Ruby

My heart pounds as I run through the dark forest.

I’m not even nineteen yet, still a high school student, but I’ve been forced into a marriage to a man who I haven’t even met, and I don’t even know why.

The Lycan King.

When the King’s men came to me two weeks ago and told me that I would be married to the King, I was completely distraught.

Any girl would feel lucky to be married to the Lycan King, although I feel far from lucky. In my eyes, the Lycan King is a brute, an unlovable man whose family only ever cared for killing all of the hybrids such as myself.

The Lycan King is rumored to be ferocious, caring only for his arrogant family’s obsession with purebred wolves and killing all hybrids. I knew as soon as I saw my vision that if I were to marry the Lycan King, he would put my darling sister, Tamara, to death, because she is too human to survive in the werewolf world.

There’s no way I could be this brute’s mate, either; we’ve never even met, and everyone knows that wolves need to experience their potential mate’s scent before discovering whether they are fated mates.

Why would he want me, anyway? A common high school girl, no stunning beauty, a hybrid with no wolf form, only the scent of a wolf and scattered visions of the future that I can barely even control without excruciating migraines and weakness. I’m barely even a werewolf myself.

I much prefer the ways of humans. I love to read romance novels about choices and commitment rather than the primal mating rituals of the werewolves.

I dodge around trees, hiking the heavy skirts of my wedding gown up with my hands to help myself run, but it’s no use. I’ve been slow to move barefoot through these unknown woods, especially since I lack the werewolf ability to run expertly through the forests without a care for the pain in my feet. I can hear the Lycan King’s guards shouting far off in the distance. On my right, there is nothing but a sheer drop to the raging ocean below. To my left, a road.

I lunge into the road, waving my arms at the car. It almost seems as though the car will pass, leaving me stranded here, but then it stops just as the backseat window is adjacent to me. The window rolls down to reveal a man in a black suit and sunglasses, with an attractive angular jaw and shiny black hair that falls almost down to his shoulders. I gulp, feeling my face flush hot with a mixture of fear and attraction.

If this handsome man could steal me away from this unwanted marriage, even if he were to make me his own bride instead, I would not fight it.

The man looks me up and down, as if he is appraising me, before opening the door and stepping out. He’s tall, well over six feet, which makes me feel like a child at my small stature as I gaze up at his sharp jaw and muscular shoulders. Wordlessly, he steps out of the way with his hand on the door and gestures for me to get in. I hesitate for a moment, considering my options to run again if this man was sent from the Lycan King, but I know that he will be able to outrun me with his long legs; and, glancing at my bloodied feet, I know that I won’t be able to make it far with my pain.

I get in the car.

The handsome man slides in across from me and clicks the door shut. The car is luxurious, with two rows of leather seats facing each other in the back and a soft LED light setting the back aglow in a deep red that makes the handsome man’s black hair look even more fierce against his tanned skin.

I warily glance at the driver, who makes brief eye contact with me with bright blue eyes before looking away to stare out at the dark, winding road ahead.

“What are you doing out here all alone?” the handsome man suddenly asks. He has a deep, smooth voice that resonates like music in my ears. I can’t see his eyes through his dark sunglasses, although I know he’s looking at me.

“I’m… I’m…” I stutter, trying to come up with the right words.

“Running?” he asks, almost amusedly.

I bite my lip and look down at my lap, fiddling with the lace in my skirt, then nod apprehensively. My face flushes hot.

The man sighs softly to himself, then leans forward a little.

“Where are you running to, at this time of night, in the middle of the woods?”

I avoid his gaze, feeling myself begin to tremble ever so slightly with fear. If he is one of the Lycan King’s men, I will surely be whisked back to the castle and put under the watch of more guards. When they find out about Tamara, they’ll certainly kill her -- just to teach me a lesson.

“I… My grandmother,” I say on the fly, “she’s terribly ill. I’ve just received word. I need to go to her now, because there’s no one else to take care of her.”

I can feel the man’s expression harden. I slowly look up to see his jaw clenching and his fists curling up ever so slightly, and for a moment I am afraid. But then he relaxes again, and I can almost see a soft smile on his full, dark lips.

“You’re going to visit your grandmother in a wedding dress?” he asks. I nod hastily.

The handsome man clears his throat, causing me to jump out of my deep thoughts.

“So,” he says, “how old are you, anyway?”

“ nineteen,” I reply.

The man looks a little surprised.

“Well, almost nineteen,” I say quickly, to which he nods in response, looking thoughtful. I don’t want him to know that my wolf hasn’t appeared; hybrids with no wolf are the most hunted by the Lycans out of all of the other hybrids.

Just then, the car comes to an abrupt halt as a deer jumps out into the road.

I’m not wearing a seatbelt, and my small body lurches off of my seat with the sudden stop and directly into the handsome man’s arms.

His scent is strangely comforting, and causes something to stir in me, although I’m not quite sure what it is. The air in the car feels a little hot now as he protectively wraps his arms around me, and I just want to lay in his arms forever, taking in his scent. The car begins moving again, but I stay in his arms for a few moments longer.

When I look up, he is practically frozen in place, looking away from me and out the window with his jaw clenched so tight that I can see the muscles straining.

I look down at myself to see that a good portion of my milky white breasts have slipped out of my bodice. I hastily sit up and cover myself nervously as I try to stuff them back into the slightly-too-small cups of my dress.

When the dressmaker fitted me for my wedding gown, she had commented on how busty I am and had made a point to make sure that the gown showed off my assets. Despite the fact that I was being forced into a marriage I didn’t want, the gown was beautiful and fit my body well.

Under different circumstances, I would have treasured this gown.

There is a long silence before the man speaks again in his deep, smooth voice. “I hear the Lycan King is looking for his missing bride,” he says.

My heart begins to race again and I involuntarily clench my skirt in my fists, biting my lip.

“I also hear that Lycan Atwood is an old, hateful, unknowable brute, and I wouldn’t blame his bride for running,” I say, surprised at my sudden courage. “He and his family have done horrible things to the tribes. His greatest amusement is to make the wolves kill each other and then eat the flesh and blood of other wolves raw.”

The silence in the car is palpable.

I warily move my gaze up to the handsome man. As my eyes pass the rear view mirror, I can see the driver’s face. He looks like he’s holding back a laugh.

When I look at the handsome man, however, he looks grim, and is staring at me with a stony expression on his face.

“Well, here’s your stop,” the handsome man says glumly. “And I am the Lycan King.”