Marked by the Alpha: My Forced Mate

The night air hummed with the distant call of owls and the soft rustle of pine trees, but Mia barely noticed. Her breath came in short, panicked gasps as she stumbled deeper into the woods behind the party cabin. The music and laughter faded behind her, swallowed by a thick, heavy silence. The kind that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The kind that screams you’re not alone. “Mia! Wait up!” Her best friend, Lila, called from somewhere behind her. But Mia couldn’t stop. Her feet kept moving, driven by a primal fear she couldn’t explain. Then she saw it. A pair of eyes, glowing like molten gold, locked onto hers from the shadows between the trees. Mia froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs as a low, guttural growl rumbled through the darkness. It wasn’t a dog. It wasn’t even a wolf, not like any she’d ever seen. This thing was massive, its shoulders rippling with muscle, its fur as black as night. It stepped forward, and the moonlight caught its form. A wolf, impossibly large. And it was staring right at her. Mia’s brain screamed run, but her body wouldn’t move. Fear rooted her to the spot, her blood turning to ice in her veins. The wolf moved faster than she could blink. One second it was ten feet away, the next it was right in front of her, its hot, rank breath fanning her face. Mia whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the teeth to sink in. But the pain never came. Instead, a strange, burning heat spread across the side of her neck. Like being branded, sharp and hot, and Mia cried out, her hands flying to her skin. The wolf’s growl deepened, possessive and low, as if claiming what was now his. When she opened her eyes again, the wolf was gone. But the heat remained, a foreign fire under her skin. The air around her hummed with a strange energy, and she could hear voices on the wind, howls that weren’t howls, calling her name. Mia stumbled back, tripping over a root, and fell hard on the cold, damp ground. Her fingers scrabbled at the earth as she stared at the trees, at the darkness that had just claimed a piece of her. She didn’t know what the mark on her neck meant. She didn’t know who or what had left it. But she knew one thing for sure. Her life as she knew it was over. And the Alpha who had marked her was coming.