Claimed By The Hidden Alpha

Chapter Two

LYRA

The rooster's crow pierces through my window at exactly 5:47 AM.

Every morning, same time, like the bastard has an internal alarm clock set specifically to ruin my dreams.

Not that I mind today. The dream was heading somewhere dangerous—green eyes and blood on perfect lips, hands that could break me reaching out gentle as snow.

I've been painting the same face for six months. Still don't know his name.

My feet hit the cold wood floor, shocking me fully awake. The pack house groans around me, old bones settling in the mountain cold.

Through the thin walls, I hear Maria starting breakfast—bacon grease popping, coffee percolating, the soft humming she does when she thinks no one's listening.

My reflection in the cracked mirror looks like something out of Nana's old fairy tales. Skin too pale for someone who spends half her time in the garden, hair black as crow feathers hanging to my waist. The silver eyes are the worst part—clouded like cataracts, like blindness, though I see everything too clearly. Sometimes I catch pack members staring, wondering if the mute omega can see them staring back.

I can.

The compound comes alive as I dress in work clothes—faded jeans, thermal shirt, boots that have seen better decades. Through my window, smoke rises from the kitchen chimney, and I spot Sam running the perimeter. Her breath clouds in the morning air, red hair blazing against the frost-covered pines.

The stairs creak under my weight, announcing my presence before I hit the kitchen. Maria looks up from the stove, flour dusting her dark skin.

"Morning, sweet girl. Nana's already in the greenhouse. Says the sage is being temperamental."

I nod, snagging a piece of bacon before she can swat my hand. The burn of hot grease on my fingers fades instantly—one of the perks of being a healer. Also one of the curses. Can't touch anyone skin-to-skin without drowning in their thoughts, their pain, their secrets.

"Lyra, perfect timing." Alex appears in the doorway, all five-foot-ten of lethal beta grace. "Supply run to town. You in?"

My hands move quick: Not today. Garden work.

She frowns. "You haven't left the compound in two weeks."

Nana needs help with the medicinal plots.

"Bullshit. You're hiding from something." Her hazel eyes narrow. "Or someone."

If only she knew. Six months ago, Raleigh. Supposed to be a simple supply run—herbs Nana couldn't grow, medical supplies the pack needed. Then I saw him crossing the street outside the university. Tall and dark-haired, moving through the crowd like violence barely leashed. Our eyes met for exactly three seconds before Alex yanked me into the apothecary.

Three seconds that rewired my entire existence.

"Leave her be." Sam joins us, sweat-soaked from her run. "If she wants to hermit, let her hermit."

They exchange one of those warrior looks, all silent communication and shared history. Been friends since before I came to Moonhaven, back when they were just cubs learning to throw punches.

I'll go next time. Promise.

"You better." Alex steals my bacon. "Alpha Earl's asking about you. Wants to know if you've had any visions about the border situation."

My stomach clenches. The visions come when they want, not when the Alpha demands. Last one hit three days ago—blood on snow, rogues with yellow eyes, something massive and dark moving through the trees. I painted it all, but the details stayed frustratingly vague.

Nothing clear. Just shadows.

"Well, if something comes up..." She lets it trail off.

They head out, arguing about who drives. I escape before anyone else can corner me with questions.

The greenhouse sits against the south wall, all salvaged glass and stubbornness. Inside, the air hangs thick with moisture and growing things. Nana's bent over the sage plants, gray hair twisted up with what looks like chopsticks.

"About time. These seedlings won't transplant themselves."

She doesn't look up, doesn't need to. Sixty years of healing work has given her senses sharper than most wolves. She probably heard me breathing from across the compound.

We work in comfortable silence, hands deep in dark soil. The sage really is being temperamental—three plants already withering despite perfect conditions. I brush my fingers against the dying leaves, feel the disease eating at their roots. The healing flows without thought, green health spreading from my touch.

"Show-off." But Nana's smiling. "That gift of yours gets stronger every day."

Lots of practice.

"Mmm. And the other gift? The one that has you waking up screaming?"

My hands still in the dirt. Three nights this week, visions so vivid they felt like memories. Him—always him—surrounded by flame that doesn't burn, eyes gone gold as old magic. Sometimes he's running. Sometimes fighting. Always alone.

Same as before. Fire and blood.

"That's not what I asked."

She's too perceptive by half. Knows there's more to the visions than prophetic warnings. The mate bond pulses beneath my skin like a second heartbeat, responding to someone who doesn't even know I exist.

We transplant seedlings until the sun climbs higher, warming the greenhouse to tropical. My thoughts keep drifting to the canvas waiting in my cottage. Got the eyes perfect yesterday—that impossible green that shifts from human to other between one breath and the next.

"Lyra."

I look up to find Tyler Fletcher blocking the greenhouse door. Twenty-three, broad-shouldered, ego the size of Montana. Been sniffing around since I turned eighteen, like persistence will somehow overcome the fact that my skin crawls when he's near.

"Thought you might need help with the heavy lifting."

We're fine. My signs are sharp as glass.

"Come on. Let me be useful." He steps closer, and I smell the alpha pheromones he's pumping out. Subtle as a sledgehammer. "Pack's small. Omegas are rare. We should at least try—"

Nana's pruning shears slam into the potting bench hard enough to split wood.

"Boy, if you don't get your presumptuous ass out of my greenhouse, I'll show you exactly what these old hands can do with wolfsbane extract."

Tyler pales. Everyone knows Nana doesn't make idle threats. He backs out, shooting me a look that promises this isn't over.

"Persistent little shit." She returns to pruning like nothing happened. "Earl needs to have a word with him about consent."

He's harmless.

"Harmless men don't corner omegas in greenhouses."

She's right, but fighting Tyler feels like wasted energy when my whole body yearns for someone three states away. Someone who might not even be pack. Might not be anything that could claim an omega without breaking her.

We break for lunch—sandwiches under the apple trees, listening to the younger wolves practice combat forms. My cottage sits at the edge of the compound, far enough for privacy but close enough for protection. Single room with a bed, kitchenette, and the one indulgence I allowed myself: north-facing windows that flood the space with painting light.

The canvas waits on the easel. His face stares back at me, caught between human and something else. I've painted him seventeen times now. This one's different. This one shows what I see in the visions—the fire under his skin, the wolf caged behind green eyes.

My fingers itch for the brushes. Colors swirl in my head: titanium white for moonlight on skin, cadmium red for blood not yet spilled, ivory black for the darkness that rides him like possession.

Time disappears when I paint. The world narrows to pigment and possibility, each stroke bringing him closer to life. I build him in layers—flesh tones first, then the subtle things. The way his jaw clenches like he's fighting screams. How his hands curl into almost-claws. The fever brightness that says his body temperature runs too hot for human normal.

"Lyra?"

Alex's voice breaks through the trance. The sun's moved. Hours gone in what felt like minutes.

"Jesus." She steps around the easel, sees the painting. "That's... who is that?"

My hands fumble. No one's seen the paintings before. I've been careful, hiding them like guilty secrets.

"He's beautiful." Her voice goes soft. "And terrifying. Is this from a vision?"

Something like that.

"Does Alpha Earl know?"

No. The sign comes out desperate. Please don't tell him.

She studies me, taking in the paint-stained fingers, the canvases stacked against the wall. All him. Different angles, different moments, but always the same face.

"I know this face. You saw him. In Raleigh."

It's not a question. I nod anyway.

"f**k, Lyra. He felt like... like violence waiting to happen. Not pack. Not entirely human either."

I know.

"Do you? Because this—" She gestures at the painting. "This looks like obsession."

It's not obsession.

"Then what?"

I can't tell her. Can't sign the words that would make it real. That the moment our eyes met, every cell in my body recognized its other half. That the mate bond snapped into place so hard it nearly dropped me to my knees. That I've been dreaming of green eyes and dark curls since before I knew faces like his existed.

"He doesn't even know you exist."

I know that too.

"This isn't healthy. You need to—"

Pain hits like a sledgehammer to the skull. Not mine—his. Distant but devastating, ripping through the bond I shouldn't be able to feel across states. My knees buckle.

Alex catches me before I hit the floor. "Lyra! What's wrong?"

The visions come fast and brutal. He's strapped to something—medical equipment, steel restraints. Needles in his arms, machines tracking vitals that spike impossible. A man in a white coat asking questions while he thrashes, while something under his skin tries to tear free.

Then darkness. Complete sensory void that tastes like sedatives and despair.

"Breathe." Alex has me cradled against her, careful not to touch skin. "Just breathe."

But I can't. He's in pain—so much pain—and I can't reach him. Can't help. Can only paint shadows of the mate I'll probably never meet, feeling him die by degrees three states away.

The vision releases me, leaving phantom aches in my bones. Alex helps me to the bed, brings water I can barely swallow.

"That wasn't a normal vision."

I shake my head.

"This is about him. The man from Raleigh."

Another nod.

"Lyra..." She stops, strategy shifting behind her eyes. "I won't tell Alpha. But you need to be careful. Whatever he is, whoever he is—bonds like that can kill omegas. Especially unclaimed ones."

I'm already dying.

The truth slips out before I can stop it. Six months of feeling him suffer, of visions getting stronger while he gets weaker. The paintings are all that keep me sane, giving form to formless longing.

"Then we find him."

I stare at her, sure I misunderstood.

"I'm serious. Sam and I can track. You obviously have some kind of connection. We find him, figure out what he is, maybe—"

No. My hands shake. Too dangerous.

"More dangerous than letting you waste away?"

She doesn't understand. The visions show what he becomes when cornered. The c*****e he can create without meaning to. He's not ready for pack, for mates, for anything beyond surviving the next transformation.

But God, I want her to be right. Want to believe we could drive to wherever he's hiding and make everything simple. Hi, I'm your mate. Stop fighting what you are. Come home with me.

Except nothing about him feels simple. Not the fire in his veins or the way he breaks through sedatives that should kill him. Not the government lab or the men with guns or the father who died rather than let them take his son.

"Think about it." Alex squeezes my shoulder through fabric. "Sam and I leave for the border patrol tomorrow. Three days. When we get back, if you want..."

She lets it hang, possibility and promise wound together.

After she leaves, I return to the painting. Add details I couldn't before—the needle marks, the restraint bruises, the hollow exhaustion that comes from fighting your own nature.

Somewhere in West Virginia, he's waking up. I feel it like sunrise in my bones, the slow crawl back to consciousness. Confusion first, then memory, then the awful realization that it's getting worse.

Twenty-one soon. I know without knowing how. Whatever's been building in his blood will crest with the birthday, and after that...

My hand moves without thought, adding shadows to the background. Shapes that might be trees or might be teeth. The darkness that waits for him to stop running.

I paint until my hands cramp and the light fails. Paint him walking through fire. Paint him whole and broken and beautiful. Paint the future I've seen where he stands at the edge of Moonhaven territory, eyes gold as the wolf finally wins.

Paint the moment he sees me and knows—the way I've known for six months—that some bonds are worth burning for.