people I knew.

Every now and then one of my uncle's guards would get in our way and they would die before they could see what was happening. The rogue finished them off without trying, he approached them without being perceived and stuck the knife straight into their throats.

He made it look so easy, I even dare to say he made it look elegant. His movements seemed like a cruel but beautiful dance, to the point that I started to wait for his next kill.

"Zaziel," someone shouted as we walked through the back door of the mansion.

The man in front of me turned toward the sound.

So that was his name. Extravagant. A good choice for someone like him.

Three people came running towards us. A tanned man who had a scar that ran vertically across his left eyebrow; another man with a shaved head and a tattoo of a crow on his neck; and a muscular woman with waist-length blonde hair.

"Is everything ready?" the woman asked, she sounded hopeful.

"Change of plans," Zaziel told them, ruining their expectations. "For now we leave early and she comes with us."

There was some disappointment on the faces of the three of them, it made perfect sense considering that they broke into a pack to get something, and in the end, they had to leave without what they were looking for.

Still, none of them showed signs of being against their leader. They must have had a lot of trust in him to follow an order like that without expressing any complaint.

The guy with the scar looked me up and down with his brown eyes as if he were analyzing me.

"Can I ask why?" he said, sounding more curious than angry at the change of plans.

"She's my mate." That was all Zaziel needed to say for the others to nod.

I resisted the desire to hit my face with my own hand. How could he be so direct about something like that? I wasn't ready yet to proclaim to the world that I had found my mate

"I will let Xara know that we're going to need her help," the woman said, taking her cell phone out of her pocket.

Suddenly, all the pressure of that day came crashing down on my body. My vision became blurry and my legs began to shake.

I had already reached my limit. I tried to fight back, too scared of losing my conscience when I was surrounded by unknown people.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Zaziel asked me.

That was the last thing I heard before I fell unconscious.

×

My head was killing me, I could feel the pounding inside my skull as if my brain wanted to escape.

I tried to open my eyes. They seemed to be stuck together, or I didn't have the strength to lift the weight of my eyelids.

"How is she doing?" I heard someone say.

"She has wounds all over her body, some are recent, I assume it must be what Zaziel saw, she also has other cuts, small burn marks, and scars on her back," someone else said.

Who were those people and why were they talking about me?

My mind, still confused, remembered part of what had happened.

I was free from my family but I still didn't know if I was safe.

After deliberating whether to let them know that I was awake or pretend to be unconscious, I moved the fingers of my right hand. It wasn't a very big sign, yet one of them noticed.

"I think she just moved," the first person said.

Dissatisfied with myself, I concentrated on my strength and managed to open my eyes.

The first thing I saw was the face of a woman who was very close to me, so close that her curly brown hair almost touched my cheeks.

"How do you feel?" She asked me, drawing my gaze to her full lips whose wine color stood out against her dark brown skin.

"Like a truck ran over me," I answered honestly.

She moved away from me a little after checking my pupils. "It makes sense considering you're malnourished as well as very injured. You're going to have to take things easy for a while."

"For how long? I need to start moving before my family finds me."

"Don't worry about it, there's no way they can hurt you while you're here. I'd say you're going to need a couple of weeks to recover, usually it would only take days but with you being so malnourished your wolf healing doesn't work."

"I know, that's what they wanted," I murmured, using my arms to lift my torso and sit up. "What happened to the pack?"

The other person in the infirmary came out of the shadows and approached my bed. He was the man with the scar, unlike the last time I saw him he had his black hair tied in a ponytail.

"They took a hard hit, they lost several of their members but it's nothing they can't overcome. I'd say they must already be preparing their revenge, especially after Zaziel killed the alpha's son," he said. "I'm Lion, by the way."

"Roselyn, but I prefer to be called Rose. Is the alpha still alive?"

"Yes. What relationship do you have with him?" Lion sat in a chair near me.

"He is my uncle, my father was the previous alpha."

"The one Callius killed because he betrayed the pack?"

"My father didn't betray anyone, he was too stupid to trust my uncle."

"Well, I really don't care about family disputes, what I need to know is if there's any chance they'll want to come looking for you."

"They're probably looking for me already," I started scratching my left wrist. "It's not that they're worried about me but my uncle was looking for a candidate to marry me, probably to grow his pack influence."

"Got it, we will increase the security just in case."

"When can I leave?"

"There's no need to hurry so much," Lion said. "Xara was pretty clear, you need to rest to recover, unless you want to go out to die."

"Whatever."

They seemed more interested in me than they pretended to be. I just hoped it wasn't related to my mate.

"Considering that you're going to be staying with us for a while, I should explain to you how things work around here."

Rules. Of course there would be rules. Even for a group of rogues they are apparently important. From the rumors circulating about them, I would have expected a group of savages ready to torture and murder anyone who set foot in their territory, but they seemed to behave like any other pack.

What a disappointment. I was expecting something more interesting.

"I'll take care of that," someone said.

Lion got up from the chair and moved it even closer to my bed. "All yours," he said.

Zaziel stepped into the light. He smirked at me and I hated how my heart raced just at the sight of him.

"Klaus is looking for you," he told Lion and patted him on the back as he passed him.

"Let's see what he found for me," said Lion before exiting the infirmary.

Zaziel sat up, spread his legs, and crossed his arms. He tilted his head and his gaze swept over my body, causing me to lower my eyes to my lap.

I have met many powerful men in my life because of my uncle, most of them loved to show off their strength and tell their made-up stories to boost their ego. They looked at me as if I didn't know anything about the world. I felt disgusted every time they observed me.

Zaziel, however, looked at me as if he was hungry, and yet, his presence told me that he was going to wait until his prey gave itself up. There was something about his gaze that for the first time made me understand why so many women fell at the feet of powerful men.

"If you still have doubts, I confirm that you are in the Rogues' lair. I bet you heard about us. Whatever they say I assure you it is much worse, so unless you want to get into trouble I would recommend you to listen well to what I'm going to say, okay?"

I nodded.

"I like you, little mouse, you seem to have an excellent survival instinct," he said, winking at me. "Let's start with the basic information. Even though we don't consider ourselves a pack, we have a hierarchy. I'm the alpha, Lion is the beta, and Artec, the other guy you saw when we found you, is the gamma. You're going to have to follow our orders as long as you stay here. Can you do that?"

"As long as they are reasonable orders."

"Don't worry, you are our guest, we are not going to ask you anything that you cannot do. The people in this group are dangerous, each one of us is a murderer and if you disrespect them some will try to attack you. Be careful with that, If you create a problem you have to save yourself."

"What do you do?" I asked. "If you're not a pack, why are you together?"

"We are together for protection, a lone wolf is an easy prey for packs. We kill, that's what we do, we destroy our old packs, sometimes we raid others to maintain our reputation, we have some allies, and we sell weapons."

"So you're like the mafia?"

He leaned his head against the backrest. "I guess you can say that, but we don't have that big of a network. At least not for now. Anyways, moving on to the rules. During the time you stay here you are forbidden from going anywhere in the mansion other than your room, the dining room, and the kitchen. We don't need outsiders spying on us."

"And outside the mansion? I mean to get some fresh air."

"You can open the window in your room if you want fresh air," Zaziel answered. "You can't ask questions about the group either, putting that aside I have no problem with you talking to whoever you want. And lastly, you have to follow Xara's instructions, the last thing we need is to have to take care of you if your health worsens."

"What do I get in return?"

Zaziel chuckled. "Win something in return? Sweetheart, you're not part of us, you can't ask for anything. Don't think that because you're my mate you'll automatically have rights. If you don't like our rules, you can leave. Go run through the forest in your weak state and see how it goes."

I clenched my fists. He was right, with a body like mine and without a pack I would be dead in less than a week.

"Okay, I will follow your stupid rules."

Zaziel stood up, walked to the edge of the bed and leaned his body over mine. "I see you have a fighting spirit, little mouse, that's an important quality here." He caressed my right cheek. "But you better watch your pretty mouth, that kind of vocabulary is not acceptable when you talk to those above you."

I didn't answer. I did not know what to say. Instead, I fought against my wolf that wanted to submit to him. No way in hell I was going to fall for him that easily, to be honest, I didn't even want to fall for him at any time. I would be better on my own.

Zaziel took some distance from me, put his hands in his pants pockets, and began walking toward the exit.

"See you soon, pup, I think we're going to have a lot of fun, the two of us."