The Alpha’s Fated Touch

Stripped of everything

The little red light on the credit card terminal blinked once. Twice.

Transaction Declined: Stolen Card.

I stared at the screen, rain dripping from my hair onto the scratched countertop of the Motel 6. The clerk, a man with grease under his fingernails and eyes that lingered too long on my torn designer dress, smirked.

“Says here it’s stolen, sweetheart,” he drawled, reaching for the phone. “Store policy says I gotta call the cops.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t plead. I grabbed the card—my own name embossed on the front, now a lie—and the heavy umbrella I’d swiped from the lobby of the Romano Tower, and I ran.

I hit the wet pavement before he could even dial the second digit.

My lungs burned. My heels, the Louboutins I’d worn to the gala, were long gone, kicked off three blocks back. I was running barefoot through the grimier side of the city, the district where the streetlights flickered and died, and the shadows had teeth.

I had walked out on Matteo Romano.

It was a calculated risk. A stupid one, maybe. But when he had looked at me in that penthouse, offering me protection in exchange for being his living, breathing calm-down corner—locked away in a gilded cage—I had done the math.

Option A: Be a prisoner to a mad Alpha.

Option B: Survive on my own terms.

I chose B.

Now, shivering in an alleyway that smelled of urine and ozone, I realized I might have miscalculated the variables.

My phone was dead. My accounts were frozen. And judging by the sleek black sedan that had been slowly trailing me for the last two blocks, I knew Celeste hadn’t just exiled me. She had put a bounty on my head.

I ducked behind a dumpster, pressing my back against the cold brick. I needed a plan. I needed a weapon.

I looked at the umbrella in my hand. It was a Romano corporate gift—heavy, expensive, with a solid steel tip. It wasn't a sword, but it was better than nothing.

“Come out, little princess,” a voice rasped from the mouth of the alley.

I stopped breathing.

Three men stepped out of the rain. They weren’t cops. They weren’t random muggers. They moved with the prowling, loose-limbed gait of shifters. Rogues. Wolves without a pack, mercenaries who would slit a throat for a warm meal.

And they smelled like Moretti money.

“Celeste pays better than I thought,” I said, my voice steady, though my heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I stepped out from behind the dumpster, gripping the umbrella like a bat. “She sent three of you? I’m flattered.”

The leader, a man with a scar running through his left eyebrow and yellowed teeth, laughed. “She said you were feisty. Said you liked to play pretend.”

He stepped forward, his eyes flashing amber. Partial shift.

“She wants you alive,” the leader said, cracking his knuckles. “But she didn’t say you had to be pretty.”

He lunged.

I didn’t scream. I moved.

Years of self-defense classes—paid for by the Morettis to ensure their investment remained undamaged—kicked in. I sidestepped his clumsy grab, pivoting on the ball of my foot.

I swung the umbrella with everything I had.

The steel tip connected with his temple. It was a solid hit. He roared, stumbling back, blood instantly welling up.

“b***h!” he howled.

The other two rushed me.

I jabbed the umbrella into the second one’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, but the third one—the smallest, but the fastest—tackled me from the side.

We hit the wet asphalt hard. The air left my lungs in a painful whoosh. My head cracked against the pavement, stars exploding in my vision.

He was heavy, smelling of wet dog and stale tobacco. His hand clamped around my throat, cutting off my air.

“Gotcha,” he hissed, spit flying into my face.

I clawed at his eyes, my nails digging in. He growled, tightening his grip. Black spots danced at the edge of my vision.

Assess, my brain screamed, even as the oxygen faded. Leverage.

I brought my knee up, slamming it into his groin.

He yelped, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second. I bucked, throwing him off, and scrambled backward on my hands and knees.

I grabbed a broken glass bottle from the gutter.

“Stay back!” I gasped, holding the jagged glass out. My dress was torn to ribbons, my knees were bleeding, and I was shivering so hard my teeth clattered.

The leader touched his bleeding head. His eyes were fully amber now, his face elongating, teeth sharpening.

“Playtime’s over,” he snarled.

The three of them spread out, cutting off my exit. They were going to shift. Fully. And I was an Omega with a dormant wolf and a piece of broken glass.

I backed up until my spine hit the brick wall.

This was it. The variable I hadn’t accounted for. I’m going to die here, and Celeste is going to win.

The leader crouched, muscles bunching to spring.

“Say hi to your daddy for me,” he sneered.

He launched himself into the air.

A loud boom crashed the thick atmosphere.

The brick wall beside me didn't just crumble; it exploded.

Debris rained down like confetti, dust choking the alley.

A roar shook the very foundations of the buildings on either side—a sound so deep, so primal, that it vibrated in my marrow.

The Rogue leader never touched me.

He was intercepted mid-air by a beast.

A massive wolf, fur the color of storm clouds and eyes like burning mercury, slammed the Rogue into the opposite wall. The sound of breaking bones was sickeningly loud—a wet crunch that echoed in the confined space.

The other two Rogues froze. Their amber eyes went wide with pure, instinctual terror.

The grey wolf turned.

He stood over the broken body of the leader, his chest heaving. He was terrifying. Magnificent. A creature of nightmare and legend.

He bared teeth that were longer than my fingers, dripping with saliva and blood. He looked at the two remaining Rogues. He didn't growl, he just took a step forward.

The Rogues didn't fight, and they didn't run either. They dropped to their knees, baring their necks in absolute, terrified submission.

It was the only response to an Alpha of that magnitude.

The grey wolf ignored them. He turned his massive head slowly, painfully, until his silver eyes locked onto mine.

He was snarling, his hackles raised, his body vibrating with a rage that felt hot enough to scorch the air.

My broken bottle slipped from my numb fingers and shattered on the ground.

Matteo.

He took a step toward me. Then another.

I pressed myself flat against the wall, my heart stopping. He was in his full wolf form. He was lost to the beast. And I was covered in the scent of the men he had just killed.

He loomed over me, blocking out the rain, blocking out the city, blocking out everything.

He lowered his massive head until his snout was inches from my face. I could feel the heat radiating off him, smell the metallic tang of blood on his breath.

He didn't bite.

He nudged my shoulder. Hard.

Get up, the gesture said.

My legs were jelly, but I pushed myself up, sliding along the wall.

He moved closer, crowding me, pressing the length of his massive body against mine. The contact was electric.

Then, a voice echoed in my head—not spoken, but felt. A telepathic link forced open by sheer, brute Alpha power.

‘You,’ the voice snarled in my mind, dark and furious. ‘Are. Mine.’

He didn't wait for an answer. He bit down on the back of my ruined dress and threw me onto his back.