Aliana
I didn’t stop running until I reached my room. I slammed the door shut behind me. The memory hit hard—the back of my hand brushing against his dick. It wasn’t the size of it. Or the metal studs on the tip. It was the fact that a part of me had considered it.
That huge thing.
The man was a giant.
No wonder he needed someone to bathe him. He probably couldn’t reach most places.
I began to pace the length of my room. My heart raced as my mind broke everything down. I paused mid-step when something flickered in my chest.
A heart attack.
Yes, that made sense.
No pain followed. Just the sensation growing. Not flickering now—expanding, filling my chest like warmth poured into a cold room. I rubbed my sternum.
Mmm.
My head whipped around. No one was there.
Hello, Aliana, the voice purred.
I gasped and dropped to the floor.
The tears came before I understood them.
I bent my head to the dusty floorboards and sobbed—ugly, heaving sounds I couldn’t have stopped if the whole pack were listening.
Years of silence in my own body. Years of wolfless, worthless, of empty where everyone else carried a friend.
My mother’s voice drifted back to me, the stories she’d told me of the day her wolf came to her. How it felt like being found.
Mine was five years late. I’d waited every day after my eighteenth birthday.
But she came.
I’ve got you, she whispered. I’m Zira.
The name was so beautiful that it set me off again. Zira. Zira. I pressed my palm flat against my sternum, holding her there, terrified that if I stopped touching the warmth it would leave the way everything left.
It’s all right, little one. The purr wrapped around my spine like a blanket. I’m not going anywhere. I was always here. I was just too tired to speak.
Too tired.
She hadn’t abandoned me.
She’d been starving alongside me. All those years I’d begged the Moon Goddess for a wolf, mine had been curled somewhere deep inside, too weak to answer—and no one had fed either of us enough for her to try.
I cried harder. Not for me this time.
For her.
? ? ?
As soon as the early morning alarm blared, my eyes snapped open and my hand flew to my chest. She was still there.
Always, she whispered.
I sighed happily, rubbing my sternum.
I want to see you.
I want to show you.
How about tonight? I asked—and then my fingers brushed the collar.
Joy drained away. I couldn’t shift.
No, I said. Don’t worry. I can earn my way out of this collar.
The Alpha King had said everyone who wasn’t a pack member wore one. Fine. I owed no loyalty to the Silvermere pack. They’d all known who my mother was, and they’d all watched how I was treated after her death.
The alarm blared again and I slapped my hand over it. I wanted to see Zira. I wanted to run with her. I’d integrate the shit out of the Bloodborne pack until the Alpha King had no choice but to remove the collar.
I climbed out of bed, fixed the covers, and straightened the pillow. I was already mentally aligning myself with the King’s schedule. I would become indispensable.
First step.
Coffee.
The house was deadly silent, but it didn’t bother me as I reached the kitchen. Silence was better than Cora and Deeana’s jibes. I paused halfway through adding the roasted beans to the machine.
None of the Bloodborne pack had bullied me. I mean, the Alpha King was naturally high-strung. He was capable of great violence, but he had yet to direct any of it at me.
I don’t like him, Zira sniffed.
Hmm. He did feed us.
You can be a philanthropist and an asshole.
Fair enough.
The coffee machine began its cycle while I set the cup and tray.
I did enjoy what he did to your family, she conceded. That was fun.
Father earned that. What was he thinking?
The scent of coffee was wonderful, and I took a sneaky sip from his cup before topping it up. I glanced at the time and moved a little faster. I still had to lay out his clothing, and he had his workout after. I was still pondering the collar when I knocked briefly and pushed his bedroom door open.
No one person needed this much space, but that thought was better kept in my head.
He stirred on his giant bed.
I started towards him—and he sat up as if struck by lightning. Ironic, since I was the one wearing a shock collar.
“Good morning,” I said brightly, forcing a wide smile I didn’t feel.
Oh no, Zira gasped. No.
The Alpha was sniffing the air like a man possessed. He flew off the bed. He was still in the air when he shifted. His fucking wolf was the size of a bear.
The tray dropped from my hands. Metal and porcelain clattered across the floor. The cup shattered, coffee spreading dark across the boards.
Then his wolf was on top of me. His growl was vicious, teeth and nose dragging over my face, my hair, my neck.
Zira reacted. She tried to shift. Electricity ripped through my neck and my body shuddered. She answered the attack by trying again. A higher voltage burst from the collar. This time the pain was crippling.
The wolf morphed back into the man. He gripped the collar and tore it from my throat, the clasp catching the back of my neck.
I groaned as my eyes closed.
The last thing I heard was his whisper.
Soft. Reverent.
“Mate.”