Page 3 of Sold to the Alpha Wolf

Oh my Gods, is he going to claim me? Create his mark just like that? Oh, shit. We’ll…we’ll be completely bound…

“Mine.” His deep voice rumbled, but then he shook his head like he was trying to knock himself out of it. “How? How are you doing this?”

I was shaking from head to foot, terrified that this other alpha—who was decidedly not a Collins—would try to kill me, but also reeling from the overwhelming desire that powered through my blood like a drug. His scent was everywhere and too strong.

“I-I’m not.” My voice was small, shaky. “I’m not doing a-anything.”

“You have to be.”

He pushed deeper into my hair with his face, forcing me to turn my head to the side. When I risked a glance around, I noticed the bare skin of his forearms revealed by his rolled-up sleeves.

Tattooed into the gorgeous olive flesh were intricate geometric patterns, triangles stacked over the top of each other with half circles and straight lines scattered about and connecting them. His pack? I didn’t think alphas did that anymore. Or maybe that’s just good ol’ Terrance.

“Tell me,” he barked out, and I jumped, my back scraping against the brick wall.

Cold air rushed past the building as the winter wind blew, and even with my higher-than-normal body temperature, I shivered. It had little to do with the chill, of course, and everything to do with the man pressed up against me. The swell of his erection was too obvious against my leg.

Turning to look him in the eye, my chest ached with how hard my heart pounded, my breaths shuddering through me.

“I can feel it, too.”

With that, he kissed me. The alpha of some foreign pack kissed me, crashing his lips against me with a fury I could barely stand. Holy hell, the taste of him was incredible. It was better than anything I’d ever had in my life.

His lips were soft but demanding, and the grip he had on my head—his fingers threading through my hair at the nape of my neck—was possessive and commanding.

Time slowed and stretched even as it hurried past. We were a tangle of limbs, tasting and exploring each other like our lives depended on it. We were plainly visible to anyone who might come out here, but I could sense that neither of us cared.

As my mate spun me around, he yanked down my pants and claimed me right there in the evening air.

His hand clamped down around my mouth as I screamed. He’d claimed my first blood, the first to bed me as a proper mate should be, and I fell apart as he sealed our bond, searing it into my soul.

As things calmed, the alpha breathed heavily against my shoulder. I could feel the shake of his head. His wolf had extended claws that dug into the brick wall, and as I looked back toward him, the green of his eyes was glowing as he reined in the shift.

I should be doing the same. My wolf should be chomping at the bit to get free, to run with him, to let him hunt me down and claim me again—and again if he wanted.

But I wasn’t.

Because I didn’t have a wolf.

“You don’t…”

I turned around, pulling my pants back into place. Shame licked through my veins, acidic and corroding. I could hardly breathe. Tension radiated through our bond. I could feel the strain—like pulling on a rubber band too tight for too long.

“I—”

“Don’t.” His eyes were cold, and my jaw started trembling. “This isn’t…we can’t do this. You don’t have a wolf. We’re in different packs. I…I don’t know what I was thinking.”

At that, he walked away, hurrying to a black SUV parked at the back of the lot. I listened to the engine turn over, and then it sped away up the gravel road into the mountains. That rubber band snapped, the frayed edge hitting me in the chest and knocking me back against the wall. I began to sob as I slid down to land on my ass, pain like nothing I’d ever felt bleeding through my entire being.

Rejected.

It clawed through the core of me even as warmth still clung to the inside of my womb. The alpha was right. I had no wolf. My pack was right, too. I was nothing without one, a waste, and the horrible ache behind my sternum just boomed all the harder as I sat there on the ground, the freezing wind snatching my tears.

The bond’s torn edges scratched and scraped against my insides. I was racked with a fiery ache that threatened to kill me right then and there. There was little in the life of a wolf that hurt as much as being rejected by your mate—if you were so lucky as to find them.

Miserable wretch that I was, I’d been given the treat of meeting and losing my mate all in a matter of minutes, and I didn’t think I’d be able to carry on much longer. The heats I’d suffered alone—debilitating and atrocious—were nothing compared to the pain of rejection.

He didn’t want me. He’d rejected me. I was wolfless, after all, and there truly was nothing that was going to change that. Not even a mate.

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