The Alpha's Late-Blooming Queen

The air in the penthouse felt thin, as if the very oxygen was being billed to Marcus’s platinum credit card. “Sign it, Elena. I have a dinner at eight, and I don’t want to be late because you are being dramatic.” Elena looked down at the divorce papers. The bold, black ink of Marcus’s signature on it felt like a physical weight was placed on her chest. For twelve years, she had been Elena Vance, the shimmering, silent accessory to one of the city’s most powerful real estate moguls. She had hosted his galas, smoothed over his scandals, and endured the subtle, stinging barbs about her failures, and yet, he decided she was no longer fit for him. “Twelve years, Marcus,” she whispered, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears. “I gave you my twenties. I supported you when you had nothing. I stood by you when you had crisis and this is how you repay all of that?” Marcus let out a sharp, mocking laugh as he adjusted his cufflinks. “I knew that you were going to say that, but do you know what I gave you in return?I gave you a life most women would kill for. But let’s be honest you have become… stagnant. You are thirty today, Elena. Look at you.” He gestured vaguely at her. She was wearing a cream-colored silk suit, her hair pinned in a perfect, tight bun. She looked elegant, but to Marcus, she looked like an old model of a car he was ready to trade in. “I am sick of always hearing that you are tired. You have these headaches every time there is a full moon, yet, you have nothing to show for it. And after a decade of trying, you couldn’t even give me an heir.” He leaned over the desk, his shadow looming over her. “I have just come to realize that you are broken, Elena. You are broken beyond repairs.” A sharp, stabbing pain ignited behind Elena’s eyes. It was the headache again, but this time, it felt different. It didn not feel like a dull throb; it felt like a living thing was trying to claw its way out of her skull. "Broken?" A voice hissed in the back of her mind. It was deep, primal, and vibrated with a rage that didn't feel like her own. "We are not broken. We are dormant." “I am not signing this,” Elena rasped, her hand cramping around the expensive fountain pen. “You will sign, or you will be made to leave with nothing but the clothes on your back,” Marcus threatened, his voice dropping to a dangerous low. "Do you think you can scare me by saying that?" She asked. “You have no idea what is coming at you, do you?" He chuckled. "What did you do, Marcus?" She flinched, seeing the fire in his eyes. "I took it upon myself to have your accounts frozen. The locks on the Hamptons house are changed. You have no family, no career, and according to the doctors, no future. So I suggest you sign...the...d*mn...papers.” The pain in Elena’s head shifted to her spine. It felt like her vertebrae were being unstrung and re-aligned. A wave of heat, intense and suffocating, washed over her. She could smell everything: the expensive scotch on Marcus’s breath, the chemical scent of the dry-cleaned curtains, the rain-slicked asphalt fifty stories below. “Something is… wrong,” Elena gasped, clutching her stomach. "Please help me." “Oh, god, not another episode of madness,” Marcus groaned, rolling his eyes. “This is one of the reasons I want to put an end to this bond! You cannot even hide the fact that you are pathetic. Truly.” He reached out to grab her arm, to force the pen into her hand. The moment his skin touched hers, the world turned red. A sound erupted from Elena’s chest. It was not a scream, but a guttural, chest-shaking growl that caused the crystal whiskey decanter on the sideboard to shatter. Marcus jumped back, tripping over his Italian leather loafers. “What the hell was that?” Elena stood up, but she did not stop rising. Her joints popped with the sound of breaking dry wood. The silk of her designer jacket tore at the shoulders, unable to contain the sudden, violent expansion of muscle. Her vision sharpened until she could see the individual pores on Marcus’s terrified face. “You dare to call me broken,” Elena said. Her voice was no longer a whisper; it was a double-toned snarl that seemed to vibrate the floorboards. “Elena? Your eyes…” Marcus stammered, his back hitting the floor-to-ceiling window. “They are actually… they are glowing.” Elena looked at her hands. Her well-manicured nails were lengthening into obsidian-black claws. White fur, thick and shimmering like moonlight, began to rapidly sprout from her skin. "How can this be? What is going on?" He panted. Fear and oblivion could be seen in his eyes. For the very first time in years, Elena saw the mighty Marcus scared. The Late Bloomer gene, suppressed by a decade of stress and the wrong environment, had finally snapped. "Do not let him get into your head, he is nothing." The voice in her head roared. "We are everything." Elena leaned over the desk, her shadow engulfing her ex-husband. She picked up the divorce papers and, with a single flick of her new claws, shredded them into confetti. “The settlement has just changed, Marcus,” she growled, her jaw elongating into a powerful muzzle. She turned and leaped. Not toward him, but toward the glass. The reinforced, triple-paned window shattered like tissue paper as two hundred pounds of white-furred fury launched into the night. She did not fall; she landed on the fire escape of the neighboring building with the grace of a god. She was thirty. She was homeless. She was a wolf. And for the first time in her life, Elena Vance was free.