Runaway Luna:Hunted By The Biker Alpha

Four Months Left

Torin’s Pov

"I promise you Torin," she whispered kissing me on the lips. "I would never leave you."

That was five years ago and a week after she had made that confession. To date, it still hunts me, I keep seeing her everywhere and all I wanted now was to be able to sleep peacefully. I chugged down the bottle of beer in front of me, massaging my temples with the pads of my fingers while I sat at the head of the battered table in the clubhouse basement, drowning in the scent of stale cigars, sour draft beer, and the testosterone of two dozen killers.

As President of the Steel Howlers, this five by five square sized bunker was my kingdom. The men seated around this table were wolves who lived and died on my command.

Yet tonight, the sound of their voices felt like railroad spikes driven through my skull.

"Hey Prez," one of my men said. "We should definitely throw a party for your fortieth birthday. Your old ass needs to celebrate such a huge milestone."

The rest of the club cheered in agreement but I couldn't partake in their merriment as that age wasn't one to be proud of. I had seen so many uncles drop dead, some a week after their fortieth birthday because of the famous Rathebourne curse. My father had somehow narrowly escaped and was now on my throat to do same.

"I’m telling you, it’s a mistake."

My father’s rasp cut clean through my skull. Silas Rathbourne leaned back at the opposite end of the table, a fat cigar clamped between his teeth. He wasn't President anymore—I’d ripped the patch off his vest five years ago in blood and

broken bones—but he still held the ear of the Old Guard.

"We’re throwing away half a million in transport fees," he snarled, driving his slightly wrinkled fist into the table. "For what? Babysitting server farms for tech geeks in the valley? You’re castrating this club, Torin. We’re wolves, not

corporate lapdogs."

"We’re a club that isn't doing twenty-five to life in a federal pen," I growled, letting the resonance of my Alpha voice rumble across the room.

To my right, Grizz, my Enforcer and Beta, subtly shifted his mountainous frame. He didn't utter a word, but his hand came to rest casually over the hilt of the combat blade at his thigh. The quiet reminder rang loud and clear: The President's word is law.

"The transport routes stay dead, dad," I said, holding my father’s glare until he shifted. "We’re done hauling unregistered hardware for the cartels. The heat isn't worth the cash. Discussion closed."

He spat on the floor, muttering about purebloods turning into domesticated mutts. A few gray-beards grumbled in agreement, but nobody challenged me. They knew better than to challenge the president.

Underneath the table, I pressed my knuckles against my chest, fighting to swallow down a wince. The curse was tightening its grip. An Alpha’s wolf was supposed to be his sanctuary, the force that gave him the right to rule. Mine felt diseased. It clawed frantically against my ribcage day and night, starving, rotting, driving me half out of my mind.

"As I was saying," he started but stopped once the soft footsteps tapped down the stairs and all eyes went in that direction.

Almost immediately, a stench of synthetic strawberries coated the back of my throat. My wolf immediately bared its teeth in my mind, almost surfacing to rip her head out.

"You're running yourself into the ground, Alpha," her voice purred as two extremely smooth hands who have been through so many manicure treatments than I could count slipped over my leather-clad shoulders.

Vanya.

A pureblood female from our northern neighbor. According to the elders, the laws of the Moon Goddess, and every piece of shifter tradition, she was my fated mate. The bond had supposedly snapped into place three years ago, sending Silas

into pure ecstasy. The great Rathbourne line would finally have a pureblood Luna.

Except for one fatal flaw.

The moment her skin pressed against mine, my wolf went mad.

Something ripped from my chest before I could choke it back. I shoved her back so fast, the wooden chair behind me went crashing to the floor. My vision turned blurry in seconds, my fangs dropping past my lower lip as my body dropped into a kill stance.

The entire basement froze.

Two dozen hardened outlaws went stone-still, glances snapping between me and the woman meant to wear my mark.

Vanya stumbled back, slamming against the table edge. Instantly, her wide green eyes welled with glittering tears. Her lower lip began to tremble, her gaze darting across the room to ensure every single brother saw her humiliation.

"I was only trying to help you," she whispered, her voice fracturing with stage-perfect devastation. She wrapped her arms protectively around chest, shrinking into herself like a bruised pup, making me look like an unhinged monster.

"Don't touch me from behind," I ground out between locked teeth, forcing my fangs to retract. The fury was humming through my veins, but underneath it was pure disgust. My skin was crawling. I couldn't stand her touch. I couldn't stand

the smell of her. Every instinct in my blood screamed that she was an intruder.

A muffled sob broke from her chest. "I am your mate, Torin! But you look at me like I’m poison! I do everything for you. I wear the clothes you like, I stay silent when you command, and you won’t even look at me!"

"Vanya, shut your mouth," I warned, my voice rising. "Not here."

She smelled blood in the water. Her tears spilled over her cheeks, her voice pitching louder to carry over the silent room. "Then where, Torin? In the bedroom? You lock the door in my face! And on the rare night you actually let me into your bed, you can't even get hard to touch me! What is broken inside you?!"

A few of the younger patched members quickly lowered their gazes to the table, suffocating on secondhand embarrassment. Grizz let out a warning growl from deep in his broad chest, but Vanya ignored him completely. She stood there, the weeping, neglected martyr.

And the sickening part was, she wasn't lying. I was broken.

"Enough!" Silas’s roar shattered the tension. He pushed up from his seat, ignoring Vanya completely as his furious glare locked onto me. "She is your fated mate, Torin. And you act like a savage animal in front of the very men you claim to command."

"My wolf is sick. You know damn well what’s happening."

"Your wolf is a defective, cowardly piece of garbage!" He snarled, closing the distance until his grizzled face was inches from mine. "You turn forty in four months! Four goddamn months, Torin! Do you need a refresher on the Rathbourne curse? If you don't claim her, if you don't put a pup inside her to bind your soul to this earth, your chest is going to cave in and your heart will stop beating!"

I balled my fists so hard the leather of my gloves creaked, my blunt nails threatening to pierce my own palms.

I knew the curse. Every firstborn Alpha in my bloodline had faced it. A brutal ancestral trial that demanded an heir before forty, or the curse consumed the man alive.

"I’ve tried," I bit out, the words tasting bitter.

"Try harder," he hissed, leaning in so only I could hear the next words. "Drag her upstairs right now and claim what’s yours. If you die because you can't get it up for a pureblood b***h, this club tears itself to shreds. And I will gladly take my patch back off your corpse. Mark her, Torin. Before your weakness kills us all."

I shifted my eyes back to Vanya. She was dabbing delicately at her mascara, watching me with a sickening blend of expectation and pity. She thought she was being an angel to a flawed, struggling mate.

Yet looking into her eyes, nothing stirred. No heat. No protectiveness. Just an endless void.

And in that dark void, only one memory ever lived.

Harlow Kincaid.

She was eighteen, soft, and fragile as glass. She hadn't carried a drop of shifter blood. She had no wolf, no ancient pedigree, no right to step foot in a world of monsters.

Yet the first second her scent had hit the air, my blood had roared like a bonfire. I hadn't struggled to touch her. I had been completely, utterly possessed by her. I had spent sleepless nights with my nose buried in her, intoxicated by the simple need to keep her safe from the horrors of my life.

And then she had seen the violence in my world, packed a bag in the dead of night, and vanished like smoke.

My wolf had shattered the night she walked away. It had withered into a sick, empty shell, dragging a piece of my soul out into the dark with her. So when the universe supposedly gave me Vanya two years later, there was nothing left inside me to bond.

I didn't bother righting my overturned chair.

Turning my back on Vanya’s wet eyes and Silas’s furious scowl, I stepped toward the stairs.

"Meeting’s done," I announced, my voice empty and devoid of life.

"Torin!" My barked behind me, his hand crashing into the wood once more. "You're running out of dirt to walk on!"

I didn't break my stride.

Every step up the stairs drove another white-hot lance of agony through my chest, my rotting wolf whimpering in the shadows. He was right about one thing: I was dying.

But I would rather let the curse rot my heart to ash than spend another second pretending I didn't still belong to her.