I Was Ruined, Then Hunted By Two Alphas

“Look who decided to crawl out of the basement,” a voice snickered near the lockers.

I kept my chin tucked down, clutching my backpack straps so hard the nylon bit into my palms. First day of senior year. Same concrete hallway. Same pack hierarchy that treated me like dirt beneath their shoes. As an unshifted wolf with barely enough scent to register on the radar, my survival strategy had always been simple: disappear into the background.

“Hey. Nora.”

The crowd went dead silent.

I paused, thinking someone else shared my name. But then the heavy footsteps stopped three paces in front of me.

Jax Mercer.

He was the varsity captain, the future Beta of the Northcrest Pack, and the only boy I had loved in secret every single day of the past three years. He stood tall under the bright fluorescent lights, holding a massive bouquet of crimson roses.

“Jax?” My voice shook.

“Don’t look so terrified,” he said softly.

He stepped closer. The murmur around us spiked, dozens of phones suddenly lifting into the air, camera lenses gleaming like predatory eyes.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

Jax didn’t answer with words. Instead, he dropped smoothly onto one knee right on the grimy tile floor.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

“Three years, Nora,” Jax said, his blue eyes staring directly into mine, shining with an intensity that knocked the wind clean out of me. “Three years of watching you hide in the corners. I’m done waiting. Be my girl. Say you’ll be mine.”

A girl nearby squealed into her screen. “Is this live? Tell me someone is streaming this!”

“Shut up, let her answer!” another voice yelled.

Tears sprang to my eyes, hot and sudden. My hands trembled as they hovered over the crimson petals. It felt like an impossible dream, the kind I had scribbled onto lined notebook paper at two in the morning, praying to the Moon Goddess for a miracle.

“You... you mean it?” I choked out, tears spilling down my cheeks.

“Every word,” Jax murmured, offering the bouquet higher. “Take them.”

I reached out, burying my shaking fingers into the stems, smelling the sweet, heavy perfume of the flowers.

“Yes,” I sobbed out, smiling through the wet blur of my vision. “Yes, Jax. I will.”

For one golden second, I thought the universe had finally looked down and chosen me.

Then the laughter started.

It didn’t start as a chuckle. It exploded—a deafening, vicious roar of mock applause and shrieking howls that bounced off the metal lockers.

Jax didn’t stand up to hug me. He rose to his feet, but his warm expression vanished, peeled away like cheap paint. His mouth twisted into an ugly, triumphant sneer.

“Hear that, boys?” Jax yelled to the hall, playing straight to the cameras. “She actually bought it!”

My blood turned to slush in my veins. “Jax...?”

“Fifty bucks a head!” a boy in a varsity jacket barked, slapping the lockers. “I told you she’d cry! Pay up, Miller!”

“Look at her face!” someone else wheezed. “She thought the future Beta wanted a runt!”

Jax stepped into my personal space, his eyes cold as flint.

“Did you really think I’d look twice at a pathetic stray like you?” His voice dropped low, meant just for me to hear. “You’re cheap, Nora. Easiest bet I ever won.”

The floor seemed to drop out from beneath my feet. A bet. A sick, twisted game to kick off their senior year. Three years of silent devotion, shredded into a joke for social media clout.

Shame scorched through me so violently I couldn’t breathe. I spun around, desperate to break through the circle of bodies and run until my legs gave out.

A hand clamped around my wrist like an iron shackle.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jax snapped, yanking me backward with enough force to pop my shoulder.

“Let go of me!” I cried out, clawing at his fingers. “Jax, please!”

“We’re not done putting on the show,” he snarled.

With his free hand, he ripped the roses out of my grip and slammed them onto the floor. He raised his boot and ground his heel into the petals, crushing the bright red blooms into bruised, shredded pulp.

Someone grabbed the loop of my backpack from behind.

“Hey, check what the pet brought to school!” a guy yelled, tearing the bag off my shoulders.

“Give that back!” I screamed, twisting frantically in Jax’s iron grip. “Stop it!”

The zipper gave way with a violent rip. Textbooks and pens clattered across the tile. And then, a thick, spiral-bound notebook with worn cardboard covers bounced out, landing near Jax’s boots.

My stomach plummeted.

My journal. Every midnight thought. Every stolen glance at his locker. Every foolish, desperate confession I had ever penned over thirty-six agonizing months.

“Don’t touch that!” I shrieked, panic pitching my voice high. “Jax, please, I’m begging you!”

Jax kicked my hand away as I reached for it. He scooped the notebook off the ground, flipping it open to a marked page. A grin spread across his face, wide and cruel.

“Look at this goldmine,” Jax announced to the corridor, raising his voice over the hollering students. He angled the pages directly toward three different phone cameras. “Listen up, Northcrest!”

“Jax, stop!” I sobbed, struggling against the tight hold he maintained on my arm. My fingernails dragged across his skin, leaving white scratches, but he barely flinched.

“‘September twelfth,’” Jax read aloud, pitching his voice in a ridiculous, breathy falsetto. “‘Jax wore his navy hoodie today. When he brushed past my desk, his cedarwood scent stayed in my hair all afternoon. I wish he knew how much my heart beats just hearing his name.’”

The hallway erupted in deafening hoots.

“‘I wonder if he’ll ever see me as a real wolf,’” Jax continued, laughing so hard he nearly tripped over his words. “‘I wonder if the Moon Goddess made him for me, because living without him feels like slowly dying.’”

“Pathetic!” a girl shouted from the back. “Read more, Jax!”

“She’s obsessed with you, bro!” another guy yelled.

“Please,” I choked out, my voice cracking, tears streaming in hot torrents down my flaming cheeks. “Please, just stop. Take the money and stop.”

“Why would I?” Jax sneered, tossing the notebook to his buddies. “You wanted my attention, didn’t you? Now you have it. The whole pack is watching.”

I stood there, stripped down to my bare soul, completely defenseless before a pack of wolves who viewed my dignity as sport. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting nothing more than the earth to crack open and swallow me whole.

A sudden, freezing splash slammed over my forehead.

Ice-cold soda drenched my hair, pooling over my eyes and cascading down my cheeks, soaking the collar of my shirt. The sugary liquid stung my eyes, clinging to my eyelashes, running sticky paths down my neck and chest.

Someone dropped an empty plastic cup near my sneakers.

Laughter swelled until it shook the lockers. Flashbulbs strobed against my closed eyelids. I stood soaking, shivering violently from the cold liquid and the sheer, suffocating agony of public humiliation.

“Look at the drowned rat,” a voice jeered.

Jax smirked down at me, wiping a stray drop of soda from his knuckles onto my soaked sleeve. “Welcome to senior year, runt.”

I opened my eyes, stinging and blurry, looking at the boy I had loved for a thousand days. There was nothing behind his face but hollow cruelty.

“I hate you,” I whispered, my voice barely audible through my chattering teeth.

Jax leaned down, his smirk widening. “Who cares what you—”

A blur of motion ripped through the crowd like a cannonball.

*CRACK.*

A heavy combat boot connected square with Jax’s jaw.

The sound echoed like a gunshot. The impact lifted Jax entirely off his feet, his body slamming violently against the metal lockers before he crashed facedown onto the hard floor, skidding across the crushed roses.