CLAIMED BY THE RUTHLESS ALPHA

Seraphine POV

Someone is watching me.

I peel my eyes open but don’t move. Not just yet. Instead, I focus on my cabin wall and take a long moment to steady my nerves for yet another confrontation.

After Jax shoved me to the floor and Tera followed up with a gut punch when I was still getting to my feet, I spent the rest of the night sleeping with one eye open. By that, I mean I didn’t get any sleep until morning light was bleeding through the thin lace curtains that cover my window. I’d be surprised if I managed more than two hours.

I lost count of how many times I nearly talked myself into slipping away in the middle of the night. If it was just Leo, maybe I might have. But it’s Jax too. He served as beta to the alpha who killed Dad. I’m not walking away until he’s lying dead at my feet.

“You know, sneaking into a woman’s room uninvited is something only a creep does,” I say, my eyes still on the wall.

“I’m Alpha here. That means this land, and everything on it, is mine.”

His words shouldn’t affect me the way they do, but I feel the impact of them deep inside me. A part of me likes the idea of belonging to him. I’m hoping it’s a tiny part that’s easy to ignore.

“Well,” I murmur as I sit up, “you might have claimed everything else as yours, but I’m not.”

Turning, I discovered Darius Blackthorn leaning against the wall of a cabin so small that if you tripped, you’d headbutt the other side. He has his arms folded over his chest, just as he was back in the farmhouse.

The tiny part of me that didn’t mind belonging to him sighs in disappointment because he’s not naked this time. He’s dressed in a pair of blue jeans, black boots, and a navy v-neck sweatshirt that emphasizes his muscled arms, looking more than a little hot. Who the f**k am I kidding? It’s more than a little.

Hot enough for you to have forgotten what he did to Eden?

My jaw tightens, and I refocus my attention on what really matters. Keeping my mouth shut until I can end Leo and Jax.

As I sit up, his gaze dips down. Since I’m wearing a thin cotton t-shirt, it’s impossible to hide the moment my n*****s harden. I spend the next several seconds cursing my traitorous body for betraying me.

His expression doesn’t change, but I feel the intensity of his focus sharpen as if he knows exactly what effect he’s having on me.

“Your head might think that, but your body knows otherwise.”

And there it is a symptom of that alpha flaw rearing its ugly head. An ego the size of f*****g Texas.

Narrowing my eyes, I grip my top sheet and yank it up. “Was there a reason you invaded my personal space, or were you just here to remind me that you’re alpha?”

He lifts his gaze back to my face. “Did you have something else in mind?”

As I stare at him, I’m suddenly hyper-aware that I’m in bed wearing nothing but a threadbare t-shirt. I’m not even wearing panties. And he’s there. Darius Blackthorn, eyeing me as if he’s considering joining me.

I tell myself that the reason I move to get up is that I feel vulnerable sitting in bed while Darius is standing. That it has nothing to do with how breathless and warm I’m getting.

“Yes, I did. You're leaving.”

On my feet, I turn. And find myself face to face with Darius. It’s a miracle I don’t jump, and I barely just barely manage to stuff my scream down my throat before it can emerge.

Amusement flares in his eyes. If he were any other guy, I’d call them beautiful, but because he’s nothing but a threat to me, his emerald eyes are just plain ordinary. At least that’s what I tell myself.

“Did I startle you?” he rumbles.

I take a step aside. “No, you didn’t. Now if you’ll ”

Faster than I can stop him, one hand closes tight around my hip, halting me, and the other goes to the thin chain around my neck. “Pretty. Someone special give it to you?”

Panic spikes in my belly. He’s holding the only thing I have left of my parents. The only thing I have in the world that means anything to me.

Old pictures of a small family wouldn’t mean anything to Darius, but they mean everything to me. In a pack like this, sentimentality is a weakness. It’s why I’ve put as much care into hiding the necklace as I have my submissive wolf.

I’m always careful to tuck the thin silver necklace with the small heart-shaped pendant under my clothes, but this time I haven’t been.

Carelessness will kill you, Seraphine. Don’t let it happen again.

If any of the pack saw how much I cherished the necklace enough that I remove it to clean it each week, or they glimpsed the pictures inside, they’d view it as a weakness, and weakness in this place is something to be punished.

“It’s just something I picked up in a thrift shop.” I make my eyes wide and empty. “I like that it’s a heart.”

He raises his eyebrow. “You know alphas can tell when a member of their pack is lying to them.”

“Can they?” I blink up at him.

For several seconds he does nothing but study me, as if waiting for me to break down and admit the truth. I wait for him to realize the last thing I’m ever going to do is break down or back down.

“Submissives don’t lie to their alpha,” he rumbles.

I widen my eyes as if he’s just said the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard in my life. “They don’t?”

“They also,” he continued as if he didn’t hear me, “follow orders. You don’t seem to be very good at that, do you, Seraphine Stone?”

“Maybe,” I bite out, “you just don’t know how to give the right orders.”

Heat flashes in his eyes and I have a second to wonder what thought my words just triggered in his head.

“So you do follow orders, then?”

“Only the ones I want to.”

He doesn’t speak as he puzzles over me. No submissive would or should be this combative. It’s just not in our nature. I know that better than anyone because it took a long time to stamp out my need to follow orders.

Years.

When I was fourteen, if someone told me to pick something off the floor, it’d be in my hand before I’d even realized I’d moved. I wanted to please. Everyone. Constantly.

When I was still young, maybe seven or eight, the need wasn’t as urgent. Back then, I had no problem saying no or arguing back when Mom or Dad asked me to do something that I didn’t want to do.

But as I approached my first shift at sixteen, the urge to do what I was told grew more intense.

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