CHOSEN BY THE ALPHA KING

I knew I shouldn't have taken that late night forest trail home. The full moon overhead provided my only company as the tree branches twisted into grasping hands above me. I quickened my pace, regretting those extra minutes I'd lingered in town. A snapping twig jerked me alert. That was no rabbit or deer shuffling through the nighttime woods. The ominous sounds of pursuit grew louder, closer, until a monstrous creature exploded from the shadows. Wolfish yet hideously deformed, it was a hulking nightmare with bared fangs - a rogue werewolf! I ran blindly, heart hammering as its hot breath closed in. Then razor jaws clamped down, piercing flesh and bone. My screams echoed vainly through the darkened forest as searing pain exploded, then faded into black silence. Days later I awoke slowly, my shoulder throbbing under bloodied bandages. Blinking in confusion, I found myself lying not in a hospital room but rather a rustic log cabin decorated with drying wildflowers and animal furs. The spicy herbal scent stirred memories from my feverish dreams - of being rescued by wolves. An imposing man stood vigil in the corner, hands clasped behind his broad back. With sharply defined features and long sable hair streaked in silver, I guessed him to be in his late 30s. But it was his eyes that snatched my breath away - intense, gleaming orbs like mercury. Dangerous yet magnetic. "Good, you’re awake,” he spoke. His voice was a mesmerizing timbre that shivered my senses. “I am Blake, Alpha of the Silver Moon pack. My wolves saved you after the rogue werewolf attack. But I'm afraid you now bear his mark." I struggled upright, panicking. "Werewolf? No no, that's crazy! I was...bitten, but I can't be...” He brushed a finger over the bandaged wound. It sparked wildly under his touch. “You are marked. The changeling curse will transform you on the next full moon unless we intervene. There are ways to temper the shift, but it will emerge.” “This can’t be real! My family - I have to let them know...” I lurched up only for my knees to collapse. Blake caught me swiftly against his chest, our bodies pressed intimately close. Heat thrummed between us for infinite seconds before he set me down with distant eyes. "You cannot return to your old life. The close-knit townspeople would recognize the monster emerging within. They would show no mercy, even to pretty young females.” His piercing eyes held secrets and danger if I challenged his command. “This is your home now, with the Silver Moon pack.” The reality of Blake’s words sank life stones in my gut. I had become one of the supernatural beasts terrifying bedtime stories warned against. Icy despair flooded through me at dreams forever lost to this new savage curse. Over the next week under Blake’s watchful guardianship, I struggled to accept my escalating transformation. My vision sharpened nocturnally to hunt in the darkness. I could track scents for miles through pine and moon-dappled woodlands. Strange flutterings stirred instinctively at Blake’s earthy forest smell - cedar, fallen leaves, wild freedom. Soon the moon swelled full and heavy again in the night sky. Its sweet song flooded my blood, awakened ravenous hunger. The first bone-breaking spasms began ripping through my limbs in twisting agony, the wolf forcing its way out. Crying tears of scarlet blood, I crumpled helplessly onto the leaf-littered ground. The autumn soil rose up to claim me as everything went black. I emerged hours later from my living nightmare reborn and ravenous. My sleek fur coat shimmered silver-white as moonlight itself. I was wolf incarnate, utterly free and dangerous. Testing my fangs I sniffed familiarly for prey...only to find the huge gray Alpha watching me through the tangled woods. Ancient law decreed pack wolves bow first to their leader. I instinctively lowered my head, concealing a defiant snarl. "Magnificent," Blake rumbled in his hybrid man-beast form, fangs curving in a pleased smile. “Come, Zara.” He shot off into the shadowed forest and I chased after, anger fading into thrill as we raced over the midnight landscape. Testing my newfound strength against the ancient giant wolf, I followed Blake under the stars to secret forest dens, moon-drenched rivers with silver-scaled fish. We tracked meadow deer until the first glow of dawn stained the sky violet. I awoke hours later in a shaded glen wrapped protectively in Blake’s fur coat, memories of running wild with the Alpha making me burn with awakened longings I didn’t understand. I stirred to see Blake watching me closely, an unfamiliar tension brewing behind his temptest gaze... Over the next few weeks Blake and his two rugged Beta warriors, Simon and Meg, taught me what it meant to be lupine. My training intensified learning combat skills against the Betas while Blake observed with impassive eyes that followed my every move. I grew more attuned to pack bonds that flowed between our communal mind link, especially my dizzying connection to Blake himself - Alpha leader, warrior guardian, the intense object of my new fixation. In wolf form I detected the alluring scent of woods clinging permanently to his skin. My instincts stirred, unable to stop reacting to the dangerous magentism that now bound us soul-deep... The change was fully rooted in my spirit that next full moon when Blake led me on a bounding moonlight hunt. This time our wild lupine dance felt passionate, seductive even. I nipped teasingly at Blake’s hindlegs until he playfully tackled me deeper into the forest's heart. We tussled under the stars, our snapping jaws seeking advantage as Alpha fought Omega. But Blake’s greater size and strength won easily as he trapped me under racing heartbeats. His dominance display thrilled the wolf-spirit now inhabiting my soul. To my shock she gladly yielded until Blake’sregal growl echoed contentedly through the trees, accepting our surrender... I woke just before dawn again in human form, tucked cozily beneath Blake's fur coat in the glen den. But this time my Alpha was intimately closer. Watching me with glowing desire in those quicksilver eyes, his powerful body flush to mine radiated wild heat - and awakened my own untamed cravings screaming inside to claim him in return... Our mingled breathing punctuated the charged air. I froze under Blake's sensual appraisal like helpless prey ensnared, my rapids pulse thrumming a rhythmic yearning I was helpless to deny. Slowly, deliberately he drew closer until lips grazed my delicate ear, voice dropping intimately lower in dangerous promise... "Our wolves have claimed one other, lovely Zara. We belong to each other now." My lips parted but only a wanting sigh escaped. Smoldering trimphantly, Blake needed no further invitation. He sealed his mouth over mine in blistering conquest, raw and dominant. My hands tangled desperately in his hair, urging him on as I yielded everything to our destined bond... The Alpha wolf had made his choice at long last. And I, the newly turned Champion female destined to rule at his side, surrendered myself utterly to his branding claim. For we two were eternally bound now by sacred lupine law - mate-chosen warriors, Alpha and Luna of the Silver Wolves... I trembled against him, lost in the searing force of Blake’s claiming possession. He ravaged my mouth relentlessly until I burned for more intimate caresses. Scooping me up into his strong arms, he carried me swiftly through the grey forest dawn. Blake shouldered open his private cottage door. Once inside he brought me straight through the homey living area with its massive fireplace and handcrafted log furnishings into a huge master suite decorated in earth tones reflecting the surrounding woods. Gently laying me across the rich chocolate and caramel bed coverings, Blake’s silver-flecked eyes blazed almost feral. The impressive muscles rippling across his bare chest revealed old battle wounds and his Alpha endurance. “I have savored your sweet essence since first saving you, Zara,” he confessed between passionate kisses down my throat. “No other she-wolf has ever tempted my interest before to take as Luna mate.” Breathless, I scarcely registered the power now granted me as his chosen equal. All that mattered was how fervently my starving body arched up into Blake’s indecently skillful caresses, my nerve-endings exploding everywhere his mouth worshipped. My racing pulse soon matched his thundering heartbeat as our union spiraled rapidly out of control. When Blake at last unleashed his Alpha passion, the glorious immolation seared forever-binding wolf-mate bonds between us that would never fade or break. Afterward we lay together watching the sunlight slowly fill the cozy room, my limbs entangled lazily with his. Soothingly Blake stroked his fingers down the scars marring my shoulder, his eyes distant. “I should have protected you that night against the rogue wolf. As Alpha it is my duty to safeguard all Silver Moon packmates and lands they roam.” His jaw clenched at remembered failure. “But the savage creature’s bite forced an unexpected destiny upon you instead...upon us both, binding two lonely spirits forever as one.” My heart twisted at hearing Blake’s long-hidden pain. Cupping his beloved face in both hands I stared intently up at him, blazing with protective fire. “There were no accidents the night fate brought us together, my alpha wolf. I am right where I belong now...with you."