All Chapters of Fated To My Best Friend's Alpha : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

FAMILIAR FACES, NEW FEELINGS The Silver Spoon Diner sat on the corner of Main and Elm like a chrome-and-neon promise, its windows fogged from decades of frying bacon and brewing coffee. Anna pushed through the door at eleven sharp, and the bell overhead sang its same tinny song, the exact same note she'd heard a thousand times before, ordering milkshakes after school, grabbing burgers after football games, nursing coffees the morning after prom. Carly was already in their booth. "Anna!" The shriek carried across the diner, turning heads, making Anna grin despite herself. Carly had always been louder than the room could contain, bright in a way that made people want to orbit her. She was sliding out of the booth before Anna could cross the black-and-white checkered floor, blonde hair swinging, arms already open. The collision smelled like vanilla body spray and bubble gum, and Anna laughed into her best friend's shoulder, feeling thirteen again, feeling home. "I can't believe y

A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE VEILThe afternoon had started out innocent enough. Carly had dragged them to Millbrook's annual summer garage sale crawl, a tradition she took with the seriousness of a religious pilgrimage. They'd sifted through Mrs. Patterson's collection of ceramic cats, debated the merits of a vintage record player at the Hendersons', and eaten their weight in lemonade cookies from the church bake sale table. By three o'clock, the heat had wrapped itself around the town like a wool blanket, and Anna's hair clung to the back of her neck in damp curls."We're almost done," Carly promised, fanning herself with a rolled-up newspaper she'd bought for fifty cents. "I just need to pick up the dry cleaning for my mom. She'll murder me if I forget her sundress again."They were standing in the gravel lot outside Chris's truck, the vehicle ticking as it cooled. Anna had just opened the passenger door, grateful for the blast of oven-hot air that meant soon, air conditioning, when Carly

WHISPERS AND WORRIESThe hammock in Chris's backyard had always been Carly's favorite throne. She'd claimed it the summer they started dating, draping herself across the woven ropes with the territorial certainty of someone who had never been made to feel unwelcome anywhere. Now, she swayed gently, her bare feet pushing off the oak tree, while Anna sat rigid in the Adirondack chair ten feet away, pretending to be fascinated by a chipped nail.Chris stood at the grill, spatula in hand, his back to them both. Smoke curled around his shoulders, carrying the scent of char and hickory, but Anna could smell something beneath it, that storm-and-pine musk that seemed to thicken in the air whenever she was near him."Earth to Chris," Carly called out. "Those burgers are going to be fossils if you don't flip them."He startled, the spatula clattering against the grate. "Right. Sorry.""That's the third time you've checked out in an hour." Carly's voice held its usual teasing lilt, but Anna hear

THE WEIGHT OF DESTINYAnna didn't sleep that night. She couldn't sleep at all. She lay in her childhood bed with the quilt pulled to her chin, staring at the ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stars, remnants of a twelve-year-old's decorating phase, had long since lost their charge.The house was silent, her parents' bedroom door closed down the hall, but she could feel them both awake. The weight of revelation pressed against the walls, thick as humidity before a storm.Werewolves are real.She tested the thought, rolling it across her mind like a marble, waiting for it to drop through some trapdoor of denial. It didn't. It sat there, heavy and solid, clicking into place with every memory she'd been dismissing: Chris's eyes in the firelight, the protective stance on Main Street, the way the town deferred to him like he was royalty in flannel. The dreams of running through forests, of teeth and moonlight and belonging.And beneath it all, the bond. The invisible chain that tethered her to

THE INEVITABLE CONFRONTATION The bonfire at Miller's Field was supposed to be a fresh start.That was Carly's thinking, anyway. She'd spent three days icing Chris out, waiting for him to crack, to explain, to beg forgiveness. Instead, he'd only grown quieter, more distant, his eyes taking on that haunted look she was beginning to hate. So she'd taken matters into her own hands. She'd texted the group, bonfire, Saturday, everyone come, let's reset the summer.She'd watched Anna read the text from across the diner booth, watched her friend's face go pale, watched her make excuses about the fake summer class. Carly had smiled through it and said, "Perfect. See you there."Now, standing by the flames with a warm soda in her hand, Carly wondered what she'd been trying to prove. That they could all be normal? That the thing she kept glimpsing in the corners wasn't real?Because it was real. She knew it was real.She'd seen them at the lake yesterday.She hadn't meant to spy. She'd gone loo