5.
1352 Words
He stared at her like she was a damn wildfire—something fierce, untamed, and dangerous. Something that could burn him alive.
“You’re out of your damn mind,” he growled, voice low and vibrating with restrained power.
Maya’s lips curled into a crooked grin, defiant even in her half-naked state, dirt smeared across her knees, hair tangled from running through the woods. “You’d be surprised what kind of crazy I’m capable of.”
The sound of boots on gravel grew louder—guards. Shouting. They were close, too close. Her pulse thundered.
The masked Alpha’s eyes darkened, and his scent spiked—power, pine, and bloodlust. His wolf stirred behind his irises.
“f**k it,” he muttered under his breath, voice edged with something primal. “Fine. But if I take you…” He stepped closer until his breath ghosted against her ear. “You’re mine.”
Before she could process the weight of those words, his hand clamped her waist, yanking her against his hard chest. The heat between them cracked like lightning.
Then, just like smoke, they vanished into the shadows of the alley.
The guards stormed past seconds later, missing them by inches.
Maya gaspes in fear and tore away from his grip the moment it felt safe, eyes blazing.
She wasn’t ready to be claimed. Not by a masked Alpha she couldn’t even read. Not while her world was still burning. She darted from the shadows, barefoot, bleeding, adrenaline pumping.
“s**t,” Logan muttered as he watched her disappear again, her wild silhouette slipping into the chaos. The smirk tugged at his lips before he could stop it.
“What’s with that stupid grin?” came a voice, low and rough.
Logan’s wolf growled inside him—possessive, annoyed.
"You have a fiancée in this pack and you're ogling another female like a dog in heat,” the wolf snarled.
He clenched his jaw, refocusing just as Beta Fergus approached, gun slung at his side, expression unreadable but eyes flickering with curiosity.
“Alpha Logan,” Fergus said, glancing quickly at the damage—the torn shirt, the blood. “Should we stay and wait for your…lover?” There was sarcasm in his voice, but beneath it, a flicker of concern. “The Moonlight Pack warriors think we’re here to start a damn war.”
Logan exhaled, adjusting his silver mask and brushing off his ruined shirt. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Beta Fergus arched a brow. “But…what about Lady Gaia, your supposed mate? I heard she’s already mated to Alpha Rio.”
Logan’s laughter was low and humourless, but it didn’t quite hide the hesitation in his eyes. “That’s impossible. Gaia’s loyal. She knows who she belongs to.”
Fergus hesitated. The stench of lies and secrets was all over this damn pack. He stepped forward, voice quiet, eyes sharp. “Did she see your face?”
Logan paused. His body stilled like a predator who just caught a whiff of danger. He turned slowly, his silver mask gleaming in the moonlight.
“That girl,” Fergus added, “The one who patched you up. If she saw your face… the rules are clear, Alpha.”
The air grew tense, sharp with unsaid laws. It's a law that the masked Alpha face isn't supposed to be seen by anybody.
Logan’s voice dropped to a whisper, deadly and cold. “She didn’t see it. She was too busy trying to save me.”
Fergus studied him for a beat. “You sure about that?”
Logan looked away, jaw clenching. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Not when her hands—bloodied, trembling—had pressed against his burning chest like she’d done it a hundred times before. Not when her scent, faint as it was, had clawed something raw and ancient out of him.
“We leave before more of their warriors show up,” Logan said. His voice was final.
Fergus nodded, but his thoughts lingered. “You can’t ignore what you felt back there,” he said as they walked. “She’s not just anyone.”
Logan didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His wolf was still howling her name in the back of his skull.
Maya.
Even as they retreated into the forest shadows, he couldn’t shake the memory of her blood-slick fingers pulling the bullet from his chest, her soft gasp when he touched her hand, the terror in her voice when she whispered, “Abduct me, Masked Alpha… save me from my pack.”
---
Meanwhile, Maya leaned against the back wall of an abandoned shed, gasping for breath, chest heaving. Her legs were screaming in pain, her foot torn from running barefoot, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care.
"I helped him. He didn’t have to.
He didn’t touch me like the guards did. He looked at me like…" Her thoughts cut off.
Scarlett, her wolf, growled softly inside her again—a weak echo, like a voice from a locked cell. We need him.
“I’m not some helpless b***h who needs to be claimed,” Maya muttered aloud, wiping blood from her cheek. “I’m gonna make them all pay for this. Gaia. Rio. Everyone.”
The moonlight cut through the trees, casting silver beams over her bruised skin. Maya was just about to limp forward when—
Clink.
A cold, burning sting wrapped around her throat.
“Agh!” she gasped, choking on her own scream as her knees buckled.
The silver chain seared into her skin like fire, sizzling against her flesh. Her wolf howled in agony, retreating deeper into her mind, helpless. The bond was too weak. She couldn’t shift. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t run.
She turned her head with a sharp gasp—and froze.
Two dungeon guards stood behind her, faces cloaked in shadows, grinning like sadistic bastards.
“Think you could run, mutt?” one sneered, yanking the chain and making her fall hard on the ground. Her knees slammed into the dirt. Her hands scraped against a jagged rock, skin tearing open. Blood mixed with dust.
Maya coughed, her voice hoarse. “Please… please, don’t do this. I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to—”
“Shut up, b***h,” the second guard growled, yanking the chain tighter. The burning made her vision blur. “Did you think the Moonlight Pack wouldn’t find its filthy little traitor?”
They dragged her through the underbrush, through roots and thorns that sliced at her arms and legs. She kicked, thrashed, screamed—but the silver had her almost paralyzed.
“HELP!” she shrieked, lungs aching, throat raw. “Someone—please!”
But only the forest echoed back.
“No one’s coming for you, slut,” the guard said, laughing darkly. “Not your masked freak. Not your deadbeat daddy. Not even your goddess-damned wolf.”
She bit her tongue to keep from crying out again. Her body was shaking, not from fear—but fury.
They hauled her back down through the hidden trapdoor, through the secret tunnels carved beneath the Moonlight Pack territory. The air grew colder, damper, fouler. Blood and piss and rot clung to the stone walls like mold.
Her feet dragged behind her, bleeding and bruised. Her voice was gone.
Then the door slammed shut above, and she was tossed like trash into the cell.
She hit the wall with a sick thud.
Pain flared through her back. A whimper slipped from her lips before she could stop it.
The guards stood over her, their silhouettes massive in the low orange torchlight.
“You shouldn’t have run,” the first one said. “Now Alpha Rio’s gonna make an example out of you.”
“He’s gonna carve you up piece by piece,” the second added, eyes gleaming like a damn predator in heat. “Maybe we’ll get a turn before he does.”
Maya didn’t flinch. She refused to give them that satisfaction.
Instead, she raised her bloodied face and smiled. “I hope he f*****g chokes on my bones.”
- Writer
