[ARYA]

"Can I ask something, and please don\'t blow off my head," Ken carefully asked.

"Now, that already makes me want to blow off your head. Anyway, what is it?" Arya said with a slight laugh. She wanted the tension gone,  especially after what had happened,  but she knew it wouldn\'t be that easy.

At the end of the day,  their ranks would separate them.

One was a high born,  and the other was just a warrior. It was impossible unless they were friends,  but were they?

Could their interactions in the past few months be considered friendly, or were they all official werewolf business?

Ken didn\'t want to overthink about it,  but he hoped his head was still intact after all this.

"Did you feel the shift yesterday?" Ken asked, and Arya suddenly stepped on the break in the middle of the road, pulling the warrior forward and hitting his head. He should have expected this with Arya, but he had hoped there would be a difference anyway.

He knew he needed to put on a seatbelt while in Arya\'s car, but he had hoped that the woman wouldn\'t ride the Lexus like she was high on drugs. Right now, Ken was sure there was something so wrong with his alpha. Poor warrior.

"Goodness, woman, I didn\'t want to die today!" Ken whɨnėd as he rubbed his head. That was also the price he had to pay for being tall. Now he was roughed up because he didn\'t wear a seatbelt, and he looked like he had been in a war with his unseen demons.

What if Arya was one of them, right?

"The shift?" Arya asked, ignoring the warrior\'s whɨnės about her recklessness. She wanted to know if she had heard him well or it was all just in her head like usual.

"Yeah," Ken said slowly.

"I did," Arya said, not leaving any room for arguments. What had happened could be addressed later,  not now when they were on their way to the mission and needed to stay focused.

"You think he will tell us?" Ken asked, clearly getting the message that the topic was later.

"Only when he\'s ready. And don\'t push him," Arya warned as she set them back on the road.

"Yes, alpha," Ken responded before adding, "Rohit already sent the coordinates."

"Key them in," Arya said as they drove out of the estate. It was a prominent place with several homes and apartments. Everything about it made it look like it was the ultimate home,  but the wolves in this ride knew where the house was. And it wasn\'t Todorov.

"Are you okay? I know you heal faster but are you—" Ken asked, worried about Arya. He knew so well what torture did to a person\'s mental health.

Sure the alpha was solid and unique in every sense, but being locked up in a place for three days wasn\'t something they could forget about. Not to mention she hadn\'t said anything about what had happened to her the whole time she was there.

She had come home bloodied and with no bruises, but there had to be something that had stuck with her.

Maybe Rohit was actually right this time. The alpha needed to have someone beside her all the time because who knew what she would do next? All for a man who knew nothing of who she indeed was. That was a gamble, but weren\'t they all gamblers when it came to Arya Knight?

"I am okay, and quit worrying," Arya said, trying to make the warrior quit worrying, but it was impossible. They had looked out for her for the eight years she had stubbornly remained in this realm.

They had been her guardians, constantly eliminating the threats before they reached her or taking her revenge for her. They always were there for her, with her, and if she needed anything, all she had to was tell them in the mind link.

Arya was like a sister to him and Enrique. They wouldn\'t just stop worrying.

"I wish I could," Ken said as they drove off in silence.

"You sure this is the place?" Arya asked two hours later when they made their stop. She wasn\'t quite sure this was what she had expected, but then the man she was after was a quack doctor.

Indeed, he wouldn\'t be hiding in a good hospital anyway. But still, this place looked way too pathetic to even for the quack, but what option was there anyways.

"Yeah, those are the coordinates," Ken confirmed, making Arya let out a defeated sigh. This doctor really was something else. They were currently standing in front of a cordoned-off manufacturing plant.

Everything about it seemed off.

The building looked so lonely on the outside and even the environment itself. Anyone could tell that there wasn\'t supposed to be any life here. No one could even think of coming to his place. The last they had seen of human life was an hour\'s drive away.

Arya, however, had to applaud the doctor because no one would drive to this abandoned place to look for him. It just wouldn\'t even make sense, not to mention this place had the radiation bears all around it.

Anyone who loved their lives wouldn\'t want to get in here, and it was a risk they knew would come back at them anyway. But Arya was here.

She was here to look for the man that has not given her peace since she found out her link to the man with a broken family and begun her own investigation.

"Alright, it\'s good manners to walk in through the front door of any house, and that is what we will do," Arya said as she parked her ride at the gates. She knew there were hidden cameras all around this place, and she also knew they had known she was coming.

They had already seen her ride and had already made plans to attack them, so it was pointless trying to be coy about everything. The least they could do was be themselves and not play the dumb hide and seek game here. After all, time wasn\'t on thor side.

One year was a short period, especially when all that was left of the year was just seven months.

Ken was skeptical.

There had to be something seriously wrong with this woman. Who even walked into a dangerous zone without looking out for enemies? Or maybe she was already sure there was only one team, and they had to be inside the manufacturing plant.

No sane person would risk their lives to come all this way just to look for a man whose face wasn\'t even known, but what if Arya knew the man so well? What if that\'s why she was sure she had made the right decision to come here today?