The Billionaire Alpha's Hidden Mate

Rain hammered the diner windows. Elena Marsh wiped down table six for the third time and told herself the shaking in her hands was caffeine. It wasn't. It was the dream again — silver fur, a moon the size of a door, her mother's voice singing a lullaby in a language Elena had never learned. 'Elena! Order up!' She grabbed the plates, plastered on her smile, and walked straight into the man who would ruin her life. He stood in the doorway like the storm had made room for him — six-foot-three, black coat dripping, gold eyes that caught the fluorescent light wrong. Not contacts. Nothing human caught light like that. The bell over the door was still swinging when the first rogue came through the window. Glass exploded. Screams. And then — pain, white-hot, blooming behind her ribs like something tearing its way out. Her vision went silver at the edges. The stranger was suddenly in front of her, one hand clamped around her wrist, and where his skin touched hers, the pain stopped. 'Don't shift here,' he growled, low and urgent. 'Not in front of them.' 'I don't — I don't know what that means —' 'Elena.' He knew her name. The rogues circled, three of them, half-shifted, claws out. The stranger — Adrian — moved like smoke, putting himself between her and them. 'Run when I tell you,' he said. 'Don't look back.' She didn't run. The silver came up through her like a tide, and the diner lights blew out one by one. In the dark, something howled. It was a hunting cry. And it was coming closer.