CLAIMED BY THE RUTHLESS ALPHA

Seraphine POV 2

Alphas give orders. Submissives take them. No matter the order. Or they should.

“I don’t sit at anyone’s feet.” Nothing in my voice gives away the fear bubbling up from the deep well within me, where it always lives. One slip-up and I’m the pack’s newest prey or this alpha’s plaything.

I refuse to be either.

“Is that so?” he drawls.

I tilt my head up a little more. “Yes. It is.”

“This will be fun,” he murmurs. His gaze inspects me as if he’s already forgotten what I look like.

I don’t call him out on his attention the way I would if I caught any of the guys staring at my breasts the way Darius Blackthorn is. The fact that Jax the highest-ranked member of the pack, and the one who would’ve been in charge had Darius Blackthorn not appeared from freakin’ nowhere isn’t speaking up means he sees Darius as much of a threat as I do.

“Get out. The last one, close the door,” he snaps.

No one hesitates, not even Tera. Footsteps move briskly to the door, and I turn to leave.

“Not you. You stay.”

The moment the door closes behind the last of the pack, I shift my focus from it to Darius. “Why?”

“Eden. Tell me where she is.”

For a second I do nothing but stare at him because that is not what I was expecting him to say. Who the hell is this guy, and how the f**k does he know Eden?

You know what, it doesn’t matter. He’s a threat. There’s no way he wants her for anything good. Alphas never do.

“She’s dead.”

The lie trips off my tongue. Mostly it’s because I’ve had years of practice, but a larger part is because it’s not just my life at stake.

He surges to his feet and every muscle in my body tenses. But I don’t move. A dominant wolf wouldn’t move, so I stayed put.

A hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his full lower lip as he wanders over to lean against the wall by the door. My only way out. “That isn’t what I heard, Seraphine Stone.”

I am no Stone. I am Seraphine Bree, daughter of Lira Bree.

“Well, whoever told you otherwise is wrong.”

They’re not wrong.

Four years ago, Jared, the old alpha of the Stone pack, chose a girl called Eden for his mate. But there was no happily ever after because the alpha was as cruel as the pack he ruled over.

He tormented the girl day and night until she escaped. She thought her family would understand when she told them her new mate was abusive, but they put her in a car and brought her back anyway. Only the girl didn’t return alone. She brought a friend with her. Melody.

Since Melody was nothing like the predators that fill this pack, she became the newest target of their cruelty. It took two weeks for them to torment her to death. The end.

For Melody, at least.

Eden’s story is a little more complicated.

Darius continues to study me in silence. He doesn’t believe me. He hasn’t said one word, but he doesn’t need to. I can read it in his eyes.

“You can keep me here forever, but that won’t change anything.” I sound like the girl I’ve pretended to be for the last eight years. Strong. Confidence. A dominant wolf. I’m none of those things.

Darius eyes me a little longer, and when I say nothing else, he straightens from his lean with a half-smile and steps away from the door. “Then it looks like it serves no purpose keeping you here.”

Relief punches through me and I rush to get out before he changes his mind.

I’ve just reached the door when his voice, silky smooth, stops me. “Does the rest of your pack know what you are, little wolf?”

My body flushes from hot to cold, and then back again, all in under a second. I tighten my hand on the door handle so he can’t see it shaking.

I should’ve known getting out of here wouldn’t be as easy as that.

Play it cool, Seraphine. This alpha hasn’t been here long enough to guess what you are. He’s toying with you. Don’t let him.

“What am I?” I laugh. If it sounds a little forced, I can only hope he doesn’t notice. “I’m the same as everyone.”

He steps closer, so close his powerful six-foot-something body curves along my back. At five-four, I’m not small, but next to him, I feel it. He looms over me, a wall of hot skin and hard muscle.

Despite his threatening words and the heat of his body, the wild scent of him makes my body prickle with awareness. It doesn’t matter that I’m in shorts and a t-shirt. The way he’s pressed up against me, I can feel everything.

His breath flutters in my hair. “Should I guess? Because I’m thinking it begins with an S.”

Fuck. He knows.

A voice in my head screams at me to ram my elbow hard into his gut and run. If I hit him hard enough, I can open up enough of a distance between us that I can shift to the wolf and escape before he chases me down.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Not because I’m afraid he’d come after me, or that I have nowhere to go. My fury means that I will never leave. Not until I’ve finished a story that began a lifetime ago.

It started on the day that a girl watched an alpha rip her father’s throat out in front of her, and ended when he forced her mother out of the pack.

The girl hoped that when she was older, she would reunite with the mother who’d left her with a necklace and a promise that one day they’d find each other again. But since this world has never been kind to lone wolves, least of all women, the mother didn’t survive long enough to keep her promise.

When the alpha told the girl that Blackthorners had killed her mother, she swore to herself that she would never leave this pack until every last one of them had paid for sending her mother out to die.

“I think you’ve misunderstood,” I say, my voice steady.

When you live with predators, the only way you survive is to shove your fear down deep enough that they can’t see it. At twenty-four, I’ve had plenty of time to learn how.

Darius’s fingers glide through my long, dark hair, the action tugging at my scalp. Closing my eyes, I choke back a moan at the insistent pressure. Why does that feel so good?

Pull it together, Seraphine. He’s the biggest threat you’ve ever faced in your life. Now is not the time to go stupid over a man.

“Do you, now?” he murmurs, leaning even more of his body against me.

When I feel what’s probing me in the lower back, arousal warms my body and I feel myself soften.

“Yes.” I make my voice hard.

His hands slide down my hair, skimming my sides before they settle on my hips. Without warning, he jerks me against his body. When he grinds his c**k against my ass, I have no hope in hell of swallowing my moan. At least not in time.

He draws in a deep breath, and when he next speaks, his voice emerges as a low rumble. “I can smell what I’m doing to you, little wolf.”

“You aren’t doing anything to me. Let me go.”

When he doesn’t release me, I struggle. Not only to get away before this turns into something I’d only ever let happen in my dreams, but because my body is betraying me every second we stay this way.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°