The Alpha's Forbidden Mate

Chapter 8

The Seattle drizzle had turned vicious by the time Emma stepped out of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, fat raindrops slapping against the pavement like bullets. She pulled her jacket tighter, mind still churning over the environmental reports she'd been reviewing. The wind farm data didn't just have discrepancies—it had deliberate falsifications. Someone wanted that land torn up, and it wasn't for renewable energy.

Her heels clicked against wet concrete as she headed toward the parking garage. The sound echoed strangely in the empty street, creating a rhythm that made her skin crawl. Three blocks. Just three blocks to her rental car.

The first shadow detached itself from an alley between Fifth and University.

Emma's step faltered. Something primal screamed danger, flooding her system with adrenaline so pure it tasted metallic. The figure moved wrong—too fluid, too predatory. Another shadow emerged from behind a parked car. Then another.

They weren't human. She knew it with bone-deep certainty that defied logic.

"Emma Rosewood." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, distorted by rain and something else. Something inhuman. "You shouldn't have come back to Seattle."

She ran.

Her body moved before conscious thought took hold, legs pumping with impossible speed. The world blurred past—streetlights becoming streaks of gold, rain turning to silver threads. Her heels should have sent her sprawling on the slick pavement, but her feet found purchase with supernatural grace.

Behind her, inhuman snarls split the night.

Emma vaulted over a fire hydrant without breaking stride, muscles responding with strength she'd never possessed. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her breathing remained steady, controlled. This was wrong. This was impossible. Normal humans didn't run like this.

A blur of motion cut across her path. She spun left, down an alley that reeked of garbage and something fouler. Claws raked the brick wall where her head had been a split second before, sending sparks flying.

The thing pursuing her wasn't werewolf—she knew that somehow, though she couldn't explain how she knew what werewolves looked or smelled like. This creature stank of decay and wrongness, its scent making her gag even as she ran.

Emma burst onto Pine Street, startling a homeless man who scrambled away with wide eyes. Her pursuer's claws scraped against asphalt, the sound like nails on a chalkboard. Close. Too close.

She needed a weapon. Her fingers closed around a broken piece of rebar from a construction site, the metal warm despite the cold rain. The weight felt perfect in her grip, balanced like she'd been born to wield it.

The creature lunged from behind a dumpster, all teeth and malevolent yellow eyes. Emma spun, bringing the rebar up in an arc that should have been clumsy, desperate. Instead, it moved with lethal precision, catching the thing across the throat. Black blood sprayed across the alley wall.

The creature's shriek shattered windows in nearby buildings. It stumbled backward, clutching its throat, then dissolved into shadow and smoke. Gone.

Emma stood alone in the rain, rebar dripping with ichor that steamed against the metal. Her hands weren't shaking. They should have been shaking. She'd just killed something that shouldn't exist with reflexes that belonged to someone else.

"What the hell—"

"Emma!"

Alexander's voice cut through her shock like a blade. She spun to find him standing at the mouth of the alley, rain plastering his dark hair to his skull. His steel-gray eyes swept over her, cataloging injuries, assessing threats. He moved toward her with predatory grace that suddenly seemed familiar.

"Are you hurt?" His hands hovered over her shoulders, not quite touching. "I smelled blood."

"You smelled—" Emma's words died as she met his gaze. For just a moment, gold flickered in those gray depths. Not a trick of the streetlight. Something else entirely.

"How did you find me?" The question came out sharper than she intended.

"I was—" He stopped, jaw clenching. "I was in the area."

Liar. But Emma found she didn't care. The adrenaline was fading, leaving her shaky and cold. Whatever had attacked her was gone, but others might be coming. She could feel them out there, circling like sharks scenting blood.

"What attacked me?" She held up the rebar, black ichor still clinging to the metal. "This isn't human blood."

Alexander's expression went carefully blank. "You're in shock. We need to get you somewhere safe."

"Don't." Emma stepped back, raising the makeshift weapon. "Don't you dare patronize me. I know what I saw. I know what I did. Normal people don't move like that, Alexander. They don't fight like that."

He stilled, every muscle in his powerful frame going taut. "Like what?"

"Like predators." The words hung between them, heavy with implication. "Like something more than human."

Thunder rolled overhead, drowning out the city's ambient noise. In the sudden quiet, Emma could hear Alexander's heartbeat—too slow, too controlled. Could smell his scent even through the rain—pine and smoke and something wild.

"You need to come with me," he said finally. "Now. Before they send more."

"They?"

"The things hunting you." His eyes flashed gold again, unmistakable this time. "The things that killed my parents twenty years ago."

Emma's grip tightened on the rebar as pieces clicked into place—her dreams, her impossible speed, the way her body had known exactly how to fight. "What am I, Alexander?"

Before he could answer, pain exploded through her skull. She doubled over, gasping, as images flooded her mind: moonlight on ancient trees, the taste of raw meat, the feeling of bones reshaping beneath her skin. Her fingernails began to lengthen, sharpening into claws.