Page 82 of Mate to the Alpha Predator

"Yeah." Eline nodded, "You have to be able to differentiate all these because you're a human and he isn't really a fan of your species. The male has blue eyes, amber is the wolf, and green is the cougar."

"Okay. Noted." Ismena commits that to memory, but something baffled her. "Why are you telling me all this? As you said, I am human, and I know your Specie does not trust mine...does not trust me. From what I detected, you all do not just reveal things to anybody."

Eline smiled, coming in front of a four-year-old blonde girl whose mother held her hand and she was waving at her with the other. Eline stopped in front of her, bent to the knee, and kissed the little girl's forehead. "How are you today, Anny?"

"I'm fine, Eliny." The little girl pipped in the tiniest voice before she turned and beamed at Ismena, "How are you, humany?"

"Humany?" Ismena asked Eline.

The other woman smiled, "She doesn't know your name, and you're human."

"Aaah." Ismena bent to the waist and kissed the girl's forehead like Eline did, "My name is Ismena, Anny."

"How are you, Ismm..." the girl seems to be having a hard time pronouncing it.

Ismena shortened the name for the child, the way her family calls her. "Ena is fine. And you?" Her hand caressing the girl's soft curls.

"I'm fine, Enny. Byeeeee." She waved at them as her mother gently tugged her forward.

They returned the wave. Ismena was smiling, "All these children are adorable. I've never really been around children, you know. It's only Valentina, my little sister, and I growing up."

"Oh, you have a sister? How old is she?" Eline asked as they continued walking.

"She's almost seventeen. Just finished high school. She always wanted to be a nurse. I told her that I'll be there when she becomes one." She swallowed tightly, "Guess, I wouldn't be there after all."

Eline was silent. Then, "You asked why I'm telling you all about the Alpha King even though humans cannot be trusted?" She took a deep breath, "Well, the truth is that I'm rooting for you and the King. He has suffered so damn much, it changed him and his perspective of life. You are his lifemate. He is alone...always alone. Surrounded by people but very much alone. It's so sad."

"Suffered? What happened to him?"

The silence that followed was deafening. They cut through another path that leads to their home.

Eline contemplated how much to say, and how much not to say. Not that she knows all the details—no one knows that but only the Alpha King and the other males involved.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I wouldn't like to put you in trouble with your Alpha King for saying things you shouldn't." Ismena said at last when she didn't say anything for too long.

They walked in silence after that, enjoying the soft breeze that followed the coming of the evening air.

"I don't see lots of cars here. In fact, I can't remember seeing many rides since I came here. I wonder how y'all get around..." Ismena confided, looking around the empty roads and sideways.

Eline chuckled. "We are changelings, Ismena, we get around just fine. We shift forms and let the beast free if we're in a hurry. Most of us are much faster than modern cars, you know."

Ismena admitted that to be true, her mind going back to that very night they were in danger...the night she took a ride on Wolfariane's back. "Well, that is understandable."

"I might not be able to tell you how the Alpha King suffered—maybe, not today—but I can tell you some other things. There are people called Wolfhunters." Eline's eyes flashed as she spat the name.

"Who are they?" Ismena asked curiously.

"They are humans, and they are monsters. They treat us like animals but they are worst than the deadliest animal in the wild." She took a shaky breath and forced herself to stay calm. "They hunt us to annihilate our kind."

"That is..." Ismena tried to find words to qualify it. "That is horrible."

"Other changelings they kill on sight, but werewolves..." She paused, pain flashed in her eyes, "They don't kill wolves instead they take them to their laboratory for...experiments. Mind-numbing, heart-stopping, excruciating experiments that have killed so many werewolves in the last decades and drove the others mad."

Ismena's heart reached out to all of them. "Why the experiments? Why werewolves?" She asked in a soft voice.

"Nobody knows for sure, but most of us think it's because they believe werewolves to be the strongest of all changelings. They want to know all our weaknesses and strength so that they can exploit them. Also, I heardthat they are trying to build weapons with our DNA. Living weapons they can use to command the earth and all its inhabitants."

"Really? How exactly do they plan to do that?"

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