Married to the Beta, Desired by the Alpha

PROLOGUE

I’m crouching low, hidden deep in the bushes, when his scent reaches me.

It curls around my senses before I can stop it—pine, blood, and something darker, something feral that makes my breath stutter in my chest. The scent is heady, overwhelming, a madness I shouldn’t want and yet ache to drown myself in all the same.

Before I can think—before I can remind myself of who I am or why I shouldn’t be here—I feel him behind me.

His presence presses into my awareness, heavy and dangerous, close enough to make my skin prickle. The air shifts, thickens, and suddenly it feels harder to breathe, as if the night itself has narrowed around us.

When I turn, it isn’t abrupt. It’s slow, almost reluctant, as though some instinct inside me already knows what I’ll find and wants to delay it.

Darian Raventhorn stands there.

Blood marks him everywhere—streaked across his bare chest, smeared along his skin, still fresh enough to glisten under the moonlight. Power thrums from him in violent, restrained waves, his body taut, coiled, as if he’s stepped straight out of a fight and hasn’t yet come down from it.

His gaze lifts to mine, and the moment stretches, unbearable and silent. Gold flickers through the darkness of his eyes, his wolf so close to the surface it feels like it’s watching me too, assessing, judging.

He raises his hand and wipes his thumb across the corner of his mouth, dragging away blood that doesn’t belong to him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice low, carefully leashed.

“I came to help,” I say, the words slipping out before I can weigh them.

Something tightens in his expression. His jaw clenches, and he gives a single nod—short, distant—as if my answer changes nothing at all.

Then the sound reaches us.

Paws against the forest floor.

Darian moves without hesitation, stepping into my space and pulling me with him into the shadows. His body shields mine completely, solid and unyielding, and suddenly he’s everywhere. His warmth seeps into me, his scent wraps around my senses until it’s impossible to tell where it ends and I begin.

My heart falters.

I shift instinctively, my shoulder brushing his chest, the contact brief but devastating. Darian freezes, every muscle locking into place as though restraint itself has become a physical thing.

I lift my gaze without meaning to, close enough now to see the tension carved into his face. His eyes fall shut, his jaw clenched so tightly it looks painful, as if he’s fighting something far more dangerous than whatever stalks the forest beyond us.

When his eyes open again, my thoughts scatter. The world blurs at the edges, narrowed down to the heat between us, the space that feels suddenly too small and far too charged.

I move closer without realizing it, drawn by something I don’t understand and absolutely should not want.

Then -

“There you are.”

Kael’s voice reaches us before I can pull myself away.

I stumble back, guilt crashing over me in waves, while Darian retreats with cold, flawless restraint—as though nothing had nearly happened at all.

But as Kael’s gaze flicks between us, I know one thing with sickening clarity.

If he had arrived even a moment later…