Alex hadn't expected a reply from Carter. Hell, he didn't deserve as much as a glance from the guy after all he had done, yet, somehow, he had hoped that he would receive some sort of reply.

He placed his cell phone in his backpack which leant against the wall as he walked past, picking up a pair of black jeans off the floor and pulling them over his hips. He walked shirtless over to his closet, stopping by the mirror on the way.

He hardly recognised himself. It wasn't that he looked all that different than a few months ago, but he wasn't the same person he was. He didn't think the same way, he couldn't allow himself the luxury of believing that he could be a normal seventeen year old, because he wasn't normal. Not anymore.

His hand came up to rest absentmindedly over the silver ring which hung by a simple chain on his chest. He had worn it every day since he got back from Italy, just to remind himself of why he was doing what he was doing. Why he couldn't be with Carter, why he couldn't be the same person he used to be.

He was about to move past the mirror when he caught a glimpse of the large mark on his shoulder.

The bite.

He rolled his shoulder forward, getting a better look at the tender pink flesh which was shaped like a large bite mark. It was placed on the juncture between his shoulder and collar bone.

He huffed, moving out of the way of the mirror, pretending that if he didn't see it, then it wasn't really there.

He walked to his closet, opening the draws to reveal a couple of black shirts. They were all similar so he randomly pulled one from the draw and threw it over his head. He pulled his bag over his shoulder and left his room to face the real world.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and almost smiled to see that his mother and little brother were flipping pancakes in the kitchen, laughing and talking. He stayed around the corner where he could see them and they couldn't see him. For a second he thought about joining them, laughing and asking his brother about who he was crushing on at school and asking his mother how work was going. He imagined ruffling his brother's dark hair and telling his mother that he loved her, but that wasn't going to happen. It couldn't.

He was going to walk past them, but he stilled his movements when he heard his brother, Jayden's, voice.

"Should I go ask Alex if he wants pancakes?" the twelve year old boy asked his mother.

Alex noticed that his mother took a few seconds before answering. "No honey, that's probably not the best idea. Your brother needs some space at the moment."

"Space?" his brother's young voice asked to clarify.

His mother replied in a tone laced with pain. "Your brother is just going through a rough patch at the moment."

"Oh."

"You know your brother still loves you, right?"

The silence that followed their mothers question was enough to break what was left of Alex's heart.

"Mom, what happened to him?" There was a hint of fear in his brothers voice, and the boy was facing away from him, but Alex could almost see the heart-breaking expression upon his only brother face. "Since he came back from Italy he has been acting so different."

"I don't know, but these things happen with teenagers. Alex will come back to us soon."

They went back to work, flipping pancakes. Alex didn't enter the room, instead he let himself lean against the wall, his head hitting the white wall with an almost inaudible thud. He wondered how his own brother could doubt his love for him. Of course, the young boy had no idea of the reasons why his brother was so distant, but that didn't make Alex feel any better.

He pulled his unwilling body away from the wall and walked at a somewhat fast pace past his mother and brother who stilled their moments as soon as Alex came into their view.

"Good morning Alex, have a good day at school." His mother greeted him, but he could tell that she felt like she was walking on egg shells around her own son.

"Thanks," he muttered under his breath, not meeting their eye line.

The second that he stepped outside he took a deep breath of the fresh air and let the sunlight bathe his skin. He was eternally grateful for the sunny day, as he always walked to school if he could, only taking his car on days like yesterday, where he would have probably drowned in the ice cold water just trying to leave his street.

Since he came home from Italy, Alex had realised that every time he was outside, able to breathe in the warm air and feel the pureness of nature, he could think more clearly. While walking to school every day he had found ten minutes of complete peace, where he could think without the rest of the world pushing into his every thought.

His mother and brother weren't there, making him feel guilty at every turn. Jake wasn't there to push him into doing drugs. Carter wasn't there to make his heart physically ache every time he looked into those big, hurt eyes and pretended that he didn't care.

The walk could have been all main roads, but that was pointless seeing as it was already hard to think, let alone trying to focus with the blaring horns and screeching of tires surrounding him. Therefore he added a few minutes to his route by taking a route through the forest, where he could listen to the quiet noises of birds high in the treetops, and watch as the sun peaked through the thick trunks of trees that had inhabited that stretch of forest for god knows how long.

Today, however, it didn't seem as if Alex was going to get the thinking time he desperately needed that morning.

The moment he stepped into the forest he knew that something was off, he knew that something had changed, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Friend or foe, he couldn't tell, but that indecision was enough to put him on edge.

Alex walked through the woods at a faster pace than usual, his eyes constantly scanning in between the trees that surrounded him for any danger that could develop, for any threat that could materialise.

He was almost out of the woods when it happened, when the smell hit him.

Two of them.

Faint scent, so they must have been in their human forms.

Something instinctively told Alex not to perceive them as threats, yet it didn't stop his already speeding heart rate from increasing and his hairs to stand up on end.

"Alex, Alex," a cold calculating voice spoke, "look at you. Did you turn into an emo rocker since I last saw you, little one?" The words came from behind him, and Alex growled, turning immediately to face the danger.

He was moments away from turning into his wolf when he recognised the two people who he now faced.

Cole and Archer.

Cole was a newbie, only being bitten a few weeks before Alex had been. He sported a hard jawline and even though he was young, he gave the impression that if you tried to joke with him, you would probably leave with a broken bone of some sort. Archer on the other hand was older, taller than Cole but still slightly shorter than Alex, and was able to meticulously hide his emotion behind an over confident mask, so well done that most people wouldn't even be able to tell it was there.

How did Alex know all of this?

They were in the same pack.

Alex was momentarily thrown back into a memory of when he first met these two wolves.

"Dad?" Alex poked his head around the door frame which opened into his father's office to see the man was sitting at his overly sized wooden desk hanging up a phone call.

"What is it Alex? I am very busy." His father barked out in his thick Italian accent, running his hands through his short, dark brown hair in frustration. Even though it was late at night he was still clad in his expensive business suit from the day, and important looking papers were spread out over his desk in what looked to be a random order, but knowing his father, Alex assumed that each document was specifically laid out in a precise order.

Alex was used to this, he had already spent three weeks with the man who, it seemed, would much rather spend each and every second of his time working then spend a single, solitary moment with the son he hadn't seen in over two years. In the three weeks he had spent most of his days missing his family and Carter, sending letters and messages to them and exploring the city alone.  

His father's face had gained an unimpressed expression and Alex figured that his father was probably mad at him for disturbing his work time, even though the sun had set hours ago and the two of them hadn't spoken since the few words exchanged at breakfast that morning.

"The internet isn't working, and I promised Carter I would video call him," Alex explained to the man he had only met a handful of times. 

His father shook his head as if the internet problems could be all blamed on his son. "I will call someone in the morning to fix it, you can video chat him tomorrow."

"I promised that I would do it today," Alex muttered.

His father payed no attention to his sons problem, instead his attention dropped to the desk where his phone was ringing again.

"I don't have time for your whining Alexander." His father then made a motion for him to leave as he picked up the phone with his other hand. 

Alex wondered why he had even come to Italy. When his father had called and invited him to come for a visit he had really thought the man had changed and wanted to be in his life, but when he arrived he discovered the same man who sent birthday cards three weeks late and came to visit only when he had business in America.

Frustrated, Alex left the room and almost reached for his phone in his pocket before he remembered that he had left the device in a cab the day before, and now had to go and buy a new one.

Alex could almost imagine Carter at home, sitting at his laptop and waiting for him, and the image caused him to cringe in disgust with himself. He wasn't the type of person to break promises, and the idea of disappointing Carter was more than he could take.

He took a quick look at the clock which sat upon the wall in his father's upscale apartment, eleven pm. He remembered seeing an internet café a few minutes' walk from his father's apartment, and decided that he had to at least try to get in contact with Carter, if not to just let the boy brighten his day after the irritating encounter with his father. 

Alex grabbed some money from his father's wallet and his coat from the wall before heading for the front door. He doubted that his father would even notice his absence for an hour or two. 

The second he left the safety of the apartment and stepped into the darkness that lurked outside, Alex felt a chill run down his spine. He didn't know how safe these foreign streets were at night, and the sudden realisation of the lack of street lamps only furthered the small fear that sat at the pit of his stomach. Alex had overheard some tourists talking while at a café in the first few days he had been in the city, and they were saying something about wolf sightings in the area, most believed that they were lies, but apparently some swore they had seen the wolves.

In the papers, which Alex had tried to read with not a lot of luck, he had seen that the city had many missing persons, in fact, that area had more missing persons than most of the cities in the country, even though it was small.

Wolves and kidnappers.

Great.

Just great.

The city he was in wasn't huge, but it was up and coming and there seemed to be building projects on every street corner, setting the scene for what would one day be filled to the brim with companies and businesses. Just outside of the city were small forests which Alex hoped wouldn't someday become urbanised, but he wouldn't put too much money on it.

He walked quickly through the dark streets, trying to remember where it was that he had seen the internet café. He thought that the memory would come back to him the moment he was on the streets, but at night, the city seemed like a totally foreign place and he couldn't seem to even remember which way he was supposed to be heading in.

He was close to giving up when the thought that he recognised one of the streets that he had ventured down the other day while exploring the city. He walked up to the street, which in this light looked more like an alley way than an actual street.

He didn't know any other way to the café, so he took the final steps and ventured into the dim light of the alley way. Darkness seemed to radiate from around him and he willed his eyes to adjust. Turning a corner he found himself faced in a crossroads of alleyway, with buildings lining all sides. He couldn't remember which way the internet café was, so he took a wild guess, turning left and quickly walking in between the large buildings in hope of finding a well-lit street.

Even in the alleyway, the cold air seemed to hit him and a chill ran up his spine. Alex tightened the jumper around him, bringing his arms up to fold against his chest as he avoided random objects which were discarded in the darkness.

He was looking down, stepping around a randomly placed trash can when his body suddenly collided with something solid. Alex would later deny that he let out a girlie yelp, but the frightened sound that left his mouth was seemingly unnaturally high.

He jumped back, bringing his gaze up to see that he had run into a guy. The guy was a little bit shorter than Alex, with dark hair and hard eyes. The guys face softened as he looked over Alex in alarm, taking a step closer to him.

"Oh, mi dispiace, stai bene?"

Alex had taken basic Italian at the beginning of high school but was quite rusty, even though he had been in the country for a few weeks.

They guy Alex had run into looked him over in confusion and worry. Alex could just see the guy narrow his eyes in the dim light.

"Stai bene?"

Alex straightened up, biting his lip as he tried to remember as much italian as he could.

The guy suddenly looked as if he had a realisation before saying, "Do you speak english?"

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, the guy may have spoken the words in a thick italian accent but they were unmistakably english.

"Yes, i do."

"Good, i was worried for a moment there when you didn't reply. You aren't from here, are you?" the guy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No i'm not."

"Are you lost?"

"Very," Alex almost laughed. "Do you know where there is an internet cafe?"

The guy nodded, "Yeah, there is one just after this street, come on, i will show you."

Alex was eternally grateful that this kind guy had found him, otherwise he was sure that he would have ended up wondering the back streets of the foreign city until sunrise.

"Thank-you so much, I'm Alex, by the way."

"I'm Archer." The guy smiled brightly, but something told Alex that the guy seemed a little too happy.

Archer lead the way out of the alleyway and into a well lit street, but as Alex was able to get a better look at this guy it gave him a gut feeling that something wasn't right. It could have been that the guy was wearing only light layers yet didn't seem shivery in the least, or maybe it was the twinge to his eye that reminded Alex of the movie villain just before the building explodes and the city descends into utter chaos.

He chose to walk a fair distance from him when possible, even though his mind kept telling him that there was nothing to be frightened of.

He saw a street sign, and realised that they were going in the opposite direction to where he remembered seeing shops, this way was leading them to somewhere he didn't remember venturing into before.

"Are you sure that this is the right way?" Alex asked Archer nervously.

"Of course, just follow me." The guy spoke confidently, ushering Alex to keep going.

Alex wondered where on earth he was being lead to, and was quite surprised when he ended up at the opening for another alleyway.

"Come on." The guy motioned for Alex to enter the dimly lit area, and he complied.

Alex stopped in his tracks when he noticed five or six guys standing at the end of the alley, talking loudly among themselves.

Alex turned to Archer. "Should we go back?" Even though Archer gave him an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, he still trusted Archer more than the group of men at hidden in the shadows.

"Don't stress Alex, these are my friends," Archer told Alex in his thick accent, and Alex almost felt like running back the way he had come, but the guys had already seen them and Archer motioned for him to follow as they got closer and closer to the group.

One man in the group seemed older than the rest, who looked to be around Alex's age or a few years older. This man must have been at-least twenty-five, a confidence seemed to radiate off of the man, who stepped away from the wall and into the direct light when the two boys were close enough.

"Archer, sei tornato, oh e guardare, avete portato un amico con te.' The older man said.

"Si Alpha, questo è Alex. Alex non è di qui, ma basta guardare a lui. Penso che sarebbe l'aggiunta perfetta al nostro pacchetto, ho ragione?"

Alex caught the words Alpha, Alex and pack. What was going on?

"I think i can find my own way, thank-you for taking me this far Archer," Alex muttered, turning around.

He stopped when the older man started to speak in with an italian accent so thick that he could only just understand the words. "American are you?"

"Yes." Alex hesitantly turned around at the words to see that now all of the other men had drawn themselves away from the wall also, looking at him with piercing gazes. One of the men suddenly stood out to Alex, by the fear held in his young eyes and the way his hands were shaking slightly. What was going on?

"Look at you, tall," the man stepped closer and looked Alex up and down as if sizing him up, "Strong. You will be of great assistance to our pack in the future."

"I'm sorry whoever you are, I have to go." Alex, completely and utterly confused and frightened, turned around quickly but the man caught Alex by his arm and slammed his body up against the cold bricks, causing Alex to gasp in surprise.

He fought against the man's grip, but that only make the man tighten his grip even further. Alex wasn't the type of guy to back down, but he had to push down his instinct to fight back in fear that it would only decrease the likelihood of him leaving this alleyway alive.

The man smiled at Alex and what made Alex's blood freeze in his veins was that the man's teeth were all as sharp as daggers, and he could have sworn that they were not like that only moments ago. The fingers which held his arm in place suddenly grew impossibly long fingernails which dug into Alex's fragile skin, causing stripes of blood to fall down his arm and drop to the ground from the tips of his fingers.

Alex's heart felt like it was moments away from bursting out of his chest as the man stepped closer to him, bringing his face to Alex's ear, where he could feel the warm breath as it hit his cheek.

"That's Alpha to you now." The man whispered before sinking his teeth into the exposed flesh at the junction of his collarbone and shoulder, causing searing pain to radiate throughout Alex's body.

'What are you doing here?' Alex spat out at the two guys who were standing before him, Archer sporting a smug expression while Cole was completely expressionless.

'Now, now, little one, is that anyway to speak to your brothers?' Archer nodded his head in mock disapproval.

Cole stepped forwards then, 'We came to bring you home, Brother.'