Todos los capítulos de Ruined By The Alpha: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

The locker screamed at 11:07 pm.Metal doesn't make that sound unless something is tearing it open from the inside. I was standing in the dark hallway outside the varsity locker room with my inhaler in my pocket, and I heard steel give way one slow claw at a time.I shouldn't have been there.My name is Theo Ellis. I'm nineteen. On the roster I'm on the university swim team. In real life I'm the benchwarmer with the asthma file who times laps and learns how to be invisible.That's the hierarchy. Coach at the top. Then the A-relay. Then Karl Maddox above all of them. Then the rest of the team. Then me, somewhere under the bleachers where no one has to remember my name.Karl is twenty-one. Captain. Three school records. The kind of golden boy who walks into a party and everyone moves for him. For two years he has looked through me in the locker room. That's the deal. Gods don't talk to ghosts.I only came back because I'd left my inhaler in locker 14. My chest had been tight since dinne

I hadn't swum a real warm-up in two years.I timed laps. I handed out kickboards. I sat behind the blocks with my stopwatch and my inhaler and watched Karl cut through the water like he was born in it.Now I was standing on the block next to him at 5:17 am in borrowed jammers that were too big, with his blood drying on my neck and his eyes still gold at the edges."Watch me," I'd said.He was."Two hundred easy," he said. "Don't try to keep up. Just don't drown."He dove first. Clean. No splash. I went after him a second later, messy and loud.The water was cold at first, then perfect. My lungs opened up. My arms remembered. For fifty meters I wasn't the ghost with the asthma file. I was just a body moving.Karl stayed half a body length ahead, pacing me. Every time I breathed right, I saw him watching me from the next lane.We hit the wall together.He surfaced and pushed his hair back. "Again."We did four more two-hundreds. By the last one my chest was burning, but not from asthma.

The footsteps stopped outside the bedroom door.Three sets. I could hear them through the wood, through the blood pounding in my ears. My skin was on fire and too tight at the same time. Another cramp rolled through my stomach and I bit down on a groan.Karl didn't move off me. He pulled the blanket higher and tucked my head under his chin, one big hand splayed across my back, the other still on my neck."Stay quiet," he breathed, so low only I could hear. "They can't see you like this."The handle turned.It didn't open. Locked.Jace's voice came through. "Maddox. Open up. Alpha wants the human downstairs."Karl's eyes were full gold now, lit from behind. His voice when he answered didn't sound human. "He's in my bed, Jace. You really want to come in here?"A pause. "He's shifting early. I can smell it from the hall. You didn't even wait for the moon.""Not your business.""It is when you hide a latent in your room on a bleed night," another voice said. "Pack law says—""Pack law say

The howling didn't stop.It rolled through the house like thunder, low and angry, shaking the windows in Karl's bedroom. Not one wolf. Ten. Twenty. The whole North Shore pack, answering the null in their Alpha's bed.Karl didn't let go of me. His arm was locked around my waist so tight I could barely breathe.Silas looked at the door, then at his watch. "3:04 am. You have less than three hours before sunrise, Karl. Get him quiet, or I will."He walked out. Jace followed him, holding his throat where Karl had choked him, smiling at me the whole way.The door shut. Locked from the outside.Karl spun me around and pushed me into the bathroom. He slammed the door and locked it too."Theo. Listen to me." He cupped my face, his hands shaking. "Your pulse is too fast. You're flaring again."I could feel it. The silver in my eyes was burning. Every time I breathed out, Karl's gold eyes flickered back to brown. I was canceling him just by standing close."I can't stop it," I said. My voice cra

Karl didn't move from in front of the door. His shoulders were back, his eyes still trying to flash gold but staying brown because of my bite."Theo, don't," he said low.My mom knocked again. Harder. "I know you're in there! I can see the truck!"I got off the bed. My legs shook. I unlocked the top lock, then the second. Karl grabbed my wrist."If she opens that door, they smell you," he whispered. "The wolves outside will know exactly where you are.""She's my mom," I whispered back.I opened the door.My mom stood on the porch in her work scrubs, hair in a messy bun, eyes red like she'd been crying the whole three-hour drive. She looked at me — in Karl's too-big sweats, blood on my mouth, a fresh bite on my neck — then at Karl shirtless behind me with my teeth marks bleeding on his throat.She didn't scream. She just closed her eyes."Oh, Theo," she said. "You shifted."My stomach dropped. "What?"She pushed past me into the cabin and slammed the door shut. She locked it."Mom, how