The little girl sat on the rug at the center of a cozy living room, writing something into a thick writing book with her colored pencil.
So caught up in her work that she didn't hear the knock on the door at first. But then the knock turned into pounding that pulled her out of her imaginations.
She called up the stairs.
"Mom, there's someone at the door!"
"That should be Mrs. Dellany returning the food basket from earlier."
"I'll get it then."
The little girl abandoned her book and skipped towards the door. She liked their funny and jovial neighbor who always had a treat for her.
But when she opened the door, she didn't see the smiling round face, the familiar features of the woman from next door.
Rather, a man stood there. A very tall man with such broad shoulders he seemed mountainous to the little girl. Though he had white skin, black pictures covered his arms and most of his thick neck. The pictures were the same black as the wavy hair falling down his shoulders.
"Who do we have here?" His fathomless dark eyes sparkled with menacing interest as he looked down at her.
Behind him, two even more humongous men lingered in the darkness of night, their arms as thick as tree trunks and faces as hard as stone.
Unease fluttered in her stomach. There was something off about the man. Though his smile lingered, she sensed anger and fierceness brewing from him.
"Who's there, Audie?" Her father appeared behind her, but when she looked up, he regarded the strange man with an even stranger look, one she'd never seen on him before.
Rage.
"What do you want here?" Though his voice was calm, it held a silent snarl.
"That's not how to greet an old friend, Stephan."
The man licked his lips, and for a second, the girl caught a glimpse of a seriously pointed canine. "You have such a pretty little daughter. Sweet and innocent."
A growl released from the depths of her father's chest, but when he looked at her, he wasn't angry. "Can you go help mom sort the books in my office? I'll join you in a bit."
"Ok, dad." Though the last she saw of his face was reassuring, she wasn't comfortable leaving her father with that evil looking man.
She didn't go upstairs.
She hid beside a glass shelf of breakable items on the landing, and peered down the living room through a slit in the lower level of the balustrade.
The three visitors loomed in the house now, filling up the room with their menacing presence. They brought with them a darkness, a repulsive scent that the girl didn't like.
"You have such a nice place here." The dark haired man looked around. "So out of the way that it wasn't easy finding. Well, not that easy. Finding something is only the question of when for us sniffling wolves."
Her father faced him squarely. "What do you want, Xander?"
"You should know. After all, you've not been hiding out here for no reason."
"I am not hiding. I simply wanted a safe and quiet place for my family, free from all the drama and hassle of the pack."
Xander scoffed. "You can't escape your nature, Stephan. You would be a fool to think so." He paused, the tension mounting. "You betrayed me."
"I never betrayed you. You are plotting against the alpha of our pack. It is my duty to report your treacherous affairs to him."
Xander glared at him for a whole minute before his face broke into a twisted smile. "And what good has that done for you or anyone?"
Stephan shrugged. "I sent all the evidence to the pack council. You'll be receiving your due punishment for your crimes soon. Alpha Magnussen will make sure of it."
"It's quite unfortunate." Xander roamed around, staring at the pictures clipped to a family board on the wall. "Magnussen would not be able to do any punishing from where he is."
The smile on the man's face as he looked at her father made the girl's stomach churn. "It would be impossible for him to reach me from six feet under."
Stephan's body shook with barely restrained rage. "What have you done?"
"Magnussen was weak, backward and foolish. The world keeps evolving every second, taking the humans and other creatures with it. He chose to remain in the past, to keep us a secret and hinder our dominance in the scheme of existence. He needed to go."
Xander squared his shoulders, oozing arrogance and pride. "You're looking at your new Alpha. Yes, I killed him. He didn't see the dagger coming until his throat slit wide open. Foolish and naive to the very end."
The other two men now filled the space behind her father, seemingly keeping him from escaping from the wicked man.
But Stephan looked calm even in that moment, staring head-on at the stranger in the house.
"What do you want here now?"
"You're a good man, Stephan. I like your spirit. But I can't let you live. You know too much and you were too loyal to the Alpha before me." His voice hardened, receiving a wilder quality that sounded like the creatures of the woods. "Kneel before me. I command it as your Alpha."
"You are not my Alpha."
Moving with a swiftness that betrayed everything the girl knew as right, her father swung forward, catching Xander across the face.
Somehow, his fingers sank into flesh and dragged jagged cuts down to the man's jaw. Despite the blood that poured from the cuts, Xander barely flinched.
He sidestepped from a flurry of punches from Stephan to cease him around the neck. Something primal and otherworldly glowed in the stranger's eyes. The powerful muscles of his hand flexed as he pinned her father down.
"You were no match for me before." Xander declared, eyes blazing over the man in his grasp. "Now, as your Alpha, every move you make against me is beyond pathetic."
He brandished his free hand. The little girl caught the glint of long claws under the light of the overhead chandelier.
She watched, breathless and trembling, as the claws sank into her father's exposed chest. They dug in and pulled away with a chunk of pulsing red flesh.
His heart.
Stephan sagged to the ground, his gaping chest unmoving, his open eyes unseeing.
A whimper escaped through the girl's lips. Subtle yet enough for the man to hear.
His eyes didn't need to wander before finding her. He grinned.
On unsteady limbs, she got to her feet and started as fast as she could towards the passage.
But the man was already there. The sheer size of him filled up the way ahead.
She didn't need to look behind her to know that the other two men, the ones who'd stood by during the fight, blocked every other route of escape..
As Xander approached, the features of his face changed. His cheekbones expanded, his nose lengthened to a nozzle. Long canines pulled free of his lips. The skin over his arms darkened with coarse ink black hair…fur.
He transformed into a beast…no, revealing his true nature right before her eyes.
Soon he towered over her once again. This time larger than life. Deadlier.
Eyes glowing with hunger, he reached for her with a clawed paw.
The young Audrey Holland screamed.