Claimed by the Hellbound Alpha

A place I shouldn't have gone into

Kaia

It was still dark when I left the pack's territory and headed toward a lonely highway. I decided to approach the bar across the road.

I pushed the door open, barely paying attention to the motorcycles parked outside. Inside, the murky air seemed to greet me cautiously, with the same caution the groups of bikers showed as they watched me walk toward the bar, my leather boots echoing across the floor.

“Get me a beer, boy,” I said to the bartender, who seemed determined to ignore me. I noticed his reluctance, but eventually the pint found its way into my hands.

“Are you always this hospitable?” I asked sarcastically, making him even more uncomfortable, though not a single sound escaped the thick beard covering his lips.

The cold beer slid down my dry throat. I was about to order another when I felt someone's gaze drilling into the back of my neck. I turned, and my eyes met those of a man who seemed to occupy all the space around him.

He was big, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, and very tall. Handsome as though sculpted by hand, with arms covered in biker tattoos and deep eyes that seemed to be studying me far more closely than was appropriate.

That stare, along with the others that kept discreetly sweeping over me, made me nervous.

I'd have my next beer somewhere else.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked as I slipped my hand into the pocket of my tight jeans.

The bartender pretended to ignore me again. I shrugged and headed for the door, intending to force him to stop me, but after ten steps he still hadn't said a word.

*Free beer,* I thought. *Looks like it's my lucky night.*

I was about to open the door when a large, rough hand stopped it.

*Well, now I have your attention,* I thought before turning around.

“I asked you to charge me...” I began, only to realize who had actually stopped the door.

It was the tall, muscular, devastatingly handsome man who had been watching me from the back of the bar.

“Where do you think you're going, Princess?”

Princess?

I'd been called plenty of things, but never that.

I crossed my arms over my chest before answering, forced to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.

“I tried to pay for the beer, but that brute behind the bar preferred to ignore me. Should I pay you instead, handsome?”

If he was going to address me with patronizing nicknames, I wasn't about to let him have all the fun.

He grabbed my wrist with a force so brutal it nearly tore my arm off as he dragged me after him.

We stepped outside.

The cool night air greeted me with a gentle breeze that brushed over my skin.

“Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, even rougher than before.

“Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that, brute?” I shot back, demanding the respect I deserved.

His hand remained clamped around my wrist, beginning to hurt, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of showing it.

Then, with his free hand, he wrapped his fingers around my throat, pressing his thumb hard beneath my chin.

“I'm the one asking the questions here, Princess. Answer me now, or face the consequences for entering forbidden territory.”

The pressure was cutting off my air, but I wasn't about to let this i***t and his caveman manners intimidate me. I forced the words out despite how hard it was to breathe.

“I felt... like I had to come in. That's all.”

I was beginning to hate that brute.

The first chance I got, I'd make him regret this.

Oh, yes.

He'd soon find out who he'd picked a fight with.

“You *felt*?” he repeated, his eyes locked onto mine, his body so close that I could feel the warmth radiating from his chest and catch the scent of his cologne drifting from beneath his T-shirt.

“What do you mean, you *felt*?”

The grip around my throat loosened slightly.

Just enough to allow me a breath.

“You're feeling it too... aren't you?”

I don't know what made me say that or where those words came from.

But I knew they had struck home.

His unease became obvious.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Princess,” he growled, “but I'm going to find out. And I swear I'll find out exactly who you are.”

He released me.

But he didn't set me free.

Instead, he stepped even closer, invading my space and pinning me against the wall beside the entrance, blocking every possible escape.

“You're feeling it, aren't you?” I asked, pretending to be more nervous than I really was. “I mean... there's something that feels like...”

He leaned in so close I thought he was about to kiss me.

And I hated myself for wanting him to.

But he didn't.

He only stared at me, both arms braced against the wall, trapping me between them.

He looked every bit as confused as I was.

“Where the hell did you come from, Princess?” he asked, his voice carrying barely concealed desire.

Before I could even try to remember what had brought me to that bar in the first place, the door behind him opened.

Two people stepped outside.

I vaguely recognized them from inside, standing near the brute who was now cornering me.

One was a man.

The other, a woman.

She was young, dressed in tight leather, wearing a biker cap over breathtaking blonde hair. She had the kind of dangerous beauty that warned people to stay away, while the man beside her looked like her lapdog, though he carried himself like a pit bull ready to rip apart anyone foolish enough to provoke him.

The blonde stopped the moment she saw me.

Then she looked at Kael.

Then back at me.

Her expression changed completely.

“Who the hell is she?” she demanded, glaring at me like a viper. “What are you doing with this b***h?”

It became immediately obvious that she and the brute—Kael—were together.

As much as I already hated her just from looking at her and hearing what she'd called me, I was grateful she'd appeared.

At least now her i***t boyfriend would finally leave me alone...

Although I wasn't entirely sure I still wanted that to happen.

“Don't call her that,” Kael ordered the blonde with such authority that she turned pale for a brief instant.

“She is...”

“Kaia,” I said. “My name is Kaia.”

If hatred had a face, it would have been the way the blonde looked at me in that moment.

“And why are you pinning that b***h against the wall?” she snapped. “What, are you planning to f**k her?”

Kael didn't answer immediately.

His eyes remained locked on mine.

As if he were trying to understand why a complete stranger had awakened something inside him.

Something he had never felt before.

“Take her away from here,” he ordered at last.

“What?”

“Now.”

The blonde frowned.

“Kael...?”

“I said, get her out of here.”

He never took his eyes off me.

“And find out who she is.”