My Alphas Are Bikers

—Nitasha’s POV— Rain fell in furious, relentless sheets, battering the pavement like war drums pounding the city's bone. Every drop crashed into the broken stone with mechanical rhythm, a beat that thrummed through the darkness and into my chest. The walls of Ashbourne University puffed beneath it—dank, aged, and disapproving. The air was heavy with mist curling off the far-off hills, and the trembling streetlights struggled valiantly against it, their halos flashing in and out of visibility like dying specters. Above, storm clouds hung low and sulky, pulling the sky into that strange limbo between night and dawn—a smudge of twilight bruising the horizon. I did not select Ashbourne for the scholarship or prestige. I selected it because it was the one location that no one would suspect of finding me—not after what occurred. A university consumed by secrets, ideal for keeping mine buried. No one here had ever known the girl who vanished from a hospital bed in a nearby town. No one had witnessed what I had… what I became. I walked through the wrought-iron gates and winced as they creaked shut behind me, the metal screaming as if aware of something I wasn’t. A shiver ran up my spine, which I attributed to the rain, though the cold wasn’t what made me grit my teeth. My boots splattered into a puddle, and icy water instantly seeped into my socks. I didn’t slow. I didn’t wince. I just trudged, face down, shoulders slumped under the burden of my soaked hoodie and the silence closing in around me from all sides. The smell of wet ground lay thick over everything, but beneath it, I detected something acrid—something amiss. Something like smoke or burnt rubber. I tried to ignore it—I really tried. But the queasiness in the pit of my stomach wound tighter with each step I took. I tightened my backpack strap, knuckles throbbing from the pressure. My hair stuck to my cheeks in damp, sticky ropes, and the cold seeped under my skin like an illicit rumor I wasn't meant to know. I didn't glance up until I went under the rusty, ancient archway that signaled the entrance to the main campus walk. Weathered letters creaked overhead, the faded script still barely readable in the fading light: Ashbourne University – Strength in Legacy. Legacy? The term curled angrily in my head. I almost laughed, but it would’ve come too close to a cry. Legacy, they had said. As though that explained it. As though it justified anything. This school wasn’t about education—it was about control, secrets, and whatever devil wriggled just beneath its gleaming façade. I’d heard the rumors. Everyone had. Whispers at first, then louder. Always too ridiculous to accept—until now. And then the darkness exploded. I heard it first—a deafening rumble, as if whatever it was had torn through the very fabric of the storm. I stood frozen. My heart plummeted. The echo hummed through my bones, a low, guttural growl that vibrated the earth and jarred something deep in my chest. I spun around—just in time to see blinding white light burst through the fog. Headlights!! Engines!! Four of them!! They howled like wolves freed from the forest, wild and fast and terrifyingly in sync. My breath caught as they shot through the gates I’d just passed, water spraying up in torrents around their tires. The motorcycles were pitch-black and monstrous, sleek silhouettes built for speed and violence. They glided in a way predators do, with precision and intent, and I was hardly able to take it in before the front bike slammed to a skidding, screeching halt—directly in my path. The tires screamed, wet rubber squealing on wet rock, and vapor curled up from the pavement in curling plumes. My heart crashed into my chest hard enough to leave me bruised. He said nothing. Just sat there for a moment, the engine rumbling low and deadly beneath him. Then he got off. I watched as he pulled off his helmet in one fluid, practiced motion, revealing dark, rain-drenched hair that clung to his forehead. A jagged scar split his left eyebrow, and his face—God, his face—looked like it had been carved out of war and winter. But it was his eyes that rooted me to the spot. His eyes were silver—not gray, but silver, metallic and inhuman—and he stared at me as if he already knew everything, as if he could see straight through me to something I hadn’t even realized was lurking beneath the surface. And then he spoke, "mine." Only that. One word. But it was sufficient. It wasn't a hello. It wasn't a come-on. It was a possession. The kind of word that seemed older than words, deeper than meaning. It punched me in the chest. From somewhere overhead, behind the windows of the dorms, I heard gasps—drowned out by the rain but keen enough to be noticed. Silhouettes congregated in the lighted windows like specters, staring with open eyes. But the world had already been reduced to this impossible boy and the manner in which he spoke mine like it contained something I couldn't yet understand. I swallowed. "W-What did you just say?" My voice was strained, but even, somehow. He moved toward me, every step precise and controlled, as if someone habituated to violence but not constricted by it. There was a silence within him that made me yearn to flee—but I couldn't. My legs wouldn't move. "You shouldn't be here," he growled, speaking low, as if with substance I hadn't yet learned. I braced myself, attempting to keep my fear between my teeth. "You don't even know me." He came to a halt inches from me—close enough for me to see the rain tracking down his jaw, for me to see the glint of silver in his eyes pick up the faint light like stars in the distance. "I know your smell," he growled, his voice raspy with something unsaid. "And that's all I need." My breath stuck in my throat. Flames of heat broke out on my cheeks, totally incompatible with the chill dumping around us. "You're crazy." Slow, wicked smile, like a wolf showing fangs. "No. I'm Alpha Enzo Rael." He said it like it was holy. "And you just woke up my wolf." I didn't even have time to sort that out before the storm replied. More engines roared. Three other bikes shot through the fog, efficient and savage, their headlights cutting hard beams that cut through the mist like knives. They raced around the courtyard, encircling us with sound and movement and something that seemed perilously close to hunger. The lead rider sported tattoos that circled his neck and arms like living vines, dark ink pulsing with color I couldn't decipher. He gave his engine one rev and glared at Enzo. "She's not yours." "She's ours," the second rider—taller and thinner, with a smile too razor-sharp to be genuine—spoke, his tone full of amusement. As if this was the introduction to some play he'd memorized. The third remained silent. He only stared. His eyes were ice and rage, and they burned harder than the rain. Enzo swung with the slow, deadly tranquility of something that was certain it could win any fight it chose. "Back off, Zane. Lucien. Daniel." He spoke each name as a tool of war. Then, in a softer but more heavy tone like stone and truth: "This one's mine." My lungs ceased to function normally. I gazed between the four of them—these strangers with eyes that shone and voices that rattled the very air around them. They were too large, too overwhelming, too real in a way that felt unnatural. Like they weren't human. Like they were something more. And worse? Something deep within me reacted. My chest constricted. My flesh was alive with tingling. My entire body vibrated with an energy that wasn't mine but was most certainly within me now. Something ancient and agitated moved just beneath the surface of my skin, curling around my ribs and flaring in the backs of my eyes. I took a step back, one hand pressed to my chest. "W-What's happening to me?" Enzo looked at me once again, and there was something softer underneath the untamed. Something that in fact seemed almost like recognition. "You're shifting," he stated. "You can feel it, can't you?"