Claimed by the Alpha Who Rejected Her

Lila's POV TEN YEARS AGO The house had gone still ten minutes before he ever walked through the door, and that stillness was the first thing that should have warned her. Lila felt it low in her chest, a strange, restless itch crawling just beneath her skin, the same unnameable pressure she sometimes felt in a storm before the thunder ever cracked. She told herself it was nerves. She told herself it was nothing. She had told herself a lot of things over the years to keep from admitting the truth: that whatever slept inside her, broken or not, always seemed to wake up whenever Kane Draven came near. She hated that. She hated it more than she hated him. "Where's the runt hiding tonight?" His voice hit the kitchen before he did, dripping with that same lazy cruelty he always wore like cologne. He didn't need to search the house. He never did. One alpha's son with a nose sharper than hers didn't have to guess where the family's least useful wolf was cowering, he could probably track her heartbeat from the driveway. She didn't understand why he bothered. She didn't understand, either, why her own brother worshiped him the way he did, trailing after Kane like a second shadow, laughing at jokes that were never actually funny. It stung more than she wanted to admit. Blood ties were supposed to mean something. Apparently pack loyalty meant more. "She's exactly where she always is," Ethan called back, not even glancing up. Lila stayed hunched over her textbook at the breakfast bar, headphones jammed deep enough into her ears to drown out the low hum of pack gossip that drifted through the house most nights. Her hearing wasn't sharp, never had been, never would be but it was sharp enough to catch her own name being tossed around like a joke passed between friends. She should have moved to the dining table. It's too late now. She kept her eyes fixed on the equations in front of her, numbers she'd never been good at and definitely couldn't focus on now, counting down the minutes until the inevitable interruption arrived, the way it always did Kane wandering in under some flimsy excuse, looking for a snack he didn't need or a drink he didn't want, anything to justify circling her like she was something to poke at. When the interruption finally came, it wasn't the excuse she expected. It was silence, then her headphones yanked clean out of her ears, and Kane standing directly across the counter from her, entirely alone. "Are you always this deaf, or just deaf to me?" His dark hair looked like he'd spent the whole day dragging a hand through it, and that same insufferable smirk sat on his mouth like it had been carved there. Half the she-wolves in the pack thought that smirk was devastating. Lila had never understood the appeal. Handsome, sure, in the way a loaded gun could be handsome. That didn't make either one safe to be around. Still, standing there with the counter between them, she found she couldn't quite look away from him. Not for the first time, she wondered if there was something actually wrong with him, nineteen years old and still finding new ways to torment a girl who'd never once fought back the way he clearly wanted her to. "Let me guess," he drawled, tilting his head with mock sympathy. "That mutt of yours still hiding somewhere in there? Or is there really nothing home at all?" He reached across and tapped her forehead once, like he was checking whether anyone answered. Her jaw locked. Something low in her throat wanted to growl, wanted it so badly it ached, but all that ever came out when she tried was silence, or worse, something embarrassingly close to a whimper. She'd stopped trying months ago. It only ever made him laugh harder. "Back off, Kane." The words came out flatter than she meant them to, but there was steel underneath. She'd had enough of shrinking. Enough of swallowing it, month after month, while his teasing sharpened into something crueler every time she had a birthday. Eighteen had apparently been an open invitation for him to get worse. "Was that supposed to be an order?" He laughed, delighted, like she'd just performed a trick. "Careful, runt. Wouldn't want you to strain yourself." That was the moment something in her simply snapped. She was off the stool before she'd fully decided to move, chin lifted, refusing to be small in front of him one more time and immediately regretting it. He had nearly a foot on her and the build to match, and before she could recalculate, his hand had closed around her throat and her spine had found the unforgiving edge of the refrigerator door. Pain flared bright and then vanished beneath the sheer heat of him pressed against her. Where was Ethan? Why wasn't anyone stopping this? The question dissolved the second his thumb dragged slowly along her jaw. "You know," he murmured, watching his own hand like it fascinated him, "for someone with no wolf to speak of, you've got unfairly soft skin." There was something in his eyes she didn't have a name for. Hunger wasn't quite it. Or maybe it was exactly it, and that terrified her more. "Get your hands off me," she managed, voice cracking around his grip. The instant his fingers loosened, she shoved him hard enough that he actually stumbled, shock flooding his features like he genuinely hadn't expected her to fight back. "You don't get to touch me just because your father runs this pack," she snapped, straightening her spine. "Where is my brother?" "What's wrong, Gracie?" His voice dropped, taunting and low. "Scared to be alone with the big bad wolf?" "Please. You're a house pet with delusions." Her heart was pounding hard enough that she was sure he could hear it. She hated that he probably could. "Your father called. Sent Ethan out to run something over," he said, closing the distance again, tucking a loose strand of her hair back with unsettling gentleness. "Which means we've got maybe twenty minutes to ourselves." The look he gave her then wasn't teasing anymore. It was hungrier, darker, and it cracked something open in her chest that she immediately shoved back down. "Stay away from me," she warned. "Or what?" He tilted his head, smirk sharpening into something crueler. "Afraid you might actually like it? No wonder your wolf won't show you were probably built for something with claws and a mane, not a pack like ours." The insult landed exactly where he wanted it to. Cat shifters were a joke among wolves, barely tolerated, and he knew precisely what he was implying. "You absolute bastard." She swung before she'd finished thinking it through. Her palm cracked across his cheek, and for one glorious second, pride flooded her chest. Then his hand closed around her wrist, and she understood, too late, that he'd let her land it. "I'll allow that one," he said, voice gone rough and low as he pinned her arm to her side and backed her against the fridge again. "It's the last one you get." He kissed her before she could answer. It should have disgusted her. Instead, ten years of resentment, humiliation, and something far more dangerous than either detonated inside her chest all at once, and instead of pushing him away, her hands fisted in his shirt and pulled him closer. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and bit down until she tasted copper. "b***h," he growled against her mouth, but his grip on her throat only tightened, and neither of them pulled back. Whatever this was rage, hunger, ten years of provocation finally catching fire Lila would spend years trying to convince herself it had only ever been anger. She had no idea yet just how wrong she was.