Trapped by the Alpha King's Obsession

Jasmine's POV

"Sweetheart, come with me tonight. Name your price."

In the bar, a drunk grabbed my ass. I felt sick, but with my daughter's medical bill due tomorrow, I forced a smile at him.

My name is Jasmine. I'm a single mother. I was an Alpha Daughter, but now I'm a hostess at this bar.

Six years ago, my father was arrested, and overnight I lost everything.

Then I staged a scene, forcing my boyfriend who loved me deeply to break up with me. That night was ugly and brutal. But I had no other choice — I couldn't drag Dominic down with me.

After the breakup, I found out I was pregnant. Those years were brutal — as a rogue like me, I could hardly find acceptance from any other pack. Only a border town like this, belonging to no one, could give me and my daughter a place to belong.

The bar was called The Copper Fang, which told you everything about the kind of place it was. The smell of cheap whiskey and cheaper cologne. I'd been working here four years. Long enough to know every way to keep a man's hands off you without making him feel rejected.

"Drink with me first," I said, setting his glass down with a soft click. "Then we'll talk."

He liked that. Men like him always did.

I poured another round.

The man across from me — grinned and raised his glass. "You're on, sweetheart."

I smiled back. I was very good at this.

We drank. He talked. I listened with half my attention while the other half tracked the table behind me, where a group of traders had been getting louder for the past hour.

"—heard he's coming here personally. The new Alpha King."

I refilled my glass without looking up.

"Cleaned out three rogue territories in the north. Vampires too. They say he's got no mercy."

"Handsome though," someone else offered. "Very handsome."

I tipped the glass back. Alpha King. The words landed flat, like a stone dropped into still water. That world — packs, titles, bloodlines — had stopped being mine a long time ago. Whoever this man was, whatever he was building here, it had nothing to do with me. I just hoped the cleanup would make the border roads safer.

My drinking companion slapped the table. "Another round!"

I obliged.

Four rounds later, he was listing sideways in his chair, eyes glazed, a slow smile spreading across his face that had nothing to do with me anymore. I watched him tip forward until his forehead met the table with a soft thud.

The room tilted slightly. I gripped the bar.

I'd won. I always won. But winning cost something — my head was full of warm static, my legs uncertain beneath me. I stood very still until the worst of it passed, then checked the clock. Eleven minutes to closing.

My colleague Marta appeared at my elbow, already in her coat. "You look terrible."

"Thank you."

"I called you a car." She pressed her phone toward me. "Don't argue. Last time you walked home drunk you twisted your ankle and missed two shifts."

I didn't argue.

Outside, the night air was cold and sharp, cutting through the fog in my head just enough to make me feel the full weight of my feet. I stood under the awning and watched the street. A black sedan pulled up, license plate ending in 7-7-4. Marta had said 7-7 something. Close enough.

I pulled the door open and dropped into the back seat.

The interior was dark. Leather seats, the faint hum of climate control, a privacy screen between me and the driver. Someone was already sitting in the back.

A man. Very still. His profile was sharp in the low light, jaw clean, shoulders set like he owned the air around him. Even with just that much visible, I could tell he was good-looking.

I felt a sudden haze. The line of his jaw and the shape of his brow looked like something from a dream I'd had too many times to count. Dominic.

No. I shut that down before it could take root. Oh, no way. I must've had too much to drink.

The driver turned. "Should we—"

I assumed he was asking for the address. "Fourteen Birch Lane," I said. "The apartment block with the blue door."

Then I leaned back and closed my eyes.

The car moved. Smooth, expensive, nothing like the rattling cabs I usually took. I let my head fall against the seat and felt the alcohol settle into my bones like warm sand.

I don't know how long we drove. Long enough for me to drift somewhere between awake and not. Long enough for my body to stop holding itself upright.

My head found a shoulder.

I registered it distantly — solid, warm, the fabric of a suit jacket against my cheek. I should have straightened up. I didn't.

Then I smelled it.

Something cut through the whiskey and the bar smoke. Something clean and dark, a scent that reached past my nose and landed somewhere I'd buried years ago.

My chest did something I didn't have a name for.

I turned my face slightly, without meaning to. Breathed in again.

"Noir de Minuit." The words came out before I could stop them, blurred at the edges. "That's... Noir de Minuit."

The shoulder under my cheek went very still.

"I gave that to my ex once." I slurred softly. "His birthday. I sprayed it right on his collarbone — for him."

I felt his breath pause half a beat above my head, then grow heavier than before.

Perhaps it was that scent, teasing memories and emotions; fueled by the alcohol, I reached into my jacket pocket. Found a card. Held it out without fully opening my eyes.

"Come find me sometime," I said. "The Copper Fang. Ask for Jasmine."

Then the shoulder disappeared.

My head dropped. I caught myself on the seat. The man beside me had shifted — not just moved, pulled away, a sharp deliberate withdrawal, like I'd burned him.

A sound. Low. Contemptuous. He turned his face to the window.

He was angry? Why?