The Knotty Truth About Alphas (Mistberry Cove #1)

Chapter 1

ANITA

“You’ll come apart screaming if I touch you like this.”

My body responds before my brain does, slick heat pooling between my thighs at the sound of the deep, male narrator’s voice.

I shouldn’t be listening to this in public. I absolutely know that. And yet here I am, sitting on a ferry in the dead of winter, snow piled along the rails outside, sun sharp and blinding against the steel-gray water, letting Joe Hamilton ruin me one sentence at a time through my earbuds.

The audiobook is called Say My Name, Omega.

I’ve listened to it before. More than once.

But there’s something about this voice, about the way he reads every line like he means it, like the words are being spoken directly into my skin instead of a microphone.

Low. Rough. Dominant. A voice that doesn’t rush, doesn’t beg, doesn’t soften its edges for anyone.

I’ve never seen his face. God help me, I’ve tried. Joe Hamilton is a pseudonym, a ghost online, a name attached to nothing but sound. No photos. No interviews. No clues. Just this voice and the way it makes my Omega instincts stretch and wake like they’ve been waiting for him.

“You don’t get to hide from me,” he murmurs in my ear. “Not when you’re already mine.”

I suck in a sharp breath, fingers curling against the cold metal armrest of the ferry bench.

The boat hums beneath my boots, cutting through choppy water toward Mistberry Cove.

There aren’t many passengers. A few reading newspapers or staring vacantly at their phones.

Some pressed against the windows, pointing at the rocky coastline like they didn’t realize how brutal winter could be out here.

No one is looking at me, so they don’t know that my pulse is racing.

That I can hear the filthy things being whispered directly into my skull.

I’ve been on this boat for nearly two and a half hours, spending most of that time either lost in this audiobook or staring out at the endless gray water, trying to convince myself I’m not making a massive mistake.

Two years ago, my pack rejected me, and after that, I decided I was done following the traditional path.

Done letting other people dictate what my life should look like.

Most people don’t agree with my choices.

My family thinks I’m being reckless. Some friends have stopped calling because they don’t understand why I won’t just find another pack and settle down like I’m supposed to.

But this is my life. And I get to decide how I live it.

So, I built a career. Started a radio show that helps other Omegas who feel lost or trapped or invisible.

I have my own apartment, my own income, my own purpose.

And now I’m heading to Mistberry Cove, a coastal town, on an undercover investigation I’ve set for myself.

Inspired by my radio followers, this mission could expose real harm being done to Omegas in the workplace.

It’s not my first field mission, and the other two I completed went spectacularly.

That’s when the ferry suddenly shudders. A deep, metallic boom rolls through the deck, sharp enough to knock the breath from my lungs. The engine coughs. The floor vibrates harder than before. Somewhere behind me, someone swears loud enough for me to hear them through my earbuds.

I blink, heart pounding, turning around and not seeing anything worrying, so I adjust the loosening earbuds just in time to hear Joe finish the line.

“Good girl,” he whispers. “Now spread your legs wider. Let me see everything when I make you beg.”

A hard jolt runs through the boat, followed by a low, metallic clunk that sounds expensive and wrong.

My head jerks up. A few people glance around nervously. The boat shudders again, like it’s grinding against something deep below the surface. Then the engine cuts out.

Completely stops. What is going on?

For a second, it’s eerily quiet. Only the sound of waves slapping against the hull and the wind howling through the railings.

Then everyone starts talking at once.

One of the crew members is waving frantically at another near the control room at the front of the ferry. There’s smoke. Not much, but enough to make me slightly nervous.

I pull out both earbuds.

“Anita?” a male’s voice calls out from across the ferry, one I recognize.

My blood turns to ice.

That voice doesn’t belong in my present, here on this ferry, or in this new life I’m building.

I spin around slowly, already knowing who I’ll see.

Leon. My ex-packmate. The Beta who stood by and did nothing while I suffered.

He hasn’t changed much. Still stocky, built like a linebacker who never quite made the team but kept the physique anyway.

His dark brown hair is shorter now, buzzed close to his skull.

He’s wearing a reflective safety vest over his ferry uniform, navy blue with the company logo stitched on the chest, like he belongs here.

Like he has any right to speak to me after what they did.

His brown eyes widen in what looks like genuine surprise. “I thought that was you. Wow. You, uh… you look good.”

I blink at him. Not because I’m flattered. Because how dare he. “Don’t.” My voice lowers, clipped. “You don’t get to talk to me.”

“I just…” He raises a hand like that will somehow calm me down. “I didn’t know you were heading to Mistberry Cove. You visiting someone?”

I laugh. It sounds wrong in my throat, sharp and bitter. “Are you serious right now?”

He glances around, suddenly aware of the eyes on us. A few passengers have turned to watch, sensing drama. “Anita, come on. I didn’t want them to kick you out. You know that.”

“You didn’t stop them either,” I snap.

“I couldn’t! I—”

“You stood there,” I cut him off, getting to my feet, my voice rising despite my best efforts to stay calm.

“All the while, I went into heat alone, suffering. You watched me beg for help. For water. For anything. And not once did anyone come. You let Ethan keep me isolated from the pack and told yourselves it was for my own good.”

His jaw clenches, and I watch shame flicker across his face. Good. He should be ashamed.

“We wanted to help,” he says quietly. “But Ethan said you needed to learn that heat wasn’t an excuse for breaking pack rules. That you’d manipulated your cycle to get attention.”

“That’s bullshit!” My voice cracks despite my best efforts. “My cycle shifted. It happens. And instead of showing even a shred of compassion, you all chose to punish me and let me suffer alone because I didn’t fit Ethan’s perfect vision of what an Omega should be.”

Leon’s face reddens. “I know it was wrong. I wanted to come to you and help, but Ethan said if anyone broke ranks, if anyone showed you kindness, we’d be enabling your behavior. That we had to stay strong as a pack.”

“You didn’t vote me out, Leon,” I say, my tone dropping to something colder, harder. “But you didn’t lift a finger to keep me, either. You stood by and let it happen. That makes you just as guilty.”

He lowers his gaze, shame written all over his face, shoulders slumping. “The pack broke up after you left. About six months later. Everyone went their separate ways.”

“I don’t care.”

“Ethan’s alone now. Last I heard, he was—”

“I said I don’t care.” I step back, creating distance between us. “Whatever happened to that pack, whatever happened to any of you, it’s not my problem anymore. You’re not my problem.”

He glances up, and there’s desperation in his eyes now. “You’re better off. Trust me. That pack was toxic, and we all knew it. We were just too scared to admit it.”

And that’s when it hits me.

The bitterness, the regret, the two years I spent wondering what I could’ve done differently, all of it? It means nothing. I feel nothing for him or them. No longing, no pain, no lingering affection. Just rage that I ever thought I owed them anything. Relief that I escaped.

“You’re right,” I say coldly. “I am better off. The only thing I regret is not walking away sooner.”

I stuff my earbuds into my coat pocket and tighten my grip on the handle of my wheeled suitcase, starting to move. I stride past him without another word, fury burning hot in my chest.

The smell of smoke sharpens in the air, carried on the wind as I push through the ferry doors onto the rear deck outside. It’s freezing, the kind of cold that slices through my coat and bites at my skin, but I need it. The slap of winter against my face is grounding.

I drag my suitcase behind me, the wheels clattering over the metal deck, echoing louder than I’d like.

Leon is still inside, probably watching me through the windows. Let him.

God, I hate that he’s here.

Two years of clawing my way back to myself. Of therapy, of solitude, of building new routines in a life I didn’t choose, but one I made my own anyway. Of forcing myself to stop waiting for closure that was never going to come.

And all it took was his face to split the wound open again. Only it’s not bleeding the way I expected. It’s not pain that rushes in to fill the space. It’s fury. Rage, thick and suffocating, not just at Leon, but at the pack, and at myself.

Because for too long, I thought it was me and that I wasn’t good enough. That if I’d just submitted more, stayed quieter, smiled sweeter, they might’ve kept me.

They didn’t.

Not when it mattered. And Leon, who claimed to be my friend, who used to share midnight snacks with me in the kitchen, who told me I was funny and strong, stayed quiet. He watched me suffer. And then he let them vote me out of the pack like I was nothing.

And now he wants to make small talk?

I bury my face in my hands for a second, sucking in a long, frigid breath.

They had found me through one of those damn Omega-Match programs my parents forced me into. This is how the world works, Anita. You want to be safe? You need to fit in.

All my life, that’s what I’ve heard.

Fit in. Fall in line. Be good. Be wanted. But what if you’re not meant to fit? What if you’re not broken, but the mold is?