Werewolf Romance: The Alpha’s Bride

There was a presage of pine and damp earth in the air as Chloe Weiss made her way through the forest, her senses of a newly awakened wolf overwhelming her. Her paws were still unfamiliar with this new body and it sank into the soft ground while the whispers of leaves were heard by her twitching ears. She was NOT the null that everyone from the Huntsville pack had pitied—a werewolf who couldn't shift and was doomed to live on the fringes of pack life. Now, she was something else. "I think my wolf hates me," Chloe muttered, her voice so low that it was easily lost behind the wind. She looked at Jackson Swift, her mate and future alpha, who was loping along with her in human form, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. "She looks at me like I'm offending her," Chloe added, pausing to shake a burr from her fur. Jackson chuckled, crouching down so he was level with her gaze. "How does your wolf look at you?" "She simply... looks at me," Chloe said, her tail flicking irritably. "And that's it?" Jackson's grin widened, then reached a hand under her coat to rub her flank, making her shiver in an unfamiliar mix of instinct and desire different from what she was still learning to navigate. Mates for a mere month, the bond was raw and electric. Jackson was the only one to have seen her potential, while even the pack was surprised at how he chose to tease her wolf from within with so deliberate patience. Not all were terribly keen about their being, though. Her name in whispers followed her everywhere; the pack house, in the bar, even the post office. Null. How did she manage to snag the alpha's son? Back in the honey-combed shack, Chloe returned to her natural form, muscles sore for the strain. It was donned over one of Jackson's shirts, the woodsmoke and cedar scent of him in the fabric. "I know a way to guarantee sweet dreams," Jackson said, his voice low as he pulled her close. "Is it s*x?" Chloe teased as her body reacted to him. "Yep." His hands slid under the shirt, warm against her skin. "Again?" she asked, half laughing, half exasperated. "And again. I can't get enough of you, Chloe, not since the day I first saw you." His words flared with fierceness and possession and stirred something deep in her. She pushed the voice back with force, "That's why you slept with every other b***h in the pack, right?" Jackson's eyes turned dark, but with something far more primal than anger. "Mine," he growled, pinning her against the wall. "Yours," she whispered, defiance melted into nothing under his touch. "Let me go," she said, but there was no real force behind it. "I like you this way. You're mine to f**k senseless." His lips grazed her neck, and she gasped. "Oh God," she breathed as her body arched toward him. "I'm going to come," she warned, her voice trembling. "Yes, do it. Come for me, she-wolf." With that command, she toppled over the edge of sanity and shattered in his hold. Later, as they lay all tangled up in sheets, doubts crept back into Chloe's mind. "Sleep is for the weak," Jackson whispered, kissing her forehead. "Damn right," she replied, but she was in another world. The pack's resentment and the whispers of Omega- weak wolf, unfit for an alpha gnawed within her. She was his, and he was hers, but forever felt like a fragile promise in a pack that didn't fully accept her.