CHAPTER 4_ The Alpha’s Human[Part 2]
1165 Words
The room beyond looks like a hotel ad: a big bed with a gray comforter, a simple wooden dresser, a small table and chairs, and thick curtains over a window. A door to the side probably leads to a bathroom.
It looks normal. That makes it worse.
“You’ll stay here,” he says.
“No,” I say. “You’ll drive me back.”
He steps aside, gesturing in. “Inside.”
I plant my feet. “No.”
The air in the hallway changes.
His eyes narrow, gold flaring. The power coming off him intensifies, pressing against my skin like static before a storm.
“Last time,” he says. “Inside, Lilah.”
My name in that voice scrapes something raw in me.
I walk in.
He follows, closes the door, and the noises of the lodge cut off.
“This is kidnapping,” I say. “Illegal, immoral, and insane. You can’t keep me here.”
“I can,” he says. “And I will. Until I’m sure I can let you walk out without my pack deciding to see how fragile you are.”
“Fragile.” I laugh, ugly and sharp. “You mean human.”
“Yes.”
The honesty stings more than a lie would.
“You can’t just decide my life is over because your…pack has anger issues,” I say. “I have a mother. Bills. Friends. A landlord who’s one late payment away from selling my stuff on the curb.”
His expression flickers for half a second at “mother,” then smooths back out.
“You can call the hospital tomorrow,” he says. “You’ll tell them you’re out of town. Emergency job. Whatever humans say to each other.”
“You’re not listening,” I say, voice climbing. “I don’t want an ‘emergency job’ with a wolf cult. I want my old life back.”
He looks at me for a long moment.
“Your old life,” he says, “ended the moment the bond snapped. You just haven’t accepted it yet.”
“I don’t accept it,” I snap. “Reject your bond. Whatever. Cut it. Send me back.”
The words are out before I can stop them. His reaction is instantaneous.
His eyes go cold. Not hot Alpha fury—ice. His wolf is there underneath, snarling quietly.
“Don’t throw around things you don’t understand,” he says softly.
“Enlighten me,” I say. “Explain this great cosmic joke where I get punished for existing on the wrong night in the wrong bar.”
He exhales once through his nose, the only sign of fraying control.
“The Moon doesn’t ask if we’re ready,” he says. “Mates are not chosen like dates. They are given. I walked into that bar, expecting a drunk and a fight. Instead, I got you.”
“Return to sender,” I say. “She can keep the receipt.”
His lips twitch before he kills it.
“You think I wanted this?” he asks. “You think I was waiting my whole life to find a human girl with bar stamps on her hand and rent overdue?”
Anger surges, hot. “What’s wrong with bar stamps and overdue rent?”
“Nothing,” he says. “For a human. For my Luna…” He trails off, jaw tightening.
There it is.
I’m not good enough for him. Or them.
“What am I to you?” I ask, quieter. “Right now. Not in wolf‑saint language. In English.”
His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching.
“You are my mate,” he says. “The one thing in this world I am least prepared for and least willing to lose.”
The admission lands hard.
It doesn’t erase the fact that I’m locked in a strange room in a house full of creatures who think I’m fragile and wrong.
“If that’s your version of comfort,” I say, “it sucks.”
He huffs out a breath. “Sleep,” he says. “We’ll talk when the sun is up.”
“You’re not leaving me here alone,” I blurt.
His eyes widen a fraction. “You just called this a prison.”
“And now you want to leave?” I throw my hands up. “Pick a lane, Alpha. Either I’m under your protection or I’m a forgotten accessory you store in the guest room.”
Something like heat flickers in his gaze.
“There will be guards outside your door,” he says. “No one will come in.”
“That’s not what I meant.” The words are out before pride can stop them.
He goes very still.
“What did you mean?” he asks.
I clamp my mouth shut. I don’t know. I don’t have a word for the way my chest clenched when he stepped back. For how silent this room feels without his wrong, comforting, terrifying presence.
“Forget it,” I say. “Just go.”
His eyes linger on my face, like he’s trying to read thoughts I won’t let him have.
“Try to sleep,” he says again. “Tomorrow, the pack sees you.”
He opens the door. The hallway noise spills in for a heartbeat.
Then it shuts. The lock clicks.
This time, I keep breathing. In. Out.
I go to the window. The curtains are thick. I push them aside.
Iron bars, decorative and solid, cross the glass. Beyond them, the forest stretches black and endless under the moon.
I slide the latch. The window opens a few inches. Cold air kisses my face.
I wrap my fingers around one of the bars and yank.
It doesn’t budge.
I throw my weight into it. Metal bites my palm. Pain flares.
I let go, sucking in a breath. Blood wells where the edge of a rusted screw sliced my skin.
It burns.
I watch, stunned, as the blood slows almost immediately. The edges of the cut knit together, pink, then pale. Within seconds, the skin is whole again—no scab, no scar. Just drying blood that might as well belong to someone else.
“No,” I whisper.
Footsteps scuff in the hall. Low voices.
“Did you smell that?” a male voice asks. “Blood. Then it stopped.”
“She’s human,” another scoffs. “Humans don’t heal that fast.”
“Smelled wrong,” the first insists. “Like the bite never happened.”
My heart jackhammers. I wipe my palm on my dress, scrubbing the blood away like that will erase what I just saw.
I back away from the window toward the bed.
I don’t sleep so much as black out.
Dreams: golden eyes, teeth, and a hand wrapped around my heart, pulling me deeper into a world I never chose.
---
- Writer
