Fated Alpha Bride (Alpha Wolf Valley #1)

Prologue - Sophie

Two Years Ago

Summers in Hamilton have always been…simple.

Ordinary. Nothing noteworthy or special in any way.

Nothing has ever left a lasting impression on me, and every year has simply bled into the next one, the months billowing off like the crispy leaves in autumn.

Even the people here are as bitter as the icy winters, and then there’s spring with its floods, the memory of my mother’s last breath in the hospital bringing with it a storm renewed even after three years.

I’ve never really been one to care for the seasons; my routines only adapt for the sake of my wardrobe choices and being comfortable in my work clothes.

But this year has been different. A monumental year, even if we’re only eight months in.

For me, the year started last winter, during Christmastime, when a group of mercenaries was rushed into Bitterroot Health-Daly Hospital, some of them needing stitches, while others seemed to be on the brink of death… .

A knock on my front door snaps me out of my thoughts, and I giggle to myself as I twirl once more in front of the mirror.

The yellow summer dress screams “happiness” and “hope,” while delivering a clear message like an inside joke only I understand.

It makes me blush, because for the first time in my life, I care about what I’m wearing, and even took the time to paint my lips a neutral shade that makes the rich brown color of my eyes twinkle as if reflecting light.

I hear his voice when the thought comes to mind, and I’m about to embark on a journey through the memory of when he first opened his eyes in the hospital after doctors spent ten hours operating on his leg.

Mine was first pair of eyes he met, and he never locked eyes with another, even while he stayed in the hospital for another two weeks.

But there’s another knock on the door, and butterflies flap their wings in my tummy, because there’s something better than a memory waiting for me behind my front door.

The soldier himself—the one who’d been on the brink of death and nearly lost his leg—is standing outside now, waiting for me.

With excitement bubbling in my chest, I pull the door open to meet him with an eager smile.

But the corners of my lips don’t lift when I read hostility in his blue eyes.

“Damian…?” I murmur, as if the man standing in front of me isn’t who I was expecting.

His name is the same, because he responds to it, but his behavior is different; instead of the warmth of his arms enveloping me, I get a brisk nod, as if I’m just one of the soldiers who’d been rushed into the hospital with him.

My blood turns cold, my heart already cracking in my chest like a fragile object being squeezed too tightly. Damian tears his gaze away, runs a hand through his blonde hair, and his shoulders slouch as if he’s nervous.

He’s not acting like himself, that’s for sure.

The Damian I know doesn’t get nervous about anything.

It’s why we’re here, six months into a relationship that was steadily turning into something serious.

He wasn’t nervous when he needed to learn how to walk again with the help of some physiotherapy, and succeeded in a week.

He wasn’t nervous when he pursued me once he’d been discharged from the hospital, and he definitely wasn’t nervous the first time he made love to me and discovered that I was a virgin.

So, what is he nervous about right now? It can’t possibly be because of our picnic date in the mountains. We’ve already had a few of those.

“Can I come inside?” he asks, voice rough and ragged, as if his throat is dry, scorched by the burn of too much alcohol.

“S-sure,” I respond, hesitant since his energy is off. It’s not like he hasn’t been in my apartment before. It’s not like he hasn’t carried me through the door with his tongue down my throat.

Now, I’m not even getting a hug, and it feels like my world is crumbling around me.

Damian walks in, his hand brushing past my arm and sending goosebumps pebbling across my skin.

His indifference right now has a lump forming in my throat, because it’s unlike him to be so distant when every other encounter between us has been passionate.

We’re rarely able to keep our hands to ourselves, so wringing my hands together awkwardly after closing the door behind him feels strange.

An unsettling coldness slithers down my spine, as if it’s suddenly winter in the midst of summer, as if the season I’d come to despise suddenly swooped in and now threatens to swallow the peace I’d found.

I turn around slowly, my heart cracking with every second that ticks by until I’m facing Damian again, facing the man who defied all medical laws and walked again after that brutal, gruesome injury to his leg.

He didn’t offer any explanation, except that he and his team had been scouting Hamilton, near the woods, for a suspected anomaly when they encountered a group of scavengers who’d since disappeared from town.

And now, he can’t even meet my eyes.

“Are we…” I pause to gulp down the lump in my throat that threatens to betray my outer composure. It’s hanging by a thread, and so is my sanity. “… Are we still going out?”

“I’m sorry,” Damian begins, and it’s not a “yes” or a “no,” but it’s a heart-wrenching reply that weakens my knees in the worst way. My vision is already blurring as I meet his eyes, the solemn, sad pools of blue appearing like icicles on the coldest winter’s day.

He hangs his head in shame, his shoulders curling toward his neck as he stands rigid and tense. “We c-can’t—” he chokes, unable to get the words out, but I already know what he wants to say.

“Are you… Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, voice hoarse, my throat sliced by the rising shards of my shattered heart. Damian sighs, the sound bordering on sadness and finality. “It’s best this way, Soph. I’m not doing this because I want to, but because—”

“Because what?!” I roar manically, unfurling my fingers and throwing my arms up in defeat, exasperation, borderline psychosis, because I can’t believe that he’s doing this now.

Sundays have always been set aside for our picnic dates in the Bitterroot Mountains, where the overlook allowed us to watch the sunset over the panoramic view of the valley and river.

Now, he’s turning it into something I’ll hate.

“Huh?!” I snap at him, and he flinches as if the anger in my voice slapped him across the face. “Don’t give me a speech about how you don’t want to do this, but you have to, when you’re standing right here, choosing this of your own free will!”

“Soph, you don’t under—”

“Don’t say my name like that,” I warn him with a growl rumbling deep in my chest, even frightening myself with the way my voice comes out razor-sharp and menacing.

I turn my face to the side, my breath coming in short bursts as I see red.

“And don’t tell me that I don’t understand. You could have done this last night.”

A moment of silence stretches between us, horrid and unnerving as I glare at the white rug on my living room floor, imagining it catching alight and going up in flames.

“I had to do it in person, Sophie. It’s the least I could do,” Damian explains, as if he’s doing me a favor, and my face contorts with disgust as I bring my eyes back to his face.

“The least you could do, huh?” I scoff, fighting through the pain lodged in my throat, ready to spill out if I’m not careful. I can’t show him that I’m breaking apart inside. What kind of sick satisfaction would he gain from it if he knew?

It’s the only explanation I can find for any of this: Damian showing up on a Sunday, right after we’d confirmed our next date while texting last night. Just yesterday, he walked me home and pressed a kiss between my brows like a devoted lover, bidding me goodnight.

Was it all pretend?

“Well, I wish you didn’t come here at all,” I sneer, glaring at him with as much fierceness as I can muster. “I wish I had never met you at all.”

“You don’t mean that, Sophie,” Damian whispers, attempting to step forward before I lift my hand to stop him.

“What are you hoping to achieve here, Damian? If you’re breaking up with me, then just leave. I don’t wanna see your face ever again.”

Damian gulps—I see it when I lower my hand—and he blinks at me in disbelief, as if he’d been expecting a different reaction. Did he think I’d break down in front of him and beg him not to do this? Try to convince him to change his mind?

He’s wrong.

“Sophie—” he begins, but I cut him off by raising my hand again and stepping to the side.

“Leave.” The single word is cold, cruel. Final. And it prompts him to hang his head and walk back out the door, and out of my life.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, I drop to my knees, a sob tearing from my throat as I realize the true extent of what just happened.

Damian just broke up with me, and I’ll probably never see him again.

I hope I don’t, because I won’t survive seeing his face without being reminded of what could have been.

Anger burns inside me like a fire, and I suddenly want to crawl out of my own skin, feeling uncomfortable in this dress, in my body, in my life.

I hate the color of love and hope, I hate the season of brightness and warmth, and I hate anything that might remind me of Damian Hans.

As I sit on the floor in a miserable heap of heartbreak, I feel invisible walls meant to shield me forming around me, picking up the pieces of my heart and stitching them back together to form a rock that will never be broken again, or infiltrated with a silly infatuation that hurts as much as I imagine death does.

No man will ever fool me again. It’s a solemn oath I make to myself in that moment when I realize that love can turn to hatred in an instant.