The Alpha’s $12 Million Bride

Interrupted

The windows exploded.

Roman moved before I could blink, shattering every thought I had of his lips.

Confusion muddied my brain. I couldn’t understand what had happened.

One second, his breath had been warm against my mouth.

The next, his body covered mine.

Glass rained down around us.

Sharp stings tore across my skin as shards caught my bare arm, shoulder, the side of my cheek.

Someone screamed.

Then someone roared, pure rage echoing in my head.

Roman wrapped an arm around my head and pulled me tighter against his chest, turning his body into a shield.

My ears rang.

My heart hammered.

“Seph!”

His voice sounded far away.

I lifted my head.

Roman was already looking past me.

His entire body changed.

“Stay behind me.”

“What—”

A snarl tore through the garden.

Then another.

Wolves burst through the trees.

The garden erupted.

Bodies snapped forward.

Bones cracked.

Silk tore.

Suits split at the seams as wolves ripped through them.

One second, Roman’s pack stood between overturned benches and crushed flowers.

The next, fur and teeth filled the aisle.

Someone shifted beside us so quickly the sound of breaking bone disappeared beneath the snarling.

Roman shoved me behind him.

“Roman—”

A body slammed into him.

One of his guards.

Roman caught him before he hit the ground.

The man’s fingers twisted into the front of Roman’s jacket.

“They—”

His knees buckled.

His body convulsed.

Claws punched through his fingertips.

Disappeared.

Came back.

Roman stared down at him.

Just for a second.

An arm locked around my waist.

My back slammed into someone’s chest.

I screamed.

Roman’s head snapped up.

Then my feet left the ground.

“Roman!”

His name tore out of me as I kicked backward, my heel catching nothing but air.

Roman set his guard gently on the ground.

He moved toward me.

Three wolves landed between us.

Like they’d been waiting to jump in for exactly this moment.

Roman stopped.

The man holding me tightened his arm around my waist and dragged me backward.

My nails dug into his forearm.

“Get the f**k off me!”

I threw my head backward and with a satisfying CRACK made contact with his jaw.

For a second, his grip loosened.

I wasn’t fast enough.

He jerked me back before I could squirm out of reach.

“Stop fighting.”

“f**k you!” I screamed, adrenaline and acid in my veins.

I drove my heel down onto his foot.

He shouted as it punctured straight through his shoe.

His grip tightened while he ripped his foot free, the wound already beginning to heal.

Roman took another step.

The wolves moved with him.

All three, in sync.

And that was when I saw behind them.

I watched the blood drain from Roman’s face as he took everything in.

Me, trapped in a stranger’s arms.

The bodies of his friends, his guards, his pack, strewn across the ground behind us.

The garden had been ripped apart.

Wooden benches lay overturned and broken, legs snapped from their frames. The wildflowers I’d walked through minutes ago were crushed into the grass, wine-dark petals ground beneath bodies and paws. Splintered wood littered the aisle. Clumps of fur clung to it.

And blood.

Blood soaked into everything.

The grass.

The flowers.

The wood.

Some of the bodies weren’t moving.

One man clawed at his throat, his body jerking against the grass.

Another tried to shift.

His fingers lengthened.

Claws broke through.

Then disappeared, just like Roman’s guard.

His body convulsed.

Human again.

Drugged.

They hadn’t just attacked his security, they’d made sure they couldn’t fight back.

Then I saw Cal.

No.

Roman’s Beta lay near the edge of the garden.

For a second, I didn’t recognize him.

There was too much blood.

Sixteen days.

I’d known Cal for sixteen f*****g days.

Somehow, that had been enough.

Enough for him to help Roman build shelves for a woman neither of them really knew yet. Enough for me to learn exactly how far I could push him before his mouth twitched and the serious Beta act fell apart.

Enough to feel like a brother.

He’d started knocking on the open door of my studio just to tell me he wasn’t coming in.

I’d started telling him to f**k off without looking up.

Yesterday, he’d brought me coffee anyway.

Sixteen days.

And Cal looked like he was dying.

His suit had been ripped open from shoulder to ribs, the fabric beneath his hand soaked nearly black. One leg bent wrong beneath him.

Three wolves lay around him.

None of them were moving.

His fingers dug into the grass.

Claws broke through.

Vanished.

Broke through again.

He dragged himself forward anyway.

Toward us.

His leg trailed uselessly behind him.

He still didn’t stop.

“CAL!” I screamed.

Roman’s eyes snapped toward where I stared, eyes wide with horror.

His jaw tightened when he saw him.

Then his eyes came back to me.

The man holding me shifted.

One hand disappeared inside his jacket.

When it came back out, there was a syringe between his fingers.

Oh, f**k no.

I threw my head backward.

My skull connected with his jaw with another satisfying CRACK.

“f**k!”

His grip loosened.

I twisted, clawing at his arm, trying to wrench myself through the opening.

Almost.

His hand caught a fistful of silk at my waist and ripped me backward.

“Hold still.”

“f**k you!”

I drove my heel down onto his injured foot again.

He shouted.

I did it again.

The needle flashed beside my face.

Roman saw it.

Gold swallowed green.

A chill ripped down my spine.

Every hair on my arms stood straight up.

Something invisible punched the breath from my lungs.

Roman’s upper lip pulled away from his teeth.

A growl started deep inside his chest.

Low.

Wrong.

I felt it in my ribs before I heard it.

The man hooked his forearm across my chest and jerked me hard against him.

I caught the syringe hand with both of mine.

The needle hovered inches from my neck.

“Roman!”

I shoved against the man’s wrist.

He shoved back.

The needle dropped closer.

An inch.

Half an inch.

I turned my face away.

The point touched my skin.

Roman’s growl deepened.

I pushed with everything I had.

“ROMAN!” I screamed, terror pouring through my veins as the needle punctured my skin.

The man’s thumb slammed down on the plunger.

The growl erupted into a roar as Roman’s wolf took control.

Roman’s body snapped forward.

Bones cracked.

Fabric tore.

Silver exploded through his skin.

His wolf hit the ground on four enormous paws.

And for one impossible second, I forgot someone was holding me.

He was massive.

I’d seen Alpha wolves before.

My father was one.

I knew they ran larger. Heavier. I knew the difference between a wolf and an Alpha wolf before I was old enough to shift myself.

Or not shift, as it turned out.

But Roman’s wolf was something else.

His coat was silver.

Not gray.

Silver.

The kind that shone like metal. Each movement sent it shimmering across his body, and some stupid, artist part of my brain wondered what he looked like beneath moonlight.

The markings racing through his fur were the deepest black I’d ever seen. They swept across his shoulders and down his spine, framing his face until the gold of his eyes looked almost molten between them. Black threaded through the silver in narrow trails, the fur separating around them like someone had dragged their fingers repeatedly through wet clay.

He was beautiful.

He was f*****g terrifying.

And every ounce of his wolf was locked onto the man holding me.

Roman’s wolf lowered his head and moved into attack position.

A growl rolled through the garden as he stepped one giant paw forward, snaking closer to the ground, getting ready to pounce.

The man holding me shifted backward.

Such a small movement that I might not have noticed if his arm hadn’t tightened around me.

Roman wasn’t his Alpha.

His wolf didn’t owe Roman’s wolf obedience.

But instinct didn’t seem particularly interested in pack politics.

It had taken one look at Roman’s wolf and decided it wanted more space.

Holy s**t.

The three wolves between us spread out.

Another stepped from behind an overturned bench.

Then another.

Movement flickered through the trees.

Fur slipped between the trunks.

Four.

Six.

Eight.

My stomach dropped.

Eleven.

Eleven wolves surrounded Roman’s wolf.

Three lunged at once.

The other eight waited.

Teeth bared.

Tongues sliding over their jaws.

One of them looked like it was f*****g smiling, waiting for a chance to sink his teeth into Roman’s wolf.

The first three hit.

Silver disappeared beneath fur.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Then one of the wolves flew.

Roman’s wolf threw it from his back hard enough that it rolled through the grass and crashed into a broken bench.

His jaws closed around another.

A sound like a scream and a whimper split through the garden as the third wolf struggled to twist away from Roman’s wolf’s teeth.

Two more immediately took their places.

Oh.

They weren’t trying to overpower him.

They were rotating.

Three in.

Eight waiting.

One fell back.

Another went in.

Keeping teeth on him.

Keeping him occupied.

Keeping him away from me.

Roman’s wolf realized it too.

His head snapped toward me.

Molten gold found mine through the bodies circling him.

I tried to fight again.

My elbow moved maybe three inches.

What the f**k?

I tried harder.

Nothing.

My arm felt heavy.

Not numb.

Disconnected.

Like someone had cut the strings between my brain and everything below my shoulders.

The syringe.

“Roman—” I garbled, the word getting caught in my throat, nearly choking me as my knee folded beneath me.

The man caught me under the arms before I hit the ground and started hauling me backward.

Roman’s wolf roared.

The sound shook through my chest.

The wolves around him hesitated.

Roman didn’t.

Silver tore through them.

One wolf hit the ground.

Another went flying.

Blood streaked Roman’s muzzle.

He was coming.

Another wolf took its place.

Then another.

My vision started to blur, but I wasn’t going under yet.

I could see everything.

I just couldn’t move.

My heels slipped off, falling into the grass, my legs carved two crooked lines through crushed flowers and blood as my attacker drug me by the shoulder with one hand, his claws ripping into my skin below my collarbone, using it as a handle, moving easily through the wreckage.

I felt nothing.

I tried to make my legs work.

Nothing.

The garden softened around the edges in my vision.

Roman’s wolf broke through again.

His silver coat was streaked red now. Fur hung wet around one shoulder, but he was still standing.

Still fighting.

Still moving toward me.

Another wolf launched at his side.

Roman met it in the air.

Teeth snapped.

Blood sprayed.

They hit the ground together.

Silver rose.

The other wolf didn’t.

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t scream.

Couldn’t lift my head.

My head fell back against the stranger’s hand as my vision started to go black.

Stay awake, stay awake, f**k!

I mustered as much strength as I could and bit the inside of my cheek.

Pain bloomed through my mouth.

The taste of copper followed.

It wasn’t enough.

The trees tilted overhead.

Roman’s wolf looked at me.

Gold caught mine.

And something in his face changed again.

He knew.

My vision narrowed until the garden disappeared.

All I could see was silver moving through blood and fur.

Closer.

Closer.

Not close enough.

Roman.

I wasn’t sure if I said it.

His wolf lunged toward me.

And then darkness swallowed him.