I Kissed The Supreme Alpha By Mistake

Maya's POV My feet were killing me by the time I got home, but I didn't mind. Not tonight. I'd spent the last two hours at Verity Bridal, sitting in a plush little chair while the owner pulled gown after gown off a rack of new arrivals, holding each one up against the light so I could see how the beading caught it. Three months. That's what I kept telling myself the entire time. Three months until I stood in front of the entire pack in one of those dresses, and Xavier put his hand in mine, and I finally became something more than the girl who grew up loving him. Luna Maya Cross. I'd practiced saying it in my head so many times it barely felt real anymore, which was probably why I still couldn't stop smiling about it on the drive home, in the elevator, unlocking my own front door like an idiot who'd just won something. I dropped my bag by the couch, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed into the cushions with my phone already in my hand out of habit. A few unread messages.

Maya's POV Every step across that ballroom felt like it took an hour and no time at all. The laughter behind me hadn't stopped — if anything, it climbed louder the farther I walked, like the entire room had decided this was the best entertainment they'd get all night. I heard Priya's voice cut through it, delighted, calling after me. "Maya, where are you going? Is he hiding on the terrace?" I didn't turn around. I couldn't. If I looked back now, I'd lose whatever was left of my nerve, and I'd already come too far to stop. The stranger watched me approach without moving, without any change in his expression at all, like he'd been expecting this the entire time and simply hadn't bothered to react yet. Up close, he was even more unsettling — tall in a way that made the space around him feel smaller, dark eyes that missed nothing, a stillness that had nothing to do with calm and everything to do with control. "You seem lost," he said, one eyebrow lifting slightly as I stopped

Maya's POV I watched from my third-floor window as the driver rounded the lead SUV and opened the back door, and for one absurd second, I thought about pretending I wasn't home. Turning off my lights, letting the buzzer ring itself out, waiting for whoever this was to give up and leave. Then he stepped out onto the sidewalk, and I understood immediately that giving up wasn't something this man did. Even from three floors up, I recognized him instantly — the same sharp stillness from the terrace, the same unhurried, unreadable calm, except now it was daylight and he looked even more out of place among the cracked pavement and overflowing recycling bins of my building than he had in a ballroom. He wore a dark coat over a suit that probably cost more than my rent for the year, and he didn't so much as glance at the small crowd gathering to film him. He simply looked up. Straight at my window. I stepped back so fast I knocked my elbow against the frame. By the time the knock c

Maya's POVI told myself sleeping in the car was temporary. Just for tonight. Just until I figured something out that didn't involve waking my mother at midnight to explain that her daughter had gone from almost-Luna to homeless in under twenty-four hours.The back seat wasn't built for sleeping. I found that out slowly, one aching muscle at a time, curled up under the one coat I'd managed to grab before the landlord's patience ran out completely. I told myself I'd just close my eyes for a minute.I didn't remember actually falling asleep. I only remembered the tapping.Knuckles, light against the window, patient in a way that felt entirely too familiar even through the fog of sleep.I cracked my eyes open, squinting against the grey morning light, half convinced I was still dreaming, and found Damon crouched beside my car door, dressed like he hadn't slept either, watching me with an expression that was working very hard to stay neutral."You have got to be kidding me," I said, voice

Maya's POVCassandra's phone dropped several inches, her arm going slack, mouth half-open around a word she didn't manage to finish. For one full second, I actually watched hope flicker across my own chest — watched Karen's face drain of color, watched the two of them look at Damon like he might actually be exactly who he so obviously was.Then Karen laughed.It wasn't a good laugh. It had a crack running through it, the kind of laugh people used when they were trying to convince themselves of something more than anyone else in the room."Supreme Alpha?" She pressed a hand to her chest, shaking her head like the very idea was beneath her. "Oh, sweetheart, no. Absolutely not."Cassandra recovered fast, latching onto her mother's certainty like a life raft. "Yeah, right. The Supreme Alpha, standing on this street, in front of this house?" She gestured at the cracked driveway, the sagging gutter Dad had never gotten around to fixing, like the setting itself disproved the entire theory.