The Alpha’s Captive Heiress

CHAPTER1

The Weight of the Moon

The absolute worst time to have a panic attack is three minutes before closing shift at a highway diner. It’s even worse when the customer across the counter smells like cheap whiskey and has a temper to match your own.

I gripped the edge of the laminate counter until my knuckles turned white. Beneath my skin, a frantic pulsing had started in my palms. It felt like a second heartbeat, drumming a rhythm that made my teeth ache.

"I said," the man growled, leaning closer, "I paid for two slices of pie, girl. Look at the ticket again before I get your manager out here."

"The ticket says one slice, sir," I said, keeping my voice as flat and calm as possible. I’d practiced this tone across four different foster homes and a dozen crappy retail gigs. "And the register matches the ticket. If you want another slice, it’s four-fifty."

"Don't lie to me." He slammed his thick palm onto the counter.

The vibration shot up my arms, and something inside my chest snapped.

Crack.

The heavy blender on the back counter rattled, its glass pitcher split clean down the center, sending a line of milk weeping down the metal base. Over by the doorway, the heavy emergency exit gave a violent shudder, the latch clicking as if someone had just thrown their weight against the outside of the door.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to breathe. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. The breathing technique my last social worker taught me didn't do a thing to stop the temperature in the diner from suddenly dropping.

"What the hell was that?" the man muttered. He stared at the broken blender, then back at me, a flicker of unease crossing his face. He looked at my hands, which were trembling.

"Just a power surge," I lied, my voice tight. "The wiring here is old."

"Yeah. Right." He didn't ask for the second slice of pie. He scooped up his change with clumsy fingers and backed out of the diner, the bell above the door jingling.

I let out a long breath and collapsed against the prep table behind me. My hands were still buzzing with static electricity. Looking down, I saw a stray black alley cat crouched near my sneakers. It didn’t look frightened. It was just staring up at me with unblinking amber eyes.

"Out," I whispered.

The cat didn't blink. It rose immediately, turned around, and marched straight out the back kitchen door without looking back, moving like a soldier obeying an order.

I covered my face with my hands. I was twenty-three years old, living in a crappy studio apartment, and I was still a freak. Electronics fried when I got angry, and neighborhood dogs dropped to their bellies whenever I walked past their fences. But the worst part wasn't the weird parlor tricks.

The worst part was the calendar. Tomorrow night was the full moon.

By the time I unlocked my apartment door at midnight, the familiar dread had settled deep in my bones.

My apartment was built for survival. There were no mirrors on the walls, I’d broken the last one six months ago during an episode I couldn't remember. The windows were covered with thick plywood sheets screwed directly into the frames, blocking out the sky.

I didn't look at the moon. I couldn't. Even a glimpse of it through a c***k in the blinds made my blood feel like it was boiling, triggering a sickening ache behind my ribs.

I stripped off my grease-stained uniform and stood under a scalding shower, turning the handle until the water burned. I needed to feel anchored. Because by this time tomorrow, I wouldn't be here.

Every single month, for twenty-four hours, Aria Blackwood ceased to exist. I would go to sleep in my bed, and I would wake up a day later with bruised shins, dirt beneath my fingernails, and a terrifying void where my memory should have been. No dreams. Nothing.

I had tried everything to stop it. In my teens, I stayed up downing energy drinks and stimulants until my heart hammered against my ribs. It didn't matter. The moment the moon reached its peak, my mind simply turned off, leaving my body running on autopilot.

After drying off, I pulled on an oversized grey sweatshirt and sat on the edge of my mattress, pulling a beat-up leather journal onto my lap. Inside were columns of dates stretching back seven years, tracking every missing block of time.

Oct 14: Woke up on the kitchen floor. Left wrist sprained. Front door unlocked.

Nov 12: Woke up in the bathtub. Three inches of freezing water. Smelled like copper.

Dec 12: Woke up in the closet. Clothes torn at the collar.

I turned to a fresh page, my pen hovering over the paper.

"Who are you?" I whispered to the empty room. "What do you do when I'm not looking?"

The apartment stayed silent. But outside, miles away in the deep ridges of the valley, a wolf howled. The sound was distant, but it made the small of my back prickle with heat.

The next day passed in a sick haze. By five in the afternoon, my skin felt too tight for my bones and my vision kept swimming. I called out of my shift at the diner, claiming a stomach flu. My manager grumbled, but I barely heard him over the roaring in my ears. A low hum vibrated through the floorboards, growing louder as the sun began to set.

By eight in the evening, I was locked inside.

I had pushed my heavy oak dresser in front of the apartment door. It was a useless precaution since I’d woken up outside the apartment twice before, but it gave me a fleeting sense of control. I lay down on my mattress, staring at the ceiling, my breath coming in shallow gasps.

The heat was back, starting at the base of my skull and creeping down my spine until every nerve was screaming.

It’s time, an instinct whispered inside my head, heavy and demanding.

I gripped the edges of my blanket. "No," I muttered, fighting the sudden pull of sleep. "Not this time. Just stay awake. Just five more minutes..."

The dark came anyway. Rolling over me like a wave. One second I was staring at a water stain on my ceiling, and the next, the world vanished.

I gasped, my eyes flying open as cold air rushed into my lungs.

I wasn't in my apartment.

The air was freezing, thick with the damp scent of crushed pine needles, wet earth, and a heavy metallic smell like blood. I was on my hands and knees, my palms dug deep into freezing mud.

Looking down, I saw my gray sweatshirt was gone, replaced by a threadbare, dark flannel shirt I didn't recognize. The sleeves were torn at the elbows. My fingers were caked in black dirt, and the skin around my nails was raw.

"No, no, no," I panicked, scrambling backward until my spine hit the rough bark of a massive cedar tree.

I looked up. The sky above was a vast canopy of black velvet, dominated by a massive full moon hanging directly overhead. It cast long, skeletal shadows across the forest floor.

I had looked right at it.

I quickly shielded my eyes, waiting for the burning sickness that usually came with the sight. But it didn't come. Instead, the moonlight felt cool and soothing against my skin.

I checked my wrist, but my cheap digital watch was gone. I had no idea what time it was, or how far I had walked. The city was completely gone. There was only the wind through the trees and the heavy thud of my own pulse.

Then, the wind shifted.

An awful scent hit me; hot, fresh blood mixed with the thick musk of an animal. A low, wet crunch echoed through the trees to my left.

I froze, pressing myself harder against the cedar tree. Through a dense thicket of bushes twenty yards away, a pair of eyes appeared. They were massive, glowing with a brilliant, predatory amber. The creature stepping out of the shadows was huge, its shoulders rising higher than a man’s chest.

It was a wolf, but it was entirely wrong. It was the size of a small car, its coat a matted silver-grey. Its fangs were exposed, dripping thick red saliva onto the mud.

I couldn't move. My muscles felt like lead. The beast didn't look at me; it was focused on a dark, heavy shape on the ground beneath its paws. The wolf lowered its head, and another wet snap echoed through the clearing. It was feeding. On a person.

I needed to run, but my boots felt cemented into the mud.

Suddenly, the wolf stopped. Its ears twitched and flattened against its skull. It let out a low growl that shook the pebbles near my feet, a vibration that sounded like a heavy engine idling in the dark.

From the opposite side of the clearing, a figure stepped out from between the trees.

It was a man, but he didn't look like he belonged in the wilderness. He wore a dark, perfectly tailored wool coat over a crisp black shirt, his dark hair shifting slightly in the wind. He looked completely unbothered by the cold, his hands buried casually in his pockets.

"You're a long way from your borders, rogue," the man said.

His voice had a terrifying clarity that seemed to quiet the wind itself. It was the same commanding quality I had felt in my own voice with the cat at the diner, but more assured.

The silver wolf didn't back down. Of course it didn’t, why would it? It was the predator here and that man was about to be torn to bits. It lunged forward with a deafening roar, its fangs flashing in the moonlight as it aimed straight for the man’s throat.

The man didn't even flinch.

In a blur of motion too fast for my eyes to follow, the man stepped inside the wolf’s guard. His right hand came out of his pocket, grabbing the beast by its thick throat mid-air.

The impact sounded like a car crash. The massive wolf was stopped dead in its tracks, its hind legs dangling off the ground as the man held it up with a single arm.

"I gave your Alpha a warning," the man whispered, his eyes suddenly flashing, not amber, no, it was a deep, burning silver. "I told him what happens to anyone who spills blood on Volkov land."

The wolf thrashed, its claws tearing the man’s wool coat to shreds, but the flesh beneath didn't even bleed. It looked like iron. With a casual twist of his wrist, the man snapped the wolf’s neck.

The sharp c***k echoed through the trees. The silver beast went instantly limp, and the man tossed its body to the ground like trash.

I clamped my hand over my mouth, my teeth clicking together so hard I tasted copper. My entire body was shaking.

The man stood over the dead wolf, brushing a splatter of dark blood from his cheekbone.

"Clean this up," he ordered the empty forest. "And find out how it got past the northern perimeter."

From the shadows, three more men in tactical gear materialized. They didn't speak. They simply grabbed the massive wolf by its legs and began dragging it away, leaving a dark trail in the mud.

The man in the wool coat turned to leave, his silver eyes fading back into a dark, piercing hazel.

I let out the breath I’d been holding, my shoulders sagging against the tree. Just let him leave. Please, just leave.

But as I shifted my weight, my boot caught a dry branch beneath the mud.

Snap.

In the quiet forest, it sounded like a gunshot.

The man stopped dead. He didn't turn around immediately. He stood perfectly still, his head tilting as his nostrils flared, drawing in the cold air.

"Well," he murmured, his voice sending a spike of terror straight down my spine. "That doesn't smell like a wolf at all."

He turned around slowly, his gaze sweeping over the dark brush, moving with agonizing precision straight toward the cedar tree where I was trapped.

The footsteps neared, and my heart leaped into my throat, choking back my breath. The buzzing power I had felt back at the diner, flared to life beneath my skin, hotter and more violent than it had ever been.

The man took a single step toward me, his dark eyes locking onto the exact shadow where I was hiding.

"Come out," he said, and the authority in his voice was so absolute I felt my knees buckle. "Before I come in there and drag you out myself."

I looked down at my hands. In the darkness beneath the branches, a faint silver light had begun to bleed through the dirt on my skin, tracing a mark I had never seen before, a symbol shaped like a crescent moon, burning with a cold light.

The power inside me roared, demanding to be let loose, as the monster in front of me took another step closer.