The Alpha’s Human Mate

The signal dies the second I hit send.“Halfway there. Still alive. No cult in sight yet.”I stare at the little red X over my bars, willing it to fix itself. Nothing. I drop the phone onto my lap and watch the road ahead: narrow, cracked, and swallowed by trees so thick they look like they’re leaning in to listen.The guy driving me—some friend of my aunt’s, I think his name is Warren—hasn’t spoken in over an hour. Just chewing on something, knuckles white around the wheel like he’s angry at the road itself.Fog hangs low across the asphalt, curling around the tires like it’s alive. Out here, the mountains don’t look like postcards. They’re darker. Sharper. The air feels heavy, pressed tight against my ribs.Something about these woods feels old. Hungry.“I’m not being dramatic,” I mutter, mostly to myself. “This is literally where people get murdered in horror movies.”Warren grunts. Not a laugh. Not an answer. Just a grunt.Cool.We pass a hand-painted sign, nailed to a crooked pos

I don’t know when I actually fall asleep. But when I wake, the light outside is pale and gray—the kind of morning where the sun never really bothers to show up.I sit up slowly, rubbing my eyes. My body feels tense, like I’ve been clenching my jaw all night.The room is quiet. Too quiet.I reach for my phone out of reflex.Still no signal. Battery at 14%.Perfect. Trapped in fog town, starring in a live-action forest horror movie—and no way to text for help. Not that anyone would care. My group chat probably thinks I ghosted them.I sigh and drag myself to the window.I push the curtain aside—and freeze.He’s there.At the tree line.Not a man. A wolf.But not any wolf I’ve ever seen. Massive, twice the size of normal, fur so black it catches blue in the weak light. He isn’t pacing, or sniffing. Just standing. Still as stone.And those eyes.Gold. Burning. The same eyes from my dream.They’re locked on me, and I swear—he knows I’m watching back.I don’t move.Neither does he.For a mo

IVY’S POV:I’m not asleep.Not even close.I’ve been lying in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, counting the tiny cracks in the paint like they might hold some kind of secret. They don’t. Just more proof this house is falling apart around me. The largest crack starts near the light fixture and spreads outward like a spider web, each hairline fracture catching what little moonlight filters through the thin curtains.The air is still. Too still. Like the walls are holding their breath with me.My sheets are twisted around my legs from all the tossing and turning. The pillowcase is damp with sweat despite the cool night air. Every small sound—the settling of old wood, the distant hum of the refrigerator downstairs, the whisper of wind through the eaves—makes my nerves jump.I check my phone again.1:38 a.m.Battery: 3%.No signal.I should turn it off, save what little juice is left, but I can’t. It’s the only light in the room, the only thing that feels remotely connected to the re

I don’t sleep much.Again.The pattern’s become so familiar I could set a clock by it. Three hours of restless tossing, maybe four if I’m lucky, before my eyes snap open like someone’s flipped a switch. Tonight is no different. The darkness presses against my eyelids until I give up pretending sleep will come, until I surrender to the inevitable pull of wakefulness that’s been haunting me since I arrived in this godforsaken town.When I do manage to drift off, it’s the same dream over and over—fog swallowing trees like hungry mouths, golden eyes blinking through darkness that feels alive and watching, and that pull in my chest like a thread winding tighter and tighter. The sensation is so real I wake with my hand pressed to my sternum, fingers splayed over skin that feels hot to the touch, searching for the source of an ache that shouldn’t exist.The dream always ends the same way. I’m running through woods that stretch endlessly in every direction, branches catching at my clothes and

I sip the coffee to buy time, to give my hands something to do besides shake. It’s bitter, hot, too strong—the kind of coffee that strips paint and keeps truckers awake for days. But I’m grateful for the taste, for something that grounds me in the physical world when everything else feels like it’s shifting beneath my feet.The caffeine hits my empty stomach like acid, but the warmth is comforting. Real. Tangible in a way that nothing else in this town seems to be.“You’re not normal, are you?” I ask suddenly.It slips out before I can stop it, before my brain can catch up and apply the filters that keep polite society functioning. But once it’s out there, I don’t try to take it back. Because I need to know, and because I’m tired of dancing around the obvious.Elias blinks slowly, processing the question. Then he smiles again—but this time it’s smaller. Sadder. Like I&