Chapter 5, The Alpha’s Command
Sixteen years
Wren
Killian didn’t just stop me; he intercepted me with the force of a landslide.
He caught me mid-stride, his arm hooking around my waist like a steel band, and spun us.
My back hit the rough bark of a spruce tree with enough force to rattle my teeth.
He didn’t pull away. He crowded into my space, his heavy frame pinning me flat against the wood.
The heat coming off him was intense, smelling of woodsmoke, rain, and the dark, musky scent of a predator who had just finished a chase.
“Got you,” he rasped. His face was inches from mine, his eyes a swirling, liquid silver.
“You’re a prick, Killian,” I choked out, my hands flat against his bare chest, trying to push. It was like trying to move a mountain. “Let go.”
He didn’t move. Instead, he leaned down, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of my jawline. I expected him to say something about the pack or the borders, but his voice was a low, dirty silk that made my stomach drop.
“You look so much better when you’re breathless, Wren,” he murmured. He let his nose brush against the shell of my ear. “All that running... it makes me wonder what else you’re good at when your heart is racing like this.”
I stiffened, my face flaming. “I’m training. Unlike you, I don’t get everything handed to me because of whose blood I carry.”
Killian pulled back just an inch, his eyes darkening. He looked at me with a mix of frustration and a hunger that felt increasingly dangerous. “You’re so stubborn. Do you even know who you’re talking to?”
Suddenly, the air around us shifted.
The temperature didn’t change, but the pressure did.
I felt a heavy, oppressive weight roll off him, a wave of pure, raw dominance.
It was the Alpha Command. I’d seen it work on the others; I’d seen grown Sentinels drop to their knees or avert their eyes when Silas put his foot down.
It was a psychological leash, a frequency every wolf in the High-Ridge was wired to obey.
Killian stared at me, his jaw set, waiting for me to flinch. Waiting for my knees to buckle or for my head to bow in involuntary submission.
I just blinked at him.
“Are you done?” I asked, my voice steady. “Because I have a three-mile hike back and I’m losing light.”
Killian’s eyes widened. The silvery glow in them flared with a mix of shock and pure irritation. He increased the pressure, his power rolling off him in suffocating waves, but to me, it was just... air. I felt nothing but the heat of his skin and the annoyance of being held against a tree.
“You don’t feel that?” he whispered, his voice cracking with disbelief. “Wren, I am telling you to yield.”
“And I’m telling you to move,” I countered, narrowing my eyes. “Is your ego so big you think you can just wish me into submission?”
A slow, dangerous grin spread across his face, one that wasn’t about the hunt anymore. He leaned in even closer, his thumb catching my bottom lip and tugging it down just enough to see the defiant set of my teeth.
“You really are an anomaly,” he breathed, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “Nobody ignores my command. Not even the Beta. But you... you look at me like I’m just a boy in your way.”
“Because that’s all you are.” My heart was hammering so hard I thought he might feel it through his thumb.
“Liar,” he whispered. He let his hand slide from the tree to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair, pulling my head back so I had to look at him. “You’re the only person in this valley who doesn’t obey me. Which makes me want to find out what it takes to make you want to.”
He didn’t kiss me. He just hovered there, his lips a breath away from mine, letting the tension coil between us like a spring.
“I expect people to do what I want, Wren,” he murmured against my mouth. “And right now?”
He released me as suddenly as he’d caught me, stepping back into the shadows. Without his heat, the forest felt ten degrees colder.
“Ten seconds, Wren,” he said, his eyes glowing with a dark, wicked promise. “And this time, if I catch you, I’m not just pinning you to a tree.”