Chapter 1: The Price Of Survival

Ann's POV

A groan came through the cracked door of the abandoned storage corridor, freezing the blood in my veins but I leaned closer with my lantern trembling violently in my hand and peered through the narrow sliver of darkness.

My free hand instantly clamped over my own mouth, stifling the horrified gasp that escaped from my throat as disbelief gushed over me.

Inside the cramped and dusty space, Alpha Reginald Ashcroft had his Beta, Logan Fisher, pinned flush against the stone wall and they were kissing! Well, except it wasn't just a kiss but rather a violent and desperate collision as if they were trying to consume one another alive.

Reginald’s massive hands were tangled fiercely in Logan’s dark hair with his hips grinding into the Beta’s with an unrestrained hunger while Logan’s fingers clawed frantically at the Alpha’s broad shoulders, pulling him closer until there was absolutely no space left between them.

My mind violently rejected what my eyes were seeing.

This was Alpha Reginald.. the ruthless iron-fisted ruler of the Silverstone Pack.. the same terrifying Alpha who just last winter had dragged two young female wolves into the freezing snow and banished them to the rogue lands for kissing behind the armory. He had condemned them before the entire pack, calling same-sex bonds an abomination that weakened their bloodline.

Yet here he was, hidden in the dark and entirely consumed by his male Beta!

Looking at Reginald’s face, twisted in pleasure, I was violently thrown back to the day my life ended.

'Two years ago.'

I could still see the cracked wallpaper of my childhood home and my father clutching a wad of cash and I could still see the devastation in my mother's tear-streaked eyes as she tried to convince me I wasn't being sold like cattle.

'“You’re going to work as a maid, Ann. You’ll have a real future,”' she had sobbed.

For two years, I had paid the price of that cash with my sweat, my silence and my absolute submission to his household.

A sharp wet sound dragged me violently back to the present.

Inside the closet, Logan dropped to his knees so eager as his hands worked frantically at Reginald’s belt, shoving the fabric down. I couldn't look away, even as my mind screamed at me to flee.. I was completely paralyzed by terror.

Reginald’s head fell back against the stone wall with an unrestrained groan rumbling deep in his chest as Logan took his rock hard dick into his mouth.

“Fuck, Logan... yes,” Reginald rasped with his voice in a filthy commanding growl that made my skin crawl. “Deeper. You know exactly how I like it.”

His large hands twisted violently into his Beta's hair, forcing a savage rhythm. The sight was so wrong and so dangerous that my vision blurred but beneath the absolute terror gripping my heart, something else was happening to my body as the grandfather clock in the distant main hall began to chime midnight, marking the exact dawn of my eighteenth birthday.

As I watched the forbidden claiming taking place just inches away, a sudden and blinding heat flared low in my abdomen. It was an intense and throbbing ache that made my knees tremble and my breath hitch.

'My wolf.'

She wasn't just stirring.. she was violently thrashing against my ribcage, suddenly awakened by the intoxicating scent of Alpha dominance and forbidden lust.

I squeezed my thighs together with a soft involuntary whimper bubbling in the back of my throat as an unfamiliar and humiliating wetness slicked my thighs. I didn't want to feel this.

I took a shaky step backward, desperate to escape the sweltering heat.. desperate to flee before they noticed the sweet floral scent of an awakened omega bleeding into the stagnant air but my foot shifted slightly to the left.

The floorboard beneath my worn shoe snapped with the deafening volume of a gunshot.

Inside the closet, all movement ceased instantly as the wet sounds of their intimacy died in a fraction of a second.

Reginald’s eyes snapped open and even in the dim flickering light of my lantern, I could see his irises flashing rapidly from human gray to the lethal and glowing gold of a furious and challenged Alpha. His gaze locked dead onto the sliver of light coming through the cracked door.. locking dead onto me!

“Who is there?” his voice boomed, no longer the raspy whisper of a lover but the earth-shattering supernatural command of an Alpha whose darkest secret had just been breached.

And though something inside me told me that I shouldn’t… I did the only sensible thing that I could… I ran.

“Catch her!” Reginald roared from behind me.

I could hear heavy and panicked footsteps thundering down the corridor behind me... Logan was fast.. too fast. He was a fully grown and battle-hardened warrior and I was just a newly awakened and terrified girl who was still learning how to breathe with a wolf inside her.

I rounded the final corner with my bare hands slamming against my bedroom door and threw my entire weight against it, tumbling into the pitch-black room and kicked the door shut with my heel.

My shaking and desperate fingers fumbled blindly with the rusted iron deadbolt.

'Click.'

I slid down the door until I hit the cold floor, pulling my knees tight to my chest. I couldn't breathe.

They had seen me..! I knew they had. The Alpha would kill me to protect his secret just as easily and thoughtlessly as he had bought me.

I pressed both hands hard over my mouth, biting my own palms to muffle the sound of my ragged and sobbing breaths as I strained my ears, listening to the hallway outside.

I sat there in the dark for what felt like hours with my body trembling with terror and that lingering and agonizing heat of my new wolf. Had I lost them in the dark? Had they assumed it was just a random guard?

A fragile and desperate sense of relief slowly began to wash over my exhausted body and I lowered my hands from my face, taking in a deep and shaky gulp of air.

I was safe.. I just needed to pack my belongings and run into the forest at first light but as I inhaled, my newly awakened omega senses caught something that made my blood freeze solid in my veins.

It wasn't coming from outside the door. It was coming from 'inside' my room.

“Did you really think a flimsy lock could keep me out, Ann?”

Alpha Reginald was sitting on the edge of my bed..!