All Chapters of The Alpha's Hollow Mate: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

They call me Hollow.Not to my face, not always. Mostly they say it behind my back, just loud enough for me to hear. When I walk into the pack store, someone whispers it. When I pass the training field, a boy howls at me, and his friends laugh, because they know I can't howl back.I am twenty-one years old, and I have never shifted. No wolf has ever spoken inside my head, and none ever came on my sixteenth birthday like it did for everyone else. I'm just a girl in a town full of wolves, and in Blackthorn Ridge that makes me less than nothing.But tonight, I was going to run anyway.I pulled the stolen guard jacket tighter around my body and pressed my back against the cold pine tree. The forest was dark, and the full moon hung low over the mountains like a big silver eye. Somewhere ahead, the drums had started.Boom. Boom. Boom.The Moonfall Run.Once a year, the young wolves of the pack race through the forest to the old stone at Crow's Peak. The first twenty to touch the stone get p

I couldn't breathe.Kael Thorne was holding my hand in a small, locked bathroom, his thumb resting on the tiny bandage on my finger, and his gray eyes would not let me go.*Lie,* I told myself. *Lie like your life depends on it.*Because maybe it did."I cut it on a kitchen knife," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "Cutting onions. This morning.""Onions.""Yes. Onions."He didn't let go. He stepped closer, and my back touched the cold wall. He was so tall I had to tilt my head up to look at him. Up close, I could see a small scar through his left eyebrow, and the tired shadows under his eyes. He hadn't slept. Because of me, maybe."You're limping," he said."I tripped on the stairs.""Your stairs or my stairs?""Does it matter?""It matters to me." His voice dropped lower. "Because the girl last night hurt her ankle too. The right one."I swallowed hard. It was my right one."Lots of girls have ankles," I said.Something moved at the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a

"He's your *what*?"Tessa Moreno dropped the box she was holding. Old shoes rolled out all over my bedroom floor."My stepbrother," I said. "Well, almost. In a few weeks.""Not that part." She pushed her big glasses up her nose and stared at me. "The *other* part. The part where you said he's your *mate*.""Shhh!" I grabbed her arm and looked at the door. Mom was in the kitchen, packing plates. "Not so loud."Tessa lowered her voice to a sharp whisper. "Sienna Vale. You have been my best friend since we were six years old. You tell me *everything*. You told me when you got your first period. You told me when you kissed Danny Miller behind the school and he tasted like hot dogs. And you're telling me now, three days late, that the Alpha of this whole pack is your *fated mate*?""Two days late," I said. "And it's not real.""Not real?""I don't have a wolf, Tess. Hollow girls don't get mates. It has to be some kind of mistake."Tessa looked at me for a long moment. Then she sat down on

Kael took the ribbon from under my mattress himself.He didn't say a word. He just walked into my room, lifted the mattress with one hand like it weighed nothing, and took out the sock with the ribbon and the note inside. He looked at the red writing for a long time. Then he folded it up and put it in his pocket."Stay in the house," he said. "Lock your door. Don't open it for anyone.""Where are you going?""To see her."He meant the grave.He was gone all afternoon. I sat in my room and tried to read a book, but I read the same page eleven times and didn't understand any of it. Every time I heard footsteps in the hall, I jumped.When he came back, the sun was going down. I heard his door open and close. I waited. Then I heard a soft knock on the bathroom door between our rooms.I unlocked it and opened it a little.He looked tired. There was dirt on his boots."Well?" I whispered."Nothing," he said. "The grave is fine. The ground is flat. The grass is growing. Nobody has touched it

Nobody moved.Margot stood in the doorway with her hand out, smiling. Kael sat at the table, frozen. And I sat there holding a mug of hot chocolate that suddenly tasted like ashes in my mouth.*Come back to bed.*So I was right. That laugh I heard at midnight, through the wall. The shirt. Everything.I was such an idiot.Kael stood up. His chair scraped loud against the floor."Margot," he said. His voice was flat and cold as ice. "Go back to *your* bed. In the guest room. Where you've been sleeping since you arrived."Margot's smile didn't move, not even a little. But I saw something flicker in her green eyes."Don't be silly, baby," she said. "We're engaged. I can sleep wherever I want.""Not in my room.""But you left the door open for me.""I didn't.""And you gave me your shirt.""You took it from my closet," Kael said slowly, "while I was at the border."The kitchen went very quiet.Margot laughed. It was a soft, pretty, fake little laugh. She dropped her hand and walked into th