novelraw Chapter 141: Hidden
Chapter 141: Hidden
Scarlett’s POV
"Full Moon Pack?" I whispered in disbelief.
"Yes, the Full Moon Pack," the girl added, her voice full of awe. "One of the biggest and most powerful packs in the entire world. Their influence reaches everywhere. To have an Alpha of that rank here in Nigeria... it’s all anyone can talk about."
I stood frozen, the charcoal armor suddenly feeling too tight. My ears began to ring, drowning out the cheers of the crowd. Why now? Why here? After three years of hiding, of building a wall between my old life and this one, my past had just walked straight through the front gate.
Through the dark visor of my helmet, I looked toward the entrance. The crowd parted, making way for a small group of high-ranking Alphas. And there, walking at the center, was Leo.
He looked more powerful than the last time I saw him. His presence was commanding, a wave of cold, sharp authority that made the warriors around him look like children. He wasn’t smiling. His face was a mask of stone, his sea-blue eyes scanning the arena with a restless, hungry intensity. He looked like a man searching for a ghost in a graveyard.
"He’s here," Zoe whispered, her voice no longer fighting me, but trembling with a strange, sad hope. "Our mate is here."
I stepped back into the shadows of the water stall, my heart racing with panic. I was covered from head to toe. No one could see my face. No one could scent me through the thick, treated layers of the suit. As long as I stayed quiet, I was safe.
But as I watched Leo take his seat in the high gallery, looking down at the field where I would soon be fighting, a terrifying thought entered my mind.
What if he recognized me?
I stood with my entire body trembling, watching him. Leo looked like a god of war carved from ice, his sea-blue eyes cutting through the humidity of the Nigerian air. Every instinct I had told me to run, to bolt for the truck and never look back.
But then, I forced myself to take a breath.
Why am I even panicking? I thought, my hands slowly unclenching from my sides.
I remembered the night I "died." The spell the sorcerer had placed on me wasn’t just for my death. It had woven a new layer into my very essence, masking my natural scent with something completely unfamiliar—something that smelled of desert rain and crushed herbs instead of the sweet jasmine and nutmeg he used to know. It was the reason the triplets’ best trackers had returned empty-handed three years ago. To the world, Scarlett’s scent had vanished the moment her heart supposedly stopped.
"He can’t feel us," Zoe whimpered, her earlier hope fading into a dull ache. "The bond is blocked, Scarlett. The sorcerer’s spell blocked us. We are nothing to him now."
She was right. The mate bond had been slammed shut, locked away. Even if I stood right in front of him and took off this helmet, his wolf wouldn’t recognize me as his own. To him, I was just a stranger. A ghost that looked like a girl he once loved, but felt like nothing.
I watched as Leo leaned back in the ornate chair of the high gallery, his expression bored and restless. He wasn’t here for the sport; he was here because he was an Alpha of the Full Moon Pack and duty demanded it. He had no idea that the "dead" woman he had mourned was standing fifty yards away, encased in charcoal armor.
"The human-form fighters, report to the staging area!" a voice boomed over the speakers.
I took one last look at Leo. He was staring at the horizon, looking miles away. I knew something was telling him that something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite point it out.
"I’m not Scarlett today," I whispered to Zoe, my voice sounding hollow inside the helmet. "I’m just a fighter."
I turned away from the gallery and began to walk toward the arena. I stood in the dusty area with fifty other fighters, all of us waiting for the signal. When the announcer gave the command, we moved into the middle of the field in a straight line.
"Warriors, pay your respects to the High Table!"
Together, we knelt and bowed our heads to the four Alphas sitting in the gallery above. My heart beat hard against my chest plate, but I kept my body still and acted like I was just another nameless soldier.
When we stood upright, I risked a glance through my visor.
Leo wasn’t even looking at the field. He was staring off toward the distant tree line, his jaw tight and his expression bored. He looked like he was in a trance—or perhaps just enduring the ceremony. I felt a strange, empty relief. He didn’t notice me. To him, I was just a dark suit of armor in a crowd of fighters.
Since he was looking away, I let myself do something dangerous: I looked at him. Really looked at him.
He was different. Three years had turned the boyish edges of the twenty-two-year-old Alpha I once loved into something different and strange. His shoulders were broader, straining against the fine robes he wore. He had grown taller, his posture more commanding. But it was his energy that truly stunned me. Even seated between three powerful Nigerian Alphas, Leo’s aura was so strong, silently suppressing theirs without him even trying. He wasn’t just an Alpha anymore; he was a king.
I became so lost in observing the changes—the way his pulse thrummed in his neck, the way his hands rested like stone on the armrests—that I forgot my place. My gaze lingered too long, too intense, too focused.
For a werewolf, a stare like that is a challenge. Or a trigger.
Suddenly, Leo’s head snapped toward the field. His sea-blue eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, cut through the distance and locked onto the dark visor of my helmet.
I felt a jolt of electricity shoot down my spine. The air between us seemed to vanish. Even with the spell, even with the armor, and even with the blocked bond, that single moment of eye contact felt like a collision.
My body went cold. For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
Leo sat up slowly, his boredom vanishing. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he stared directly at me. He couldn’t see my face, he couldn’t smell my jasmine and nutmeg, and his wolf shouldn’t have been able to find me... but he didn’t look away.
"He feels it," Zoe whispered, her voice trembling in the back of my mind. "He doesn’t know what it is, but he feels the pull."
My breath hitched, echoing loudly inside the helmet. I was the first to break the gaze, quickly turning my head to face the referee, my heart drumming a frantic rhythm.
"Let the matches begin!" the announcer yelled.
The first pair stepped forward, but I could still feel Leo’s eyes on my back. He was watching me now. Not the festival, not the other warriors. Just me.