Page 53 of Alpha Power

"I-" Wide eyes darted between her and Luther in surprise. "I have perfect hearing."

"So, you just didn't understand me then?"

The vampire narrowed her eyes, a flicker of red going through her blue irises. "I understood you perfectly."

"Great." Zamorra nodded, lifting her glass to her lips and taking a sip. She regretted it instantly. "Then, I'll have what I asked for. Thank you," she said, scrunching up her face at the taste of the wine.

Allora smiled tightly. "Right away." She looked back to Luther, plastering a huge beaming smile on her face which made Zamorra roll her eyes. "Anything else for you, Sire?"

"No, thank you Allora," he replied, a humorous expression on his face.

She nodded and quickly spun, blurring out of the room as fast as she could.

Luther's dark eyes studied her, his fingertips tapping lightly on the table as they stared at one another. She wondered what he was thinking about, what was going through his head right at this moment. Was all this - the dinner, the flirting, the overall niceness of the dark vampire king - just because he wanted to know her story? Why Barnabas was after her.

"Tell me the rules to your little game."

Zamorra chuckled softly. "It's not a game. We just ask each other questions. I ask you something and you answer. You then ask me something and I answer. Tit, for tat."

He leaned back in his chair, lounging like he was on a summer holiday as his eyes looked her over. He gave a brisk nod, then waved a hand through the air. "Alright. Go ahead."

She cocked her head to the side. “Seriously? Just like that? You're going to answer my questions,properly?" She had to stress that last word to him. He had a tendency to evade her questions.

Luther smiled broadly, flashing his fangs. "Yes. Now, it's my turn."

You idiot. You wasted our first question, her werewolf reprimanded.

"Wha-we haven't even started yet."

"I asked you the rules." He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table with his hands clasped together in front of him. "You ask a question, I answer. I ask a question, you answer." The corner of his lips quirked up into a smirk. "I told you to go ahead and you asked. It's my turn now."

Zamorra gaped. "Oh, you-" she shook her head in disbelief. "You think you're so smart."

Luther smiled and leaned back in his chair again, slowly loosening his tie. He undid the top two buttons of his dress shirt and cracked his neck to the side before looking at her and arching an eyebrow.

"Fine," she growled. "Ask away."

"Why is Barnabas looking for you?"

She laughed, genuine amusement coursing through her. "Oh, you played that well, didn't you?"

"Are you going to answer?"

"Yes," Zamorra snapped. "Jeez, impatient much."

She took a deep breath, trying to find the right combination of words to convey her chaotic thoughts. Pixies danced on the outside of the soundproofing field, the magic surrounding it preventing them from crossing the barrier.

"To be 100% honest with you, I don't know."

Luther gave her a blank stare, like he didn't believe her.

"I'm serious," she said, voice hard. "All my life that bastard's hunted me and my family, and I've never really known why. My parents used to be part of his pack-"

"The Shadow Pack?"

"-Yes. My father was one of his Betas, and my mother was... his prisoner. Life in a werewolf pack was extremely rough on females. Hundreds of years ago, something terrible happened within our community. No one is sure exactly what happened, but whatever it was, killed over half the female population. From that point on, women had trouble conceiving. There were major fertility issues in ALL of the werewolf packs around the world. When a female eventually did fall pregnant, four out of five times the pups were male. Even then, sometimes both the mother and child would die during the birth. It was like we were cursed or something. To try and increase numbers and bring things back to how they used to be, women are forced to mate with and give birth to as many pups as their bodies can bear. My mother often told me how hard it was for her to be passed around like some rag doll, from one male to the next like she was nothing more than an incubator for their young. She would always say how important it was for me to know all the horrid and gruesome details about pack life. That way I knew what would happen to me if I ever got caught by one. Which is exactly why, in those situations, I fight to the death."

Luther's jaw clenched as she spoke, his dark eyes flashing red. "The night you wandered into my territory?"

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