The Alpha's Hollow Mate

They call me Hollow.

Not to my face, not always. Mostly they say it behind my back, just loud enough for me to hear. When I walk into the pack store, someone whispers it. When I pass the training field, a boy howls at me, and his friends laugh, because they know I can't howl back.

I am twenty-one years old, and I have never shifted. No wolf has ever spoken inside my head, and none ever came on my sixteenth birthday like it did for everyone else. I'm just a girl in a town full of wolves, and in Blackthorn Ridge that makes me less than nothing.

But tonight, I was going to run anyway.

I pulled the stolen guard jacket tighter around my body and pressed my back against the cold pine tree. The forest was dark, and the full moon hung low over the mountains like a big silver eye. Somewhere ahead, the drums had started.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The Moonfall Run.

Once a year, the young wolves of the pack race through the forest to the old stone at Crow's Peak. The first twenty to touch the stone get picked for the Border Guard. That means a place in the pack, respect and pay.

Real pay. Enough money to free my mother.

I closed my eyes and saw her face. Mom, bent over the laundry at the pack house, washing other people's sheets until her hands cracked and bled. She has worked off a debt for nineteen years, and she never told me what it was for. All she ever tells me is the same thing.

"Don't worry, Sienna. One day we'll leave this place."

One day. I was tired of one day.

The drums stopped, and a horn blew, long and loud.

All around me, the forest exploded. Wolves burst out of the trees, dozens of them, huge and fast, their paws hitting the ground like thunder. Brown wolves, gray wolves, black wolves. The air filled with the sound of their breathing.

I ran with them.

I knew I was slower and that I couldn't win like this. But I had a plan. I'd grown up in this forest. I knew the creek path, a short cut no wolf would take because it was too narrow for their big bodies. On two legs, I could fit.

I cut left and slid down the muddy bank. The cold water soaked my boots, and I didn't care. My lungs burned and my legs screamed, but I kept going.

*Faster, Sienna. Faster.*

For the first time in my life, I felt like I could actually do this.

Then I smelled it.

Even without a wolf, I knew that smell. It was rotten and sour, like old meat left in the sun.

Rogues.

I stopped so fast I almost fell. The forest had gone quiet. The thunder of the pack was far away now, somewhere up the hill, and I was alone by the creek.

Then a twig snapped.

I turned slowly.

Three pairs of yellow eyes were watching me from the dark.

They stepped out of the trees one by one. They were wolves without a pack, thin and dirty, their fur in ugly patches. The biggest one had a torn ear. He lowered his head and growled, and the sound went right through my bones.

"Okay," I whispered. My voice shook. "Okay. Good dog."

That was stupid. I knew it was stupid.

The torn-ear rogue jumped.

I threw myself sideways and hit the ground hard. Pain shot through my ankle like fire, and I screamed. I tried to get up but my foot wouldn't hold me. I crawled backward through the mud, my hands slipping, my heart pounding so loud I couldn't hear anything else.

The three of them circled me, slow, like they had all the time in the world. Like they knew I had nothing.

I grabbed a rock. It was all I had.

"Come on then," I said through my teeth. "Come on!"

The torn-ear rogue opened his mouth wide.

Then something huge came out of the dark.

It was a wolf, but not like any wolf I had ever seen. He was black as midnight and twice the size of the rogues. He hit the torn-ear one so hard they both rolled into the creek. Water splashed everywhere. The other two rogues spun around, snarling, and the black wolf turned to face them.

He didn't growl. He didn't need to.

The rogues looked at him, and I watched their courage leave them. They ran off into the trees, crying like puppies.

But the torn-ear rogue wasn't done. He came up out of the water and jumped at the black wolf's back. His claws raked down the black wolf's shoulder, deep. I saw blood, dark and shining in the moonlight.

The black wolf threw him off, and this time the rogue didn't come back. He ran, limping, into the forest.

Then it was quiet again. Just me, the creek and the big black wolf standing over me, his chest rising and falling, blood dripping down his leg.

I didn't move. I held the rock so tight my fingers hurt.

The wolf looked at me. His eyes were gray like a winter storm.

Then his body began to change.

I had seen shifting before, a hundred times. But I had never seen it this close. His bones cracked and twisted, the fur pulled back into skin, and a second later a man was kneeling in the creek water.

A naked man.

I looked away so fast I almost broke my neck.

"You're hurt," he said. His voice was low and rough.

"*You're* hurt," I said back, still staring at a tree. "You're bleeding everywhere."

"I've had worse."

"That's not how it works."

He let out a short breath. It almost sounded like a laugh.

There was an old ranger station not far from the creek. It had been empty for years, but I used to hide there when I was a kid, when the other children threw stones at the Hollow girl. I told him about it. He didn't say anything, he just picked me up like I weighed nothing at all.

"I can walk," I said.

"No, you can't."

He was right, so I shut up.

Inside the ranger station, it smelled like dust and old wood. There was a lantern on the shelf, and I lit it with shaking hands. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, and somewhere along the way he had found an old blanket and wrapped it around his waist. Thank God.

In the yellow light, I finally saw him properly.

He was young, maybe a few years older than me. His dark hair was wet and pushed back from his face. His jaw was hard and his face was sharp, and those gray eyes didn't leave me for one second. I tried not to notice how good-looking he was. I failed.

The cut on his shoulder was bad. It was long and deep and still bleeding.

There was an old first aid box under the sink. I knew because I had put it there myself, years ago. I opened it. Inside were bandages, a bottle of alcohol, and a needle and thread.

"You need stitches," I said.

"You know how?"

"My mom taught me. She sews up the guards sometimes when the healer is too busy."

That was true. What I didn't say was that the guards never thanked her for it.

I poured the alcohol on the cut. He didn't make a sound, but his jaw went tight. I threaded the needle, took a deep breath and started.

One stitch. Two. Three.

My hands were steady now. That surprised me. Outside, the wind moved through the trees, and inside there was only the soft hiss of the lantern and the sound of him breathing.

On the fifth stitch, the needle slipped and cut my finger.

A small drop of my blood fell into his open wound.

And the world stopped.

It felt like lightning came up from the floor and went straight through my body. Heat rushed through my chest and into my belly and out to the ends of my fingers. My heart jumped so hard I gasped. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't think. All I knew was him, the warmth of his skin under my hand and the sound of his heartbeat. I could *hear* his heartbeat. And under all of it, something deep inside me whispered one word.

*Mine.*

I pulled my hand back like I had touched fire.

He was staring at me. His eyes had gone wide, and his chest was moving fast.

"What did you just do?" he said quietly.

"Nothing. I didn't — I don't —"

He reached up and caught my wrist. Not hard. Just enough.

"I can't smell you," he said. He sounded confused, almost angry. "Why can't I smell you? Every wolf has a scent. Who are you?"

Fated mates. That's what this was. I had heard the stories my whole life, how two wolves touch and the world stops. Moon-chosen, forever. But those stories were for real wolves, not for someone like me.

I had no wolf. So this couldn't be real.

It had to be a mistake.

"My name is Lark," I lied.

"Lark." He said it slowly, like he was tasting it. "Lark what?"

I didn't answer. I tied off the last stitch, wrapped the bandage around his shoulder and pulled my wrist free.

"You should sleep," I said. "You lost a lot of blood."

He looked at me for a long time. Then his eyes slowly closed, and his head leaned back against the wall.

I waited until his breathing went soft and deep.

Then I took the lantern, limped to the door and slipped out into the cold night.

I didn't look back. I told myself not to look back.

---

The sun was rising when I finally reached our little house at the edge of the pack land. My ankle was swollen and my clothes were full of mud. I had missed the whole Run, I hadn't touched the stone, and I wasn't going to be a Guard.

I had nothing to show for any of it except a hurt foot and a stranger's blood on my hands.

I opened the front door quietly.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. She was wearing her one good dress, the blue one she saved for funerals and weddings. Her eyes were red like she had been crying, but she was smiling.

"Sienna," she said. "Where have you been? Never mind. Sit down. I have news."

"Mom, what's going on?"

She took my hands. She didn't notice the blood. Or maybe she did, and she didn't want to ask.

"Garrett Thorne asked me to marry him," she said. "I said yes."

I couldn't speak. Garrett Thorne was the old Alpha, the most powerful man in Blackthorn Ridge. And he wanted to marry my mother, the laundry woman?

"We're moving into the Thorne house this week," she went on, squeezing my fingers. "And tonight we're having dinner with the family. You'll finally meet your new brother."

My stomach dropped.

Everybody knew Garrett Thorne had only one son old enough to sit at the head of that table, the man who took his father's place three weeks ago. He was the man the whole pack feared.

"Kael," I whispered. "The new Alpha."

"Yes." Mom smiled wider. "He came back early this morning. Garrett says he was hurt last night, fighting rogues by the creek. Some girl stitched him up and then just disappeared."

She laughed softly.

"He's already got half the pack out looking for her.”