THE ALPHA'S FATED MATE

Rain poured hard over Veyron City as Luna Ashford stood in front of a sixty story glass building rising like a steel cliff. Vance Tower. The name gleamed above the entrance despite the grey sky. Luna took a deep breath, straightened her grey blazer still a little damp from the drizzle, and stepped inside. Her flats clicked softly against the polished marble floor, echoing among the footsteps of expensively dressed employees who passed by without a glance in her direction. She was nobody here. Just a job applicant with a folder holding a resume printed in a rush the night before. "Miss Ashford?" A receptionist with a headset called out to her. "42nd floor. The elevator's on the right." Luna nodded, thanked her, and walked toward the elevator with a handful of other people. Her palms were cold with sweat. She needed this job, not just to cover the rent on her small apartment, but because her grandmother, the only family she had left, once told her that Vance Corporation was "the right place" for her. Luna never fully understood what that meant. Her grandmother often said strange things about their family, about blood, about instinct, about "people like you," things Luna had always written off as an old woman's nonsense. The elevator doors opened on the 42nd floor. The space felt different from the other floors: quieter, colder, with dim lighting and luxurious dark wood interiors. A senior assistant named Ivy greeted her with a thin smile. "You're right on time. Good. Mr. Vance doesn't like waiting." The name made Luna's stomach twist. Kai Vance. The youngest CEO in Veyron City's history, twenty eight years old, and according to a business magazine Luna once read in a dentist's waiting room, someone "as cold as steel and as precise as a machine." Ivy knocked on the dark wooden door at the end of the hall, then opened it without waiting for a reply. "The candidate for personal assistant has arrived, sir." The room inside was spacious, with floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the entire rain soaked city. Behind a large black wood desk, a man sat reading something on a tablet screen without looking up. "Sit," he said, curt. His voice was deep, flat, no pleasantries. Luna sat in the chair across from the desk, clutching her folder in her lap like a shield. Only after a few seconds did the man finally lift his head. And that was when everything changed. Luna couldn't explain what happened. It felt as if the air in the room had suddenly vanished. Her heart pounded far faster than usual, not from interview nerves, but from something deeper, something more primal, as if her body recognized something her brain hadn't caught up to yet. Kai Vance froze in his seat. His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared slightly, like someone who had just caught a powerful scent, even though there was nothing in the room but the smell of coffee and rain from outside the window. His eyes, a dark wood color with a strange golden shimmer when the light hit them just right, fixed on Luna with an intensity that made her want to look away. "Name," Kai said, his voice slightly lower than before. "L... Luna. Luna Ashford." Kai didn't answer. He just stared at her longer than any interviewer should, as if he were calculating something in his head, as if he were trying to convince himself that what he'd just felt was nothing but coincidence. Kai Vance was an Alpha. His whole life, his senses, smell, hearing, sensitivity to the smallest change around him, had always been reliable, always as precise as the machine he prided himself on being. But right now, with an ordinary girl in plain clothes sitting across from him, something inside him was screaming in a way he had never experienced before. That scent. Sweet, warm, faint like sandalwood touched by rain, and somehow familiar, as if his body had been waiting a long time to smell it. Kai looked away, forcing himself back to the tablet in his hands, even though his heart was still beating faster than it should. Impossible, he thought. Not now. Not her. "Your resume," he said coldly, holding out his hand without meeting her eyes. Luna hurried to hand over her folder, her fingers trembling slightly as they nearly brushed his. Kai pulled it back a beat faster than necessary, as if avoiding any physical contact. He opened the folder and skimmed it. "Minimal work experience. No degree from a top university. No recommendations from major companies." His tone was flat, almost like he was stating a scientific fact rather than passing judgment. "Why should I hire you?" The question landed like a slap, but Luna was used to being underestimated. She straightened her back a little. "Because I learn fast, I'm thorough, and I won't disappoint the trust given to me," she answered, her voice steadier than she expected. Kai looked at her again, longer this time. There was something in this girl's eyes that didn't match her seemingly fragile appearance. Something stubborn. Something that, for no clear reason, made his protective instincts stir. He hated that feeling. "Ivy will contact you," he finally said, closing the folder and setting it on the desk as if trying to push it away from himself. "That's all." Luna stood, gave a polite nod, and walked out of the room as fast as she could without looking like she was running. Once the door closed, Kai leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath, one he rarely allowed himself in front of anyone. His hand clenched on the desk. He'd heard the stories since childhood, about Fated Mates, about a biological compatibility so rare that only a handful of Alphas in a generation ever experienced it. His grandmother used to tell him how his grandfather had recognized her from a single breath in a room full of people. Kai had always considered those stories exaggerated. Old fashioned romanticism from a generation that didn't know how to build a trillion dollar business empire without letting emotion get in the way. But just now... He shook his head, forcing himself to focus back on his tablet screen, on the three o'clock meeting, on the quarterly report waiting for his signature. It's just a coincidence,* he told himself. I'm the Alpha of Silver Fang. I don't need an ordinary girl who doesn't even know what she really is. --- In the elevator down to the lobby, Luna leaned against the glass wall, trying to steady breathing that, for some reason, still felt heavy. Her hand still felt warm where Kai Vance's fingers had almost touched it. She didn't understand what had just happened in that room. It wasn't just nerves from interviewing with someone important. It felt like something inside her, something that had been asleep this whole time, had suddenly woken up. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A message from her grandmother. Grandma: How did the interview go, sweetheart? I felt something today. Be careful. Luna frowned, typed a short reply, and slipped her phone back into her pocket. Her grandmother always had strange hunches, but this time, for some reason, Luna couldn't shake it off so easily. As the elevator doors opened at the lobby, her phone buzzed again. An unknown number this time. "Congratulations, Miss Ashford. You've been hired. Mr. Vance wants you to start tomorrow morning at seven. He wants to stress: do not be late." Luna stared at her screen, stunned. That fast? She hadn't even made it out of the building yet, and the decision had already been made, as if someone on the 42nd floor didn't want to give himself time to think twice. Or maybe, as if someone didn't want to let himself think twice at all. Luna had no idea that thirty floors above her, Kai Vance was standing in front of his glass window, watching the rain pour over the city, with one question refusing to leave his mind: Who is that girl, really, and why did my body react like it already knew her?