The Alpha's Hidden Mate

​The mountain didn’t just rain; it drowned.

​Water lashed against the windshield of my battered Honda Civic in angry, heavy sheets. My knuckles were stark white where I gripped the steering wheel, my chest tight with a rising panic I absolutely refused to let out.

​"Just a little further, old girl," I whispered to the glowing dashboard, actively ignoring the red temperature gauge blinking back at me. "Please. Just get us to town."

​From the backseat, a soft, disgruntled whimper broke the suffocating tension.

​I glanced in the rearview mirror, my heart instantly twisting. Eleven-month-old Milo was strapped into his car seat, his chubby fists rubbing his sleepy eyes. He was wearing an oversized yellow duck fleece that was supposed to keep him warm, but the heater had given out three miles back.

​He was all I had left. The only surviving piece of my sister.

​"I know, bubba," I cooed, forcing the sharp tremor out of my voice. "We're almost there. Thornwood Peaks is just over this ridge."

​As if the universe decided my desperate optimism was offensive, the engine gave a violent, metallic shudder. A loud BANG echoed through the heavy pines, followed immediately by a thick plume of white smoke erupting from under the hood.

​The car died completely.

​Fighting the dead weight of the wheel, I wrestled the Civic toward the muddy shoulder, slamming on the brakes just before we pitched into a deep ditch. Silence slammed into the car, broken only by the deafening roar of the rain on the thin roof.

​I dropped my forehead against the steering wheel. We were miles from the town limits. It was pitch black, freezing, and my phone had zero bars of service.

​Milo let out a louder, more urgent cry.

​"Okay. Okay, it's okay." I climbed clumsily into the backseat, wrapping my arms awkwardly around his small, warm body. "Auntie Aria's got you. I'm right here."

​I buried my face in his soft curls. I was twenty-nine years old. I knew how to run a commercial kitchen with my eyes closed. I didn't know how to survive in the freezing wilderness with a baby I was entirely unqualified to raise.

​Suddenly, a blinding flash of white light pierced the back window.

​I gasped. A massive, lifted black truck had pulled up silently behind us, its high beams cutting through the torrential rain. My heart hammered violently as I scrambled back into the driver’s seat, reaching blindly for the heavy iron tire tool I kept under the passenger seat.

​The driver’s side door of the truck swung open.

​Even through the rain-streaked glass, I could tell the man stepping out was gigantic. He was at least six-foot-four, with shoulders broad enough to block out the truck's headlights entirely. He wore dark jeans and a thick black flannel shirt that was instantly soaked, clinging to a chest that looked like it was carved from solid granite.

​He didn't hunch against the biting cold. He didn't run. He just walked toward my car with a slow, deliberate, terrifyingly predatory grace that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand at absolute attention.

​I hit the lock button on my door, the sharp click sounding far too flimsy to keep a man like that out.

​He stopped right outside my window. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating his face.

​The breath completely, entirely left my lungs.

​He was devastatingly, unfairly gorgeous. A sharp, unforgiving jawline was covered by a thick, dark beard that caught the rain. His wet hair was swept back from a fiercely rugged face, but it was his eyes that completely paralyzed me. They were an intense, piercing amber. In the shadows of the storm, they almost looked like they were glowing.

​He raised a massive, calloused hand and knocked on the glass. The sound was commanding, sending a strange, heavy jolt straight to the pit of my stomach.

​Swallowing hard, my hand trembling on the tire iron, I keyed the ignition to roll the window down exactly two inches. The freezing rain immediately spit against my cheek, but beneath the smell of the storm, something else slipped into the car.

​Pine. Crushed leaves. And dark, intoxicating woodsmoke. It was the most incredibly masculine scent I had ever encountered. It flooded my senses, making my head spin and my pulse jump in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with fear.

​"Car's dead," he stated.

​His voice was a physical force. It was a low, guttural, vibrating rumble that seemed to pass straight through the glass, wrapping around me like a heavy, heated blanket. It made my toes literally curl in my damp boots.

​"I'm aware," I managed to say, lifting my chin, trying desperately to ignore the sudden, frantic fluttering in my chest. "I've called a tow truck. They're on their way."

​The giant of a man tilted his head. He didn't look at my trembling hands. He didn't look at the tire iron. Instead, his piercing gaze dropped to my lips for a fraction of a second before slowly tracking back up to my eyes.

​He leaned forward, bracing his thick forearms against the door, bringing his face mere inches from the crack in the window. The sheer, radiating heat coming off his massive body was actually fighting off the winter chill inside my car.

​He closed his eyes. And he inhaled.

​It wasn't a normal breath. It was a deep, dragging, visceral intake of air, his chest expanding as if he were trying to draw my very soul out through the tiny gap in the glass.

​His massive hands suddenly gripped the top of my window frame. His knuckles turned bone-white. The heavy metal of my car door actually groaned under his grip, buckling slightly beneath a strength that simply shouldn't belong to a human.

​When his eyes snapped open, the amber color had vanished entirely.

​They were burning, luminous, terrifying gold. The pupils had narrowed into sharp, predatory slits.

​A sound ripped out of his chest—a deep, feral, chest-rattling growl that vibrated straight through my bones and settled low in my stomach.

​"Mine," he snarled into the rain.

​The word wasn't just a threat. It was a dark, violently possessive promise that made my blood run ice-cold, even as a shocking, undeniable wave of heat rushed straight to my core.