The Alpha's Bond: Forbidden But Wanted

"Drive faster or they will catch us," I muttered to the empty passenger seat. My eyes flickered to the rearview mirror as I pushed the accelerator toward the floor. The road behind me remained an empty ribbon of black asphalt.

I had taken nothing that belonged to Ximena Castellanos. I left the bags and the money with the family seal behind in my bedroom. I did not want anything that could be tracked or used to follow me north.

I wore a set of plain clothes and kept a small knife tucked under my mattress since I was fourteen. It was now strapped to my calf beneath my trousers.

This car was the only thing my father gave me that was actually mine. The road ran out just before two in the morning at a stretch of cliffside.

I knew this cove from the summers we spent here as children. That was before the feud with the Valdemars made leisure a forgotten memory.

The drop was clean and the water below moved fast around the base of the rocks. There were no lights from any houses for at least a kilometer in either direction.

I chose this spot because my father taught me to be thorough. I sat in the car for a moment with the engine idling. The headlights cut through the darkness and hovered over the edge of the abyss. It is far enough, I thought as I gripped the steering wheel.

I put the car in neutral and stepped out onto the narrow cliff road. I moved to the back of the vehicle and pressed my palms against the cold metal. I threw my whole weight into the boot and felt my boots skid.

The ground sloped just enough that the car began to moan against the gravel. I shoved again and felt my muscles burn with the effort. Move, I commanded as the tires finally began to rotate.

The car rolled slowly at first and then gathered a sudden, violent momentum. It yanked itself out from under my hands and vanished over the ledge.

The sound of the impact was a heavy, swallowing crash that shook the stone. I watched the car sink into the deep, dark belly of the Mediterranean. The headlights remained on underwater for a few seconds like pale gold ghosts.

Then the light vanished and there was nothing but the sound of the sea. I gave myself thirty seconds to breathe before I began the descent.

The east face of the cliff was accessible if you knew where to put your feet. I had known the path since I was twelve years old. The rock was cold and wet, biting into my fingertips as I climbed down.

My hands were shaking by the time I reached the bottom of the cove. I stripped down to the thin layers I had worn for the swim. The water hit me like a solid wall of ice when I stepped in.

The sea was not the warm thing it appeared to be during the summer months. It was sharp and black and it pulled at my legs immediately.

The current dragged me sideways along the base of the cliff. It knocked the breath out of me and I struggled to keep my head up. I am not going to drown here, I told myself. I swam hard and low, keeping my strokes silent against the waves.

I did not look back at the place where my car had disappeared. I focused only on the rhythm of my arms cutting through the salt. I had gone perhaps two hundred meters when I heard the first of the torches. I went still in the water and treaded just enough to stay afloat.

Lights appeared at the top of the cliff above the cove. Two of them moved in a wide-sweeping pattern across the rocks. My father's wolves were already searching for me. He watches every road that leads away from his house and he always has.

A torch swept down across the water's surface and I ducked my head. I let my dark hair float flat against the waterline to hide my silhouette. The light passed two meters to my left and kept moving.

"She went in," one of the scouts called out to the men on the road. His voice carried clearly across the water in the cold night air.

"The car is in the cove and there is nothing on the surface." There was a long pause as the second voice spoke from the cliff top.

"Any sign of her?" he asked with a tone that was flat and bored. He did not sound like he cared if I lived or died.

"None," the scout replied. "The current is running east and it is moving fast." He did not need to finish the sentence to make his point. If I had gone in with the car, my body would be kilometers away by now.

They know this coastline as well as I do. They are already calculating the report they will give to my father.

"Report it to Don Rodrigo," the second voice said. "Tell him the girl is gone."

I watched the torches move back along the cliff road until the light faded. I floated in the black water and listened to the silence return to the night.

The cold worked its way into my hands and feet until I couldn't feel them. The mark on my wrist went quiet as if the sea had extinguished the fire. The car was forty feet below me in the dark with every record of my life.

Ximena Castellanos had driven off a cliff and the current had taken her. I am no one now, I thought as I turned toward the shore. I have no name and no papers and nothing but a knife and my fury.

Let the daughter die so the blade can live. I swam toward the distant lights of the coast without looking back. I reached the shore an hour later and dragged my body onto the sand.

My limbs felt like lead and my skin was blue from the freezing temperatures. I crawled toward a thicket of trees to find cover. I reached for the knife on my calf to make sure it was still there.

My fingers brushed against the leather sheath and I felt a small surge of heat. The mark was starting to glow again through my wet clothes. I looked up and saw a pair of boots standing just a few feet away.

They were not my father's boots and they did not belong to his scouts. They were heavy, military-grade leather covered in fresh mud.

"You took a very long time to get here," a voice rumbled from above. I looked up and saw a man with a jagged scar across his throat. He held a heavy coat in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. He stepped into the moonlight and I saw the Valdemar crest pinned to his lapel. He didn't answer me but he didn't raise the gun either.

"Bastian is waiting," he said, throwing the coat over my shivering shoulders. He turned and started walking toward a path hidden in the brush.

I realized then that my father wasn't the only one who had been watching the roads.