Alpha Kael

~Jada

“There has to be a mistake.”

Niko had his back turned to me, dismissing me. I had tracked him all the way to his office, which was in a building I was technically not prohibited to enter. Which is why I had caught him right before he had entered. And at my presence, he did not look all that fazed. However, he should have seen this coming.

With one hand on the glass door to his office building, Niko looks back at me. He’s all the more intimidating when he’s irritated. All I want to know is why my Alpha’s name is upon my piece of paper.

His eyes drift down to the letter grasped within my fingertips. “I don’t make mistakes.”

“Clearly you have,” I say, wishing I had the piece of mind to speak less aggressively to the person who has a say in whether I stay in this competition or not. “I don’t remember there being a competitor named Kael in my group. Especially with the title Alpha!”

Niko sighs deeply, raising an eyebrow at me pointedly. “Is that sarcasm?”

I bite back some kind of retort on his stupidity. Being brash and abusive is not a technique I can imagine him appreciating. Or at least, reacting to in the way I’m looking for. He isn’t Mistress Cunningham, after all. This man is trained to use his words in his favour, which means me raising my voice will do nothing for me.

My teeth grind together. “I just don’t understand why I wasn’t given the name of one of my competitors. Like everyone else…”

“I don’t make all the rules,” Niko tells me. “The Alpha has the final say.”

He wanted this. Kael did. Does he purposely want me out of this competition, or did he throw a random one of us into the mix? Either way, this means I stand no chance. No one, me included, would be able to figure anything about the Alpha without total permission. Even the press, who make it their life’s mission to find something interesting about him have never released anything to the public to cause intrigue. It’s simple.

I’m done.

“I don’t know the Alpha’s routine. I don’t know where he lives, where his office is. How am I meant to find anything out?” I question, wishing Niko wasn’t giving me that stubborn look that insinuates he has no interest in helping me.

“This is a challenge, not a walk in that park. I give rules, not instructions,” Niko says surely, arms folding over his chest.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

My hands clench by my side, frustrated that this is getting nowhere. “I just want to know why. Why me?”

Niko doesn’t answer me straight away. He seems to be considering how to answer me. Clearly, he is worried about stepping over a line created by Kael. If I find out anything the officials that run this place don’t want me to, then I might as well walk myself out of the competition.

“I don’t have an answer to that,” Niko says, propping the glass door open to his office. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

And with that, he walks inside, and leaves me at the doorstep, dumbfounded.

***

Everyone had a strategy sorted by the end of the day. Aside from me.

I’ve seen Alpha Kael twice, and he said little and always left out the same door. When I tried to investigate where it went, I was scolded by unfamiliar trainers and told to head back to my building. So most of the day I’ve spent in the library, watching the way people observe each other. I had gotten so frustrated with my situation, I made a game out of.

Baylee had clearly been given Ace as a target. I assume he knows it too, by the way she obviously stares and made a point of joining him for lunch and dinner. I could have brushed that off as normal, however, I caught her spying on him through the library stacks.

No one as far as I’m aware has spoken out about who their target is, keeping to themselves as per there rules. I’m glad no one pressed me at least.

By the time night fell, I was angry.

Angry at myself for not being as confident as other competitors seemed to be, and angry at Niko for putting me through this. For not changing the name on the letter for me. Now there is no hope for me making it to the next part of the competition.

I sit at my desk, staring blankly out the window. The night sky is glittering with winking stars, the only thing here I feel like marvelling in. I’ve given up, I’ve decided. I might make something up when it comes to it, the consequences surely being less than if I snuck into somewhere I’m not meant to. Especially when I don’t know where I’m going.

As I switched my lamp off, ready to crawl into bed, something caught my eyes from outside.

A figure.

For a moment I questioned whether I was seeing things. Moving to the window, I place my hands on the sill, trying to get a better look out. There is in fact, someone out there, strolling under the buttery lights hung out from the building. From here, I can’t see who they are, but wherever they are going, they aren’t in a rush.

Sliding the window up, letting the cool autumn breeze wander in, I look out curiously. It doesn’t take me long to discover it was either a Silent or the Alpha. No one else is allowed to be out of the building at this time.

Grabbing a coat that had been supplied, I slip it over my shoulders and slink out. This is my chance. If it’s a Silent, maybe they will lead me to Kael.

If don’t sense me following them.

The mild night greets me as I sneak out a kitchen window, knowing the front door is locked and swarmed with cameras. No one is about at this hour, and no one would have any reason to be out. Except for me.

It takes me awhile to catch up with them, sticking close to the shadows and following the path I saw them go down. It’s toward the field, which is encompassed in darkness.

It’s Kael.

What tips me off, is the feeling I get when my eyes land upon his back. A shiver runs down my side, a sign that what I’m doing could get me in serious trouble. However, I need to know where he is going. This could be the information I need to succeed in this competition. It just means I have to risk everything…

From the back, Kael looks like a normal figure, although perhaps broader and taller. He wears a dark jacket over his shoulders, hair almost blending into the sight of it. It feels as though I’m watching an enigmatic shadow that vanishes into the darkness that conceals the field.

Blindly, I follow, quite a while after him. If he turns around, he will surely see me, but it doesn’t seem as though that’s his prerogative.

The darkness only seems to end when I reach the boundary fence. For whatever reason, a stream of light from the moon turns the entire forest that surrounds the area into a glowing wonderland. The glimmering light reflects off the leaves, leaving me spellbound. But only for a moment.

My target has a reason for being in this place. I need to find out what it is.

I hold back even further until he passes through the gate and wanders into the woods. Quickly, I slip through the gate and follow him, keeping within the shadows and close to the trunks of the trees.

Where is he going?

My footsteps are near silent, as I follow him, leaving at least five trees of distance between us. I don’t want to risk him hearing or sensing me. Nothing in his gait falters, as he confidently strolls toward another patch of darkness. I approach it with him, my heart rate skipping a beat when it encompasses him.

When I reach it, I’m overwhelmed. The darkness is so thick, my vision is covered in the ebony blanket, everything I could once see in front of me now gone. Including the Alpha.

Stumbling over broken boughs and loose sticks, I attempt to navigate my way through the darkness. How did it become so thick so suddenly? Kael clearly knows this place better than me, which means he has assumably powered ahead and this is all for nothing.

I stop.

Which way is back? I begin to panic, wishing I could wade through the darkness back into the light, I just don’t know which way to go. If I get stuck out here, I will have to wait until sunrise, and I won’t be able to sneak back into the building.

Something snags on my shirt, as I try to find which way I came. I brush it off, however it snags again, and won’t let go. What is that?

It’s a voice from the darkness that answers my question. And I know who it belongs to.

“Wandered out a little too far, huh?”