The Alpha's Claim

The smell of my own death was being replaced by the scent of him.

The silver blade had been inches from my throat and then, it was gone. The world didn't end in blood and silence. It ended in a roar that fractured the sky and a heat that turned the frozen border into a furnace.

"Traitor!" Rowan’s voice cracked through the chaos, shrill with a hatred that finally had an excuse to burn. "Kill the beast! Kill the witch!"

I scrambled backward in the snow, my breath coming in shallow, ragged pulls. Before me, the black wolf that was Kael Varynx released a snarl that was a physical force, a pressure against my chest that made the trees themselves flinch.

He was massive, his coat the color of a starless sky, every muscle moving with the liquid, merciless precision of a god of war.

Rowan lunged, his silver-edged blade aimed at the same shoulder I had just poured my soul into healing.

"No!" The cry left my throat before sense could stop it.

I lurched forward, but Kael was already there. He didn't just parry; he met the attack with the ferocity of a storm.

His jaws snapped shut inches from Rowan’s face, the force of his headbutt sending the warrior crashing into the tree line with a sickening crack of breaking bone.

The remaining warriors froze. Their eyes darted from their fallen leader to the black wolf whose gaze burned with ice-blue fire. Kael didn't give them the chance to regroup. He shifted.

The sound of bones snapping and resetting was a violent melody. When he rose, he stood tall, bare-chested, and utterly unmoved by the cold. The silver poison was gone, replaced by the clean, lethal lines of a predator.

Then his eyes found mine.

Everything else ceased to matter. It wasn't just intensity in that gaze, it was a claim. A tether of energy snapped between us, pulling taut at my gut.

Even my wolf, silent and useless for twenty-two years, let out a small, broken whine of recognition.

"Mate," she whispered for the first time.

"You," Kael said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that sent a shiver down my spine.

"Alpha!" one of the warriors shouted, shaking. "She's a witch-breed. Give her to us and we might let you walk."

Kael’s lips curved into a predatory, slow-burning smile. He didn't even look at the man. He walked toward me with the deliberate calm of a panther.

His hand rose, cupping my face, his thumb brushing a smudge of dirt from my cheekbone with a tenderness that felt like a brand.

"Your father sent you here to die," he said quietly. "And your pack is deciding which part of you to take first." His eyes lifted to the warriors, darkening to the color of a winter storm. "They don't deserve you. And I don't release what is mine."

His arm locked around my waist, pulling me flush against his hard, warm body. The scent of him was pine, steel and raw dominance swamped my senses. "Hold on," he commanded, and shifted before I could draw breath.

The world tilted. I buried my fingers in his thick, dark fur as he lunged into the dark. The forest became a blur of grey and white.

For the first time in twenty-two years, I wasn't the one being hunted. I was the one being carried.

The howls of my father’s scouts rose behind us, sharp and desperate, but they were losing ground.

No one could match an Alpha running for his mate. We crossed the threshold of No Man's Land, the air turning thin and clean as we scaled the high ridges of Silvercrest.

He slowed as we crested a peak overlooking a valley. Below us, the Silvercrest packhouse rose like a fortress of timber and iron, every window glowing with the orange light of a hundred hearths.

It was formidable. It was a cage of a different kind.

I slid from his back, my legs nearly folding. Kael shifted back in a fluid motion, standing before me in the moonlight.

He stepped into my space, his hand curling around the back of my neck, drawing my forehead to his. His skin was like fire against mine.

"They will see an enemy when they look at you," he rasped, his breath warm against my lips. "But they will look at me and see their Alpha. I have already decided what you are."

"What am I?" I whispered.

"The one who pulled me back from the dark." His grip tightened with possessive certainty. "The only thing in this world that is truly mine."

He turned, his arm fixed around my waist, and we descended toward the glowing fortress together. I didn't look back at the Nightfang woods.

The girl who had walked into that forest was dead.

The Moonbound had arrived.