The Alpha’s Forbidden Valkyrie

Chapter 1

Freya’s POV

My lungs burned in the cold, rainy night. Mud clung thickly to my red velvet dress, and the cracked asphalt had long since cut my bare feet to bloody ribbons. I just kept running. I was fleeing from my own family, from my own coven.

I wasn't a pureblood vampire. My pointed ears and green eyes betrayed the secret my mother had tried so hard to hide: I am half-valkyrie. To them, however, I was just a mistake. A damn mutt that needed to be destroyed. They hunted me as if I were a sick animal.

A flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and I saw a flashing red neon sign by the side of the road. A bar stood in the middle of nowhere. I didn't care who owned it or what kind of people came here. I just needed shelter.

Trembling, I pushed open the heavy wooden door. The rock music was so loud that the floor vibrated, but the moment I stepped across the threshold, my stomach tied in knots. The smell hit me. Gasoline, cheap beer, cigarette smoke, and... wet fur.

Wolves.

I realized I had wandered into the worst possible place. A werewolf den. I had never been to this area in my life, and I had no idea whose pack territory this was, but there was one thing I did know: wolves and vampires were mortal enemies.

In the heavy, smoky air, every head suddenly turned toward me. Huge, tattooed men sat at the bar and the pool tables, wearing black leather vests. The same snarling wolf head was emblazoned across their backs. I felt their predatory gazes slide over my mud-covered, torn dress, and... they caught my scent. The scent of a vampire.

The music stopped. You could have heard a pin drop.

"What the hell reeks so much in here?" a deep, gravelly voice spoke from the darkest corner of the bar.

The crowd silently parted, making way for him. The man who stepped out of the shadows was terror incarnate. Nearly two meters tall and pure muscle, his thick arms and neck were covered in dark runes and tattoos. I had never seen him before, I didn't even know his name, but his aura was so suffocating and dark that I knew instantly: he was the Alpha. The leader.

"A leech," one of the men at the bar snarled, pulling out a knife. "A damn bloodsucker wandered in, Boss."

The leader didn't take his eyes off me. He started toward me with slow, measured steps, like a beast stalking its prey. With every step, I could feel his destructive power. I tried to back away, I wanted to run, but my back hit the cold wooden door. I was trapped.

"You came to the wrong place, mutt," the dark-haired man rumbled, and in the next second, he lunged at me.

His massive hand wrapped roughly around my throat. His skin was so hot it felt like fire burned within him. With a single, effortless motion, he lifted me off the floor and slammed me against the wall. My head snapped back, and my wet hair slipped behind my ears, revealing my valkyrie features.

A threatening growl rippled through the bar. The leader's face was only inches from mine.

"A filthy bloodsucker in my bar..." he whispered, and his voice burned with such a deep, visceral hatred that the blood froze in my veins. "I'm going to tear you to pieces."

I couldn't breathe. His fingers squeezed my neck mercilessly. I closed my eyes and resigned myself to my fate. I waited for death.

But the pain never came. Instead, the man suddenly froze. His fingers stilled on my throat, and the breath caught in his lungs. I heard him draw in a deep, trembling breath, right at my neck. His nose brushed against my skin, and slowly, almost in a daze, he sniffed along my pulse.

His body grew completely rigid.

When I opened my eyes, the leader was looking straight into mine. The predatory rage was replaced by genuine, overwhelming shock. His pupils dilated as his inner wolf recognized in me the one thing no werewolf would ever want to recognize in a vampire. His fated mate. The bond.

But in a single heartbeat, the shock was replaced by something far worse. Pure, nauseating disgust.

His face twisted, as if he had just touched something toxic and rotting.

"Disgusting," he spat the word, jerking his hand away from my skin as if I had burned him.

With a single, cruel motion, he threw me aside. I flew through the air like a weightless ragdoll. My back hit a solid wooden table with a massive crash, and it splintered to pieces beneath me from the force of the impact.

All the air was knocked out of my lungs. Pain tore down my spine like a blinding flash, overwhelming my mind. I tried to breathe, I tried to look up at the man who stared at me like I was the lowest piece of dirt, but my vision blurred. The sounds of the bar faded into a distant hum, and then the darkness mercifully swallowed me whole.