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Lia:

I didn’t stop running.

My shoes struck dirt and gravel, lungs burning, pulse roaring in my ears as branches snapped back against my jacket. My pants were torn at the knee, streaked with mud and blood I didn’t remember earning. I hadn’t worn dresses in a long time. That version of me had died the night my father cast me out. The night where my whole life had changed.

Alphas weren’t meant to become rogues.

Yet here I was.

Hunted from every side, pushed into a darkness that I didn’t know I could survive.

The forest blurred as I pushed harder, ignoring the sharp protest in my legs. Behind me, somewhere beyond the dark, there were always footsteps. If not wolves sent by the Council, then rogues eager to cash in on my name. An Alpha-born rogue was worth more alive than dead, at least to the right people.

My own blood had decided that much.

The bond hit without warning.

It slammed into my spine, white-hot and violent, stealing the breath from my lungs. I staggered, catching myself against a tree as my vision swam.

No.

My wolf recoiled, snarling in instinctive fury, not submission. I didn’t need the pull tugging at my chest to know what it was. I’d felt bonds before, watched others kneel to them.

This one felt like a challenge.

Like war.

I turned slowly, already knowing who stood there.

Marcel Del Gardi.

The one person who always found me, and yet, always kept me alive despite his reputation.

“You know, running is not going to get you far.” He said, and I scoffed, wanting to run back. But my wolf wouldn’t allow it.

“Then follow up to that reputation of yours and end this.” I said, glaring at him.

“You and I both know that I can.” He said casually. “I am choosing not to for one reason, which you, just like me, feel.”

Even in the dark, he was unmistakable. Power rolled off him in suffocating waves, Alpha dominance honed into something sharp and merciless. This was the man sent to end conflicts the world didn’t want named. The fighter who wiped out rogue camps and never asked questions afterward.

The irony almost made me laugh.

My mate.

His gaze locked onto me, and I felt his wolf surge forward, claiming, demanding, recognizing what the world had decided to make forbidden.

“Well, then… I reject you,” I said, my voice rough but steady. “I won’t be claimed. Not by an Alpha who was meant to destroy me. Not by anyone in this world that knows nothing but death and hypocrisy.”

The bond screamed in protest. But he didn’t speak, not at first.

For the first time since I’d turned around, something flickered across his face. Surprise. Maybe disbelief. His jaw tightened, breath drawing in as if he intended to answer, perhaps to reject me back, perhaps worse. “You are being serious right now?”

“Yes, now… accept the rejection.”

“Say it formally then.” He said, taking a step toward me. “If you mean it, that is…”

“I, Lia Volkov, reject you as my mate.” I said, glaring at him.

He never got the chance to respond, though. And I never got the chance to run.

Growls rose from the trees.

Not one.

Many.

My blood went cold.

Rogues burst from the shadows, eyes wild, movements reckless with hunger and greed. One of them hit me hard from the side, claws ripping across my arm as I went down. Pain tore through me, bright and blinding. I fought back on instinct, kicking, twisting, but another shape lunged…

It never reached me.

The night suddenly turned into something that I could have never imagined.

Marcel moved like something unleashed.

I saw flashes through the pain, bodies crashing into trees, bones breaking, snarls cut off abruptly. He didn’t fight like a man protecting territory. He fought like a weapon fulfilling its purpose, every strike final, every movement devastating.

For me.

By the time the last body hit the ground, the forest had gone deathly quiet.

I tried to push myself up, wanting to run. My strength failed me, not allowing me to take one step forward.

Strong arms caught me, lifting me with effortless ease. His hold was solid, unyielding, nothing like the hesitation I’d expected.

The world tilted, darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision. “Let me go.” I whispered as he held me to his chest, his wolf meeting my own despite the informal rejection.

“You’re safe now,” he said, low and absolute, as if safety were something he could command into existence. “I’ll be sure of it, little wolf…”

I didn’t believe him.

But my body betrayed me anyway as everything went black.