Thrown Away by the Alpha, Claimed by His King

"There!"

A man's shout tore through the trees behind me.

I ran harder.

Frozen mud sucked at my bare feet. Low branches whipped my face. Every breath scraped my lungs, but the pack boundary was already too far behind me to matter. Going back would mean begging Ryan to reopen the gate.

I would rather take my chances with the forest.

"Flush her toward the ravine!" another voice called.

They knew where I was going.

Worse, they knew who I was.

"Come on, Aria," the first man shouted. "Your Alpha doesn't want you anymore. Why make this difficult?"

Rogues did not know my name by accident.

My stomach turned.

I cut left between two pines, using the narrow gap to slow the wolves behind me. A gray shape slammed shoulder-first into one trunk, snarling. The second cleared it and gained on me.

I grabbed a broken branch from the ground and spun.

The wolf lunged.

I drove the jagged end toward its muzzle.

It struck the animal across the nose instead of the eye, but the impact bought me a second. I ran again.

My bones ached with the old Alpha backlash. I had spent years carrying Ryan's power and had nothing left to borrow from him now. Whatever strange ability had kept him alive never seemed to work for me.

A growl sounded at my right shoulder.

I veered away.

The earth disappeared beneath my foot.

I dropped.

The ravine swallowed me in darkness.

I hit one slope, rolled over rocks, struck a dead trunk hard enough to burst white light behind my eyes, then plunged into icy water at the bottom.

For a moment I could not breathe.

The current dragged me several yards before I caught a root and hauled my face above the surface.

Voices carried from the ridge.

"Do you see her?"

"No. Go down."

I pulled myself onto the bank.

My left ankle buckled immediately.

A sharp cry escaped me.

I covered my mouth.

Too late.

Loose stones rattled above.

I crawled behind a fallen cedar and pressed my back to the soaked trunk. My heart beat so hard I could hear blood in my ears.

The first rogue reached the ravine floor in human form. He was broad, shirtless despite the cold, with a scar across one cheek.

"You made us work for it," he said.

The gray wolf dropped down beside him.

"Who sent you?" I asked.

He smiled. "Does it matter?"

"It matters if Ryan is paying you."

His smile widened.

That was answer enough.

The gray wolf advanced.

I looked for a weapon. Nothing but wet stones and splintered wood.

The rogue crouched. "Your former Luna offered good silver for proof you were dead. We only need your token or a piece of you she can recognize."

Vanessa.

Of course exile was not enough. If I lived, I remained a question she could not control.

The wolf launched.

A roar exploded through the ravine.

Not a normal wolf's howl.

This sound carried pressure.

The river flattened against its banks. Branches shook. The gray wolf dropped out of the air as if something had struck it from above.

The scarred rogue collapsed to one knee.

I stayed upright.

A tall man stepped from the trees on the opposite bank.

Black coat. Dark hair. Silver eyes with a thin ring of gold burning around the pupils.

I knew the stories.

Every pack did.

Cassian Draven, High Alpha of the northern crown territories. The King whose bloodline carried a madness strong enough to break lesser wolves simply by standing near them.

He crossed the stream without looking down.

The rogue tried to rise.

"Leave," Cassian said.

The single word drove both wolves flat.

The scarred man gagged. "Your Majesty, we didn't know this was crown land."

"You crossed my markers two miles ago."

"We were hunting a banished Omega."

Cassian's gaze shifted to me.

Something strange happened.

The gold at the edge of his irises dimmed.

His jaw, locked so tight a moment earlier, loosened.

He took one step closer.

The pressure filling the ravine disappeared.

Cassian noticed it too.

His expression hardened, not with anger but calculation.

"Run," he told the rogues.

They did.

The gray wolf scrambled up the slope first. The scarred man followed without looking back.

I reached for the fallen branch beside me.

Cassian watched the movement.

"If I meant to hurt you, a stick would not save you."

"Then stay where you are."

One dark eyebrow rose.

"Interesting."

"What is?"

"Everyone else within fifty feet of me is either kneeling or vomiting when my wolf is this close to the surface."

I tightened my grip on the branch. "Maybe your wolf has manners."

The corner of his mouth moved.

Not quite a smile.

He came closer anyway, slowly enough that I could track every step.

My body should have reacted to his aura. Instead, I felt warmth spread through my chest, as if an empty room inside me had opened a window.

Cassian stopped an arm's length away.

"Name."

"Aria."

"Pack?"

"None."

He glanced at my bleeding feet and swollen ankle. "That part is obvious."

"If you're going to throw me back across the border, do it now."

"Why would I?"

"Because everyone else does."

His gaze sharpened.

Then another pulse of gold flashed through his eyes.

His hand flew to his temple.

He swore under his breath.

The pressure returned for half a second.

I felt it rush toward me.

My chest pulled it in.

Cassian went still.

The gold vanished again.

For the first time, he looked unsettled.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Do it again."

"I don't know what I did."

He studied me for another long second, then removed his coat and held it out.

"Put this on."

"Why?"

"Because you are freezing, your ankle is injured, and whatever you are just silenced a wolf that has been trying to tear through my skull for twelve years."

I did not take the coat.

Cassian exhaled. "You can refuse. You can also stay in this ravine until Vanessa sends the next hunting party."

I looked toward the slope where the rogues had disappeared.

Then at the coat.

I took it.

Cassian crouched, but did not touch me until I nodded.

When he lifted me, the last tremor of madness left his body.

He noticed that too.

"One night," I said. "Medical care. Then I decide what happens next."

His eyes met mine.

"Agreed."

Hours later, the iron doors of his fortress closed behind us.

Cassian set me on my feet and looked at me as if I were a problem no one else had managed to solve.

"Whatever Silver Moon thought they threw away," he said, "it was not an Omega."