Alpha Nocurne's Contracted Mate

The journey out to the last spot that had been scouted by the Enclave’s Specialist handlers and their direwolves had been
uncomfortable to say the least.
The standard black armored transport with tinted windows was not air conditioned, and the heat in the back was stifling. The only
breeze came from the window in the front passenger seat, where Lord Brarthroroz was seated next to an obviously tense driver.
The specialists that accompanied them sat in the front two rows, occasionally throwing worried glances back at the cages, as
Lexi grinned unashamedly at them from her seat next to Allen on the back row.
“Do you have to torment everyone that you come into contact with?” Allen murmured in annoyance as he rolled his eyes.
“What? I’m just being friendly.” Lexi protested with a shrug, her eyes glinting mischievously.
Allen raised an eyebrow at her as Lexi snorted.
“Look, I’m hot, I feel like we’ve been cooped up in this tin can forever and I’m already bored. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do
to keep herself entertained, beta-boy.” She winked.
“It wouldn’t be so damn hot if you hadn’t brought those...those things with us for a ride along.” Allen grumbled as he glanced
back at the cage, “I don’t know why you couldn’t just teleport them in when we arrived.”
“Don’t you listen to the grumpy old smelly furball, my poor little babies” Lexi gushed as she crouched down in front of the metal
grill and stuck a few f*ingers through to scratch under the chin of one of the sinister looking hellhounds, “The big old meanie just
doesn’t appreciate your uniqueness, does he?”
The hellhound’s eyes seemed to glaze over as its eyelids lowered in an expression of what seemed to Allen, to look like ecstasy.
He shuddered at the eerie turquoise light that seemed to penetrate the hounds eyelids with their unnatural light and glanced
across in sympathy at the enormous direwolves that huddled together in the corner of the cage, eyeing the beasts and their
clearly insane mistress with suspicion and a healthy dose of fear.
“I sometimes wonder what goes on inside your head.” Allen murmured with a mixture of awe and disgust.
“A pretty gooey mix of sass, s****l depravity and an incredible amount of time devoted to thinking about cake, surprisingly
enough,” She answered offhandedly as the hellhound pushed its snout against the metal grill and she planted a gentle k*iss on
it, before standing and taking her seat next to Allen again.

The only sound in the silence of the van otherthan the hum of the motor, was Lexi’s contented sigh and Lord Brarthroroz’s deep
chuckle from the front of the van.
After a few hours of constant motion, they pulled off onto a dirt track that abruptly ended a short way along and they continued
on through the overgrown field towards the edge of the sprawling forest that lay in front of them.
The closer they got, the more excited the hellhounds became, nudging at the heavy doors of the back of the van as if eager to be
off.
The van pulled to a stop and they exited the vehicle, the team that had traveled with them, hanging back a short way and making
themselves look busy as Lexi sauntered past them with a snort.
“Amateurs.” She muttered with a shake of her head as she flipped the latch on the outside of the van and flung them wide.
As soon as she did, the hellhounds were out and fussing around her as she giggled like a child, and the dire wolves that had
shared the cage with them slunk past them carefully before bolting to their handlers.
“Anyone would think you were frolicking in a field with a bunch of cute little puppies.. .not fully grown hellhounds.” Allen sneered.
Lexi scowled over her shoulder at him at the same time as the unlikely pets focused their full attention on him and bared their
teeth in a viscous snarl, growling lightly. Allen swallowed nervously, suddenly feeling very vulnerable.
“Just so you know Allen, these three hounds are puppies...and they are as intelligent as you or I,” Lord Brarthroroz advised as
he leaned in by his ear, making him jump slightly, “I would be careful what you say. They understand every word.”
Allen blinked at him dumbly with wide eyes, at a loss for words as Lord Brarthroroz wandered over to the so-called puppies and
indulged them with the belly scratches that they were begging for.
“No offense Beta, but, aren’t you a little... I don’t know.. .freaked out by all this?” one of the specialists asked quietly as they
joined Allen to watch with complex expressions, the almost unnatural sight of an oversized Daemon Lord and his daughter
playing with the monstrous looking hounds as if they were harmless and not at all moments away from embarking on a
potentially deadly expedition.
“I mean, I suppose at one time, I would have been,” Allen sighed, “But I’m rapidly learning that I’m far more accepting of things
like this, the longer that I spend with my mate.”

The specialists exchanged complicated looks with each other and returned to their dire wolves, beginning to attach the
harnesses that held their equipment to them and Allen looked between the two groups with a resigned look.
He was part of two worlds that had collided in a spectacular fashion and for all the odd looks and whispers that went on behind
their backs, the sooner the shifters accepted and welcomed different species among them, the easier it would be to repel threats
like Narcissa and Eromaug before they became an issue.
He knew damn well that these specialists were going to go back to the Enclave with stories to tell about how terrifying Lexi and
her fathers abilities were, and some of those people who would listen would try to twist it to their own ends, planting the seeds of
discord that would further their own goals and divide communities further.
After all, at one time, Allen would have been among those people who would be all too easily persuaded about the potential evils
of Lexi and her father.
There would be comparisons between this Eromaug and Lord Brarthroroz, then the questions about what made them so different
from one another and what would stop Lord Brarthroroz from turning on them and working to destroy them, as his brother had
done for years in secret.
This mission to destroy the sites would be imperative in shaping the narrative around Lexi and her father once it was complete,
and it was just as important that they completed the tasks with minimal incident. That part at least, would be relatively easy to
control.
What was not so easy to predict, and therefore mitigate, is what they might find when and if they succeeded in restoring
communications. He could only hope that for Lexi’s sake, Greyson and his team were holed up somewhere and able to defend
themselves until help arrived.
Anything else could prove disastrous for them all. Lexi and her father needed to return as heroes, not as bearers of bad news
and cast as the villains of the whole ordeal by those desperate to see not only them, but Ann and Adam fail too.