CHAPTER EIGHT - UNWANTED VISITORS

MONA’ S POV

“What in the world are you doing here Luka?” I asked, standing up from the blanket to look at him properly.

“I saw you go off alone with him, and I had to make sure he wasn’t trying to hurt you or anything,” Luka explained, as if he sounded normal to himself.

“Are you actually crazy?” I shouted at him, losing my temper.

What gave him the right to barge in here like this?

This was stalking at this point.

“Mona, you don’t understand, you don’t know Aster like I do. You should not be alone with him,” he said, stepping closer.

“Why can’t she be alone with me? Why are you trying to make choices for her? Did she tell you that she feels unsafe with me?” Aster replied to him, his voice high as he was starting to lose his temper.

“Stay out of this, I am not talking to you,” Luka fired back at him, his eyes still locked on mine.

“Mona, just come with me, I will tell you everything,” he persisted, staring at me with urgency reflected in his expression

I scoffed at his audacity, just who exactly did he think he was?

“Excuse me? You barged in on my date to tell me who I can and can’t be with?” I asked him, feeling incredulous. “Luka, I have said this several times before, but you barely know me.”

“I know enough to know that you can’t trust him, you don’t understand what kind of person he is!” he yelled at me.

“And what kind of person am I?” Aster yelled back, stepping forward. “I don’t remember inviting you over here and I certainly don’t need your help convincing Mona of who I am.”

I stared at them, looking at each other like a pair of cavemen about to burst into battle and I remembered the last time that happened.

“Can the both of you just stop?!” I shouted at them, stepping in between them as they glared at each other.

“Luka, you are acting like I cannot make my own decisions. I have told you before, I don’t need you swooping into my life like some self appointed protector.”

“You don’t understand," Luka said again and I rolled my eyes in annoyance.

Why couldn’t he just get it? I didn’t ask for his protection, neither did I need it.

His inability to take no for an answer was definitely another red flag

“I do understand Luka and what I understand is that you are crossing my boundaries by acting like this,” I said, looking up at his stormy eyes as they softened in regret.

“You have interrupted enough already, maybe you should leave,” Aster said to him firmly.

Luka looked from Aster’s face down to mine, sighing deeply and nodding his head.

“Yeah I guess this was too much—” he suddenly paused as a sharp snap echoed through the woods.

Did I just hear a branch snap? How could I have heard that?  I wondered looking up at Aster and Luka, wondering if they heard the same thing.

They both had frozen expressions on their faces, like they had realized something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked them, my voice echoing the confusion that I felt.

Asta’s expression darkened as he grabbed my wrist suddenly, “we need to leave. Now.”

“What? Why?” I asked him, looking at Luka and expecting him to disagree or something.

“We are not alone,” was all Luka said, his gray eyes scanning our surroundings with hyper focus.

“What is going on?” I asked Aster, beginning to panic as he dragged me with him.

Before we could reach the path we came from, two figures stepped forward from the shadows. As soon as I saw them only one word came to my mind – Danger.

“Well, well well,”one of them sneered, exposing his ugly yellow teeth. “Looks like we stumbled on a little party here.”

“This is not your land,” Aster replied to the man coldly, pulling me behind him. “You are trespassing. Leave now,” his voice low and commanding as he spoke.

“Aww that sounds unfair, we just wanted to join you in the fun,” the other man said, his eyes falling to me.

“Aster, we need to get out of here right now, something about this feels off,” Luka said, stepping closer to Aster like they weren’t at each other’s throats merely minutes ago.

“They are just looking for a fight, we can take them,” Aster said, flexing himself, ready to fight.

As he raised his fists, more figures emerged from the woods. Three, then five, then ten, the more of them came out the lower my stomach sank.

And then what Aster said earlier made sense to me, these weren’t ordinary wolves. They were rogues.

Of course, we get attacked by rogues on my first date, and here I was thinking that my shitty luck has changed.

“Still think we can take them?” Luka asked, his voice mocking.

“Well I was hoping to,” Aster replied grimly, as they stood with me in between. “But this changes things.”

“We need a plan,” Luka whispered as he counted fifteen of them.

“Mona, Luka and I will try to stop as many of them as we can, when I give you the signal, you have to run as far away from here as possible and call your father for backup,” Aster said to me, without looking back and I nodded at him.

My heart was racing in fear as we waited for the rogues to attack.

“Do you still want us to leave your party,” the man from earlier said, his mouth curved into a smirk.

I guess Aster did bring me here to die after all, I thought to myself as the rogues charged at us.

As the werewolves lunged, chaos erupted.

I moved out of the way, while Aster and Luka moved in sync, keeping me between them as they fought the wolves that came from other sides.

A claw slashed through the air, almost landing on my head, but Luka’s foot was there to stop it as he kicked the attacker away.

They were so fast, I thought to myself in fascination as I watched them fight the rogues. Aster used brute force grabbing two of the rogues by their necks and slamming them to the ground and it was then I realized that in that fight in the cafeteria, they had both been holding back.

Luka was faster, as he ducked an oncoming swipe at his head and sent an uppercut of his own, sending the rogue flying and crashing into a tree.

My heart raced in a mix of fear and excitement as I watched them, my hands were trembling as I brought out my phone. It was like all of a sudden I couldn’t remember how I had saved my father’s number and my screen was unresponsive.

“Get the girl!!” I heard someone scream and I looked up to find one of the men from earlier rushing towards me, I tapped on the phone in agitation and finally dialed my father’s number.

I backed away, just as the man was about to reach me, trying to run off, but as I turned, another man stood in front of me.

“Hello Mona?” my father finally picked the call.

“Dad? Please we are in trouble. A couple of men attacked us in the forest and—” I was suddenly cut off as the phone was kicked away from my hand, landing on the ground with a thud.

“Your daddy cannot save you,” the man who had kicked my phone said, stepping closer to me till I fell down, reaching for my phone.

“Hello? Mona?!” my father called, his voice reflecting his panic. “I know where you are, I am coming to get you.”

“Don’t bother,” one of the rogues said, smashing my phone.

I looked up at them in fear as they came towards me.

“Why are you so scared, don’t you want to play with us like you played with them?” The yellow toothed man said as he squatted to where I sat on the ground, his head barely inches from mine.

“Stay away from me!!!” I shouted at him as my hands searched the ground for anything I could use as a weapon.

Now my life was more like a nightmare than a prank.

“Better shut up or I will shut you up permanently,” the other rogue said, revealing his claws.

I brought my hands up to my mouth immediately, willing myself to keep quiet.

“What do you fuckers think you are doing?” Aster’s voice thundered angrily, as he finished fighting off a rogue and headed towards us.

The rogues turned away from me to face Aster. The yellow toothed rogue lunged at Aster first, but Aster was faster, his claws slashed at the rogue’s chest, making him scream out in pain as he stepped back.

The other rogue leapt forward with surprising speed as he tried to hit Aster from the head, but Luka showed up at the last second and caught him right before his claw could reach Aster.

The injured rogue glared at us as he saw his counterparts start to retreat.

“Till another time,” he said as he backed away, running as he held his chest.

I got up on my feet trying to calm my beating heart. I could not believe that we survived that.

“Are you okay?” Luka asked me, looking at my shaking hands with sympathy.

“Yeah… I… I just need a moment,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

“Let’s get out of here,” Aster said, grabbing my hand.

“Leaving so soon,”  a man asked from behind us and we turned back to see a tall menacing figure, glaring at us.

“If you want to leave this place alive, leave the girl and go,” he said as even more rogues than we had seen before, started walking out.

Why the fuck did he want them to leave me?

What did I do? I wasn’t even a wolf.

As if he had read my mind, his piercing eyes, locked on mine.

“You are the reason we are here, Mona.” he said, as I stared back at him, feeling dread.