I Was Ruined, Then Hunted By Two Alphas

The corridor went dead silent.

The mocking roars, the cruel cheers, the hum of recording phones—everything cut out like someone pulled the master breaker.

Jax lay sprawled across the floor, groaning in the puddle of crushed rose petals. Crimson blood welled from his split lip, staining the linoleum.

I pulled my arms tight against my ribs, soda dripping from my bangs down my collar. I blinked through the stinging wetness.

A black leather jacket. Broad shoulders that blocked out the overhead glare.

Rowen.

The entire pack avoided him for a reason. He held no rank in the student council, carried no titles, and never joined the varsity pack runs. Yet even Jax’s father, the pack Beta, kept his distance from Rowen’s bloodline. He was lethal, untouchable, and completely detached from the social food chain.

He never stepped in. He never cared.

Until now.

“You’re dead, man!” Miller snarled from behind him, lunging forward with his claws partially extended. “You don’t touch Jax!”

Rowen didn’t turn his head. He merely side-stepped the clumsy strike, gripped Miller by the throat, and drove him backward into the row of lockers.

The metal boomed under the impact.

“Stay down,” Rowen said. His tone lacked fury. It was flat, carrying the calm authority of an executioner.

Miller gasped for air, his eyes rolling back before Rowen released him. Miller slumped to the floor, coughing violently.

Two other seniors backed up immediately, raising their palms.

“We’re good! We’re out!” one stammered, dragging Miller by his arm.

“Pick him up,” Rowen told them, pointing toward Jax.

Jax dragged himself up on one elbow, glaring murder through swollen eyes. “You’re dead, Rowen. My dad will strip your family of every—”

Rowen took one step forward.

Jax shut his mouth instantly, stumbling backward as two teammates grabbed his shoulders and hauled him down the hall.

The crowd dissolved in seconds. Phones disappeared into pockets. Footsteps scrambled away, leaving only spilled soda, torn petals, and my scattered belongings.

I stood frozen against the lockers, my hands trembling violently.

Rowen didn’t chase them. He didn’t check if I was injured. He crouched down amidst the wreckage and reached for the torn, soaked spiral notebook.

The cardboard cover was bent. Several pages had ripped away, smeared with muddy footprints and red syrup.

He picked it up by the spine.

My throat tightened. “Don’t... please don’t read it.”

Rowen stood up straight. He didn’t open the cover. He walked over to where I stood shivering, his expression closed and unreadable.

“Hold out your hands,” he ordered quietly.

“Why did you do that?” I whispered, my voice raw.

“Take your property, Nora.”

I lifted my trembling hands. My fingers reached toward the wet cardboard.

Then my bare skin brushed against his knuckles.

A shockwave ripped through my chest.

It hit like a strike of raw lightning, tearing through my blood and setting every nerve on fire. A deafening roar echoed behind my temples. My spine arched involuntarily as an ancient, unbreakable pull snapped shut between us, dragging every fiber of my being straight toward his presence.

Fated mate.

The sacred connection. The one thing an unshifted runt like me was never supposed to possess, especially not with an elite like him.

My jaw dropped. The breath rushed out of my lungs in a sharp gasp. “You...”

Rowen froze.

His pupils dilated into obsidian pools before shrinking into pinpricks. The veins along his neck flared, and his jaw hardened into solid stone. The notebook stayed suspended between our hands, the bond humming so violently the air around us seemed to crackle.

He felt it. He knew exactly what had just locked into place.

“Rowen,” I choked out, tears burning my eyes for an entirely different reason. “You’re... we’re—”

Before the word could leave my mouth, Rowen raised his free index finger to his lips.

He pressed it firmly against his mouth.

*Silence.*

His gaze held no warmth. No wonder. No relief. Only absolute, freezing hostility.

“Do not say it,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh rasp.

“But the bond—”

“Shut up,” he commanded, stepping into my space, his aura pressing down with suffocating weight. “Listen to me carefully.”

I shrank back against the dented locker, my shoulder blades hitting cold steel. “Rowen, please...”

“There is no bond,” he whispered, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. “You saw nothing. You felt nothing. You keep your mouth shut, and you never look at me again.”

The words cut deeper than Jax’s public humiliation.

“Why?” My voice cracked, tears spilling over the dried soda on my cheeks. “You felt the snap. The Goddess chose us.”

“The Goddess made an error,” he spat coldly. “Look at yourself, Nora. You’re soaked in cheap soda, crying over Jax Mercer’s table scraps, and you haven’t even found your wolf.”

Every single word landed like a whip across my raw skin.

“I didn’t ask for this!” I cried out.

“Then don’t claim it,” he countered without hesitation. “If a single word about this leaves your mouth, the entire pack will hunt you down just to mock you twice as hard. Jax wanted to break you. My family will erase you.”

“You saved me,” I whispered, staring up at him in agony. “You stepped in.”

“I stopped a pack of cowards from acting like feral dogs in public,” Rowen said, his knuckles turning white as he shoved the ruined notebook hard against my chest. “It had nothing to do with you.”

I caught the notebook against my ribs, the soggy cardboard chilling my skin through my soaked shirt.

He pulled his hand away as if touching me burned him. He wiped his fingers against the seam of his dark jeans, an overt gesture of disgust.

“Bury it, Nora,” Rowen said, stepping backward toward the empty corridor. “We are strangers. That doesn't change.”

“Rowen, wait!”

He didn't pause. He turned his back on me and walked away, his heavy strides echoing off the lockers until the double doors swung shut behind him.

I slid down the locker until my knees hit the tile, clutching my ruined notebook against my chest.

First Jax. Now Rowen.

The mate bond thrummed inside my veins, a persistent, aching beat that tied my soul to a male who looked at me like garbage.

A soft scrape sounded at the far end of the hall.

I snapped my head up, wiping my eyes with the back of my sticky sleeve.

Standing by the corner, half-hidden in the shadow of the trophy case, Jax stood leaning against the wall, his phone raised, the red recording light blinking steadily.