Page 1 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

Chapter 1

Alex

Blood splatters across my face as I attack the wolf that is aiming for the ashen-haired woman standing just a few feet from me. Her piercing gray eyes hold shock as she watches the battle going on around us. Her own hands are stained with blood.

In the blink of an eye, I rip off the head of the soldier from the Red Rock Wolf Pack. Are these men fools? They’re trying to attack Sophia Hope, the sacred Silver Wolf. Shouldn’t they have received orders to bring her back alive and unharmed?

I look around and see my men clashing with the soldiers, grim-eyed and relentless. We are fighting to survive. We cannot let the enemy live. And we cannot let them kill us. As it is, we are already severely outnumbered: five against twenty. These are not the best odds.

I stand in front of my mate, snarling at the approaching enemy.

Two large wolves jump at me, their brown fur already streaked with blood. Behind them, I glimpse Patrick struggling to stand, and a wave of rage washes over me as I realize that they’ve hurt my right-hand man and childhood friend. I leap forward, crushing one wolf’s leg in my powerful jaw and tossing him aside. Being an Alpha, my strength and speed are greater than those of my pack. If I weren’t so desperate to keep Sophia safe, the enemy wouldn’t be a problem right now.

As the wolf I just attacked howls in pain, I feign to the right to make it seem like I’m aiming for his companion’s throat. As soonas he tries to dive out of the way, I slash his vulnerable stomach, disemboweling him on the spot. The quiet gasp I hear from the woman behind me has me stiffening. But I have to do what I have to do.

Sophia isn’t used to bloodshed. She doesn’t like it. It is strange, considering that she is a wolf shifter like the rest of us. Plus, she has taken part in cage fighting for many years. Yet she always balks at the idea of killing someone. It’s not as if she has been idle through this fight, though; she took on two wolves earlier and managed to kill one before I dealt with the other. However, she was unable to hold her wolf form for long. Not surprising considering she only managed to shift for the first time about a week ago.

My mate is brave, and I love her for it. Even now, she’s trying to hide her aversion from the violence taking place in front of her. I dispatch the wolf whose leg I crushed before I face the remaining enemy. Patrick is back on his feet now, and he and Nathan are going after two of the brown wolves. I take a step forward to help them, but then I stop. I cannot leave Sophia by herself.

Jared, my other lieutenant, glances at me and huffs.

I get the message.

They’ve got a handle on the situation. I’ve killed most of the enemy soldiers, and they can take care of the rest.

I turn around and sniff at Sophia to make sure she is unharmed. She closes her eyes in response, and for a moment, she sways before steadying herself. Her smile is a flicker of movement, but that strained expression is back on her face almost instantly.

This isn’t the first ambush we’ve experienced since we began the journey from the South Alliance to the border of the North Alliance. In these past couple of days, we’ve constantly had soldiers from Sophia’s pack following us and attacking us. They’re all desperate to get their hands on my mate and bring her back to their new Alpha.

Noah Black.

He and his father, Robert, tormented Sophia during her childhood. And now that Robert is dead, it only makes sense that his son would become Alpha.

We’ve learned that Robert Black was not the only person who had his eyes set on Sophia. His son, Noah, also knows about Sophia’s true identity as the mystical Silver Wolf.

I had never heard about the existence of the Silver Wolf till the Queen of the North Alliance sent me on a mission to retrieve the female from the South Alliance. The prophecy that surrounds the Silver Wolf speaks of great power being granted to anybody who controls the wolf. All I have been able to determine so far is that the Silver Wolf is able to use magic, like witches. The prophecy that Queen Karina discovered claimed that the Silver Wolf would be the one to unite all three Alliances on this continent under one rule, and that would include the ever elusive Central Alliance.

It makes sense that people would be after Sophia, especially now that her identity has been revealed. I can only hope that Noah Black isn’t so foolish as to let everyone know she is the Silver Wolf.

Just thinking about the man makes my blood boil. Up until a week ago, he was having Sophia drugged to make her amenableto his courting advances. That explains why Sophia was so easy to convince, especially since Noah was her childhood bully. I do wonder, if Sophia and I had not discovered our fated mate bond, whether he would have been successful in winning her over.

From the corner of my eye, I see a brown wolf sneaking toward Sophia. I move swiftly, attacking his face. Disorientated, he stumbles back; I slash his throat, making him slump to the ground, already dead.

“That’s the last of them,” comes a shout from the other end of the clearing.

I look over to see Jared walking in my direction, already having shifted back to his human form. His clothing is clean, a benefit of wearing the enchanted clothes that only wolf shifters are privy to. They disappear into our skin when we shift into our wolf form, and when we return to human form, they are back in their original state, no matter how roughly we have tussled with each other as wolves.

When Sophia first shifted six days ago, she wasn’t wearing this special clothing. She never needed it before, having believed for her entire life that she had a latent wolf. I had to give her my shirt and pants, which are way too big on her. But somehow, she’s making it work.

Looking at her now, I notice the way her jaw is tightly clenched as she takes in all the dead wolves.

It hits me that she may know some of them. After all, she has been banished to Oakrest Town since she was sixteen years old, and most of the men who have come after us are probably from the town’s pack security team.

“Sophia?” I’ve also shifted back into my human form, and I approach her slowly. “Are you alright?”

Her lips are pressed together in a thin line, and she nods, a harsh, jerky movement. I wish she would tell me what she’s thinking. She’s become so quiet ever since we fled Oakrest Town.

“We have to keep going.” I give her one last look before turning my attention toward my men. “We don’t have time to hang around.”

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