Zach took long strides towards Jake and roughly pushed him against the counter, tightly fisting Jake's shirt in his clenched hand along the process. "Stay the fück away from my girl," he hissed, eyes blazing like fire.
Jake raised his chin slightly at Zach's ferocious face, seemingly so relaxed and satisfied with his enemy's reaction. "Dude," he said, smirking, "She's not even yours."
Zach gritted his teeth, knowing he was talking about the mating and some shït. "She will be," he growled.
Smirk fading, Jake's eyes turned dark as he pulled a deadly look upon his stern face. "I won't let that happen."
Zach clenched his jaw, now crumpling Jake's shirt in his intense grip. "Don't make me kill you, Jackson," he hissed. "Don't make me."
"For God's sake, I'm urging you," Jake retorted, determined while steadily keeping his firm ground in front of Zach. "I'm ready to fight for her."
"You don't understand, do you?" Zach hissed, eyebrows furrowing. "You can't fight for her. She's not yours. Will never be. She's not your mate."
That sentence in itself brought Jake back to his past. To his memory of Sabrina Elener, the woman he had deeply buried at the bottom of his heart.
His own mate didn't want him. She, of all people, didn't accept him. Nor who he is. Even after everything he had gone through. After all the things he gave to her. After accepting her faults and flaws, he loved her.
But she went and did some terrible things. She went and made things complicated. She broke his heart. Played with it. Torn it to shreds and pieces until there was nothing left to feel.
It was complicated.
He had never felt so much pain that sometimes he would just want to punch the wall until his knuckles would bleed. He didn't want to feel the pain, the heartache.
Until one day, he woke up and decided to change. Decided that he couldn't keep on feeling like being broken apart from the inside. He learned. He stopped chasing after her. Because he realized that even if he had thought they were meant to be, it wasn't love. Perhaps they were so different that they burned each other.
They were nothing but ashes until then.
So he let her go. She was now at the other side of the world. Being free. Doing whatever the hell she wanted. They agreed to this. They rejected each other. Better free rather than holding on to something that wouldn't last forever. She was the adventurous kind of girl, he knew that, and he was the Alpha. It wouldn't work.
So he gave up.
But then there was this beautiful girl he had caught at first sight and fell in love with. Anna. There was just something intriguing about her. Her sweet scent, maybe. Her evergreen and deep oceanic eyes. She was pure innocence. She was different. She was human. She has the kind of love he wanted. She has that nature of humankind: kind, simple, and beautiful.
She was making him feel like he would always want to protect her from the world of evil or even from the world of deadly werewolves, rogues. She was making him feel wanted. Even if just as a friend. But he wanted to change that. He wanted to be something more to her.
And now, he wouldn't settle for something or someone less than he deserves. He would go and fight for what he wants. He is an Alpha, after all. It was in his nature.
"Watch me steal her, Zach," Jake hissed. "Away from you."
"Watch me kill you even before you can touch her," Zach growled.
"Please, stop," Anna's pleading voice echoed through the intense atmosphere of the kitchen room, slowly sipping through their naïve ears. "Zach, please."
Gritting his teeth, Zach sighed and slightly pulled away from Jake, keeping a deadly glare to match his enemy's eyes.
Anna lightly tugged on Zach's hand, causing him to look down at her, his face softening at the sight of her scared beautiful face. It wasn't her fault, Zach had told himself. In fact, he had always known that even if he himself would leave her alone, broken, and crushed, she would always find someone better. Someone who would heal her. And she would always be loved.
He didn't want that. He didn't want to let her go and watch her falling in love with someone else. It would break his heart apart.
Zach took a deep breath to relax the anger radiating through him. Anna was looking up at him with a concerned scared look upon her face. Her hands were at his sides, keeping him still from attacking Jake. Was she trying to protect Jake from him? he thought. Just knowing she cared for some other man slashed a wound upon his heart.
Sighing softly, he gently cupped Anna's face with his large hands and looked deep into her evergreen eyes. "Baby, did he hurt you?" he asked softly. "Do you want me to rip his head off?"
Anna's eyes widened at his scary explicit words and yet with a very soft deep voice. It was clear he wanted her to nod her head absentmindedly. She had sensed that he was very angry at the moment and very determined to kill Jake, as if right now and right here.
But it wasn't right. She didn't want to ignite fire between two Alphas. She didn't want to cause trouble. Zach had to understand that she could have friends of her own and that was inevitable. And Jake had to understand that she belongs to someone else.
"No. No," she said, eyebrows furrowing. "I don't want that, Zach. Please, don't kill him."
She was deadly sure he was seconds away from ripping Jake's head off. Though she knew he had anger issues, Keira and the company had filled her head in with details, saying things that Alphas liked to do and didn't like to do.
If there was one thing she clearly remembered, it was the fact that Alphas get easily angry. Not to mention they always, always liked revenge. One way or another.
"As you wish," came his sincere yet malicious murmur upon her lips. She didn't know if he was exactly giving up or he was just backing up in the mere moment for her sake.
Nevertheless, she watched patiently as he sighed and closed his eyes. Gently cupping her face, he lowered his head and descended his mouth down upon hers, softly kissing her plump parted lips.
Not even having enough time to focus on anything else, her eyes closed instantly at the feel of his soft yet demanding lips and her hands gingerly held his wrists as he gently cupped her face, tracing his fingers upon her flushed cheeks.
It probably took a moment or perhaps a lifetime as it seemed to her until they were already deeply kissing each other, senseless. He wasn't in the mood to pull away and she didn't know what to do about it. She had no choice but to get lost in the kiss and forget everything else in her surroundings.
Just as the kiss was almost choking the air out of her, she pulled back abruptly from his sinful lips and gasped in surprise as she heard a loud crash from the kitchen door.
Jake had roughly slammed the door shut and was gone. Just like that. As she realized this, she frowned at the sight of Zach's satisfied face. It would look like he had just won a war but to her he seemed like a happy little innocent boy who had just committed his first crime, his first revenge.
Suddenly, the kitchen door was opened, revealing a very confused Lola. The old woman looked suspiciously between the two and asked, "Why do I have the bad feeling that you two just bullied that boy?"
