Eight

Just when I felt something inside me was starting to make a presence it vanished like it never appeared.

I had no idea what was going on with me but all I knew was I had to survive.

I kicked harder. Clawed at the water with desperate strokes. And finally my head broke the surface.

I gasped, coughed, and vomited river water. The current still had me, slamming me against rocks, pulling me under again and again.

Each impact drove the air from my lungs. My ribs screamed. My arms were going numb.

A branch. There—ahead—a branch hanging low over the water.

"Come on... come on..." I groaned, reaching with arms that screamed in agony.

My fingers closed around it. The branch bent, creaked—

"Hold... damn it... hold!"

It held.

I pulled myself hand over hand, every movement pure torture, until I could grab the muddy bank. My fingers sank into the cold earth.

I heaved myself up with the last of my strength and collapsed face-first onto the shore, coughing water and blood onto the mud.

For a long moment, I just lay there, unable to move.

"I'm alive," I whispered hoarsely to the uncaring night.

I was barely... but alive. But I had survived the hung from the werewolves.

The night was quiet except for the rushing river. Every step burned as I staggered to my feet and forced my body forward.

"No bike. No home. No family. Just me," I muttered, wrapping my arms around myself. The wet clothes clung to my skin, and I was starting to shiver violently.

I looked back at the river one last time. Somewhere down there, Ice was gone. The one thing I'd bought with my own money. The one thing that made me feel free. The one thing that was truly mine.

"Ice," I said softly, my voice breaking. "You saved me."

I turned to go, took three steps into the forest—

Snap.

I froze. Every instinct I had screamed danger.

"That wasn't me."

Slowly, very slowly, I turned around.

Dozens of glowing eyes appeared in the trees. One by one. Surrounding me in a wide circle.

My breath caught in my throat. "No... no, this isn't my father's pack."

The scent was different. Wilder. Dangerous in a way that would my father's guards seem tame. These wolves smelled like leather and gasoline and something primal.

A howl ripped through the night—but not behind me.

Ahead of me.

I was surrounded.

"My life just can't get easier, can it?" I whispered to no one.

The eyes moved closer. Then, one by one, figures stepped out of the shadows.

They weren't wolves but men.

Big, dangerous-looking men in leather jackets and chains. Tattoos covered their arms. Their eyes gleamed in the darkness. They moved like rogged predators yet deadly

My God!!! They were bikers.

And I knew exactly whose territory I'd landed in.

My father's words echoed in my head: "That rogue Alpha. That disgrace. Stay away from Aiden Stormrider's territory or you'll end up dead."

My knees gave way, and I collapsed onto the wet ground.

The tallest figure approached, boots crunching on fallen leaves. Even injured and exhausted, I could feel the power radiating off him like heat from a fire.

He was an Alpha.

Not just any Alpha. The Alpha of the rogue biker pack.

I tried to lift my head, to speak, to do something other than lie there like prey. But my voice came out as barely a croak.

"Who... who are you?"

He didn't answer immediately. Just looked down at me with eyes that gleamed in the darkness—hazel, intense, completely unreadable.

He crouched beside me, and I got my first clear look at him.

He was tall and muscular. Dark messy hair. A face that would've been handsome if not for the cold, strong expression.

He had a leather jacket, black vest underneath, biker gloves covering his hand and a chain hanging from his belt.

He tilted his head, studying me like I was a puzzle he couldn't quite figure out.

"Interesting," he murmured, his voice low and dangerous.

My vision blurred. The adrenaline was wearing off, and with it, the last of my strength.

My last coherent thought before darkness took me:

I had just left of the frying pan, into the fire.

Then the world tilted, and blackness swallowed me whole.

Just when I swore I'd lost them, the world handed me a worse problem: I landed in my father's enemy's territory. The biker Alpha — cold as steel, twice as dangerous.

Death had come at me once more when all I just wanted was to live.