Page 1 of Bound By My Alpha Mate

Chapter 1

Kiara

I’d been running for days. The search for my mother had led me all the way from Montana to the forests of Colorado, and I was so close to finding her that some nights, I swore I heard her voice coming out of the darkness. She was waiting for me, and wherever she was, whoever had taken her, I was going to rescue her.

The last time I’d seen her was months ago, when she helped me escape. My beautiful mother, with her wavy, silver hair hanging off her shoulders, looking exhausted and disheveled after we ran from the warehouse we’d been kept in—that was the image that drove me forward. “Kiara,” she’d said desperately as the dragons searched for us with flashlights, “run, hide, don’t ever look back. Don’t come for me. I’ll make my way back to you, I promise.”

If I’d been younger, it would have been easier for me to run, hide, and wait. But not now; I was eighteen years old and much braver. Fleeing while allowing my mother to fall into the searching dragons’ lights was cowardly enough. I should have stayed by her side, but I was going to make up for leaving her behind.

The dragons were already on my trail. They must have caught wind of me when I brushed up against the northernmost wolf territory in Gunnison National Forest. I thought I would be safe by traversing these borders, but the moment I recognized the scent of the Inkscale dragons’ leader, Lothair Javier, I knew I would find no respite here. The silver lining was that this was where I suspected my mother would be—whether in the clutches of the dragons or in hiding, I didn’t know, but I would find out. It wasn’t easy to track a unicorn shifter. They left behind no scent and could disappear the moment you took your eyes off them. But there were other ways to detect one—an unusual sense of calm, a magnetic allure. I was sensitive to the presence of unicorns, being one myself. Well…half.

I was half unicorn, half wolf. And while I was blessed with the gifts of both types of shifters—a keen sense of smell, healing magic, and absence of an identifying unicorn scent—I was also cursed with the weaknesses of both. My allergy to silver made me vulnerable to some metals, like wolf shifters, and like unicorns, I could not touch fresh blood, despite my perpetual carnivorous hunger. I still carried the scent of a wolf, too. The Moon Goddess, Luna, influenced me just as much as the Sky Goddess, Welkin, and at times, I suffered from conflicting visions from both. Even if I tried, I couldn’t live the life of a normal human. My hybrid beast was at war with itself. The only sense of peace I had ever known was instilled in me by my mother, and ever since she’d been taken from me, my heart and mind had been in turmoil. I had to find her before the precarious balance of my grace, hunger, and anger erupted into a chaotic storm and I tore myself apart.

Under the glimmer of the stars, I ran northeast. The stench of burning oil stung my nose while shadows churned ominously around me. Snapping branches betrayed the physicality of those shadows: dragons lunging after me in pursuit. I had made the mistake of spending too much time on the edge of this territory, and now the Inkscales were aware that I was here. In the body of my beast, I looked over my shoulder and saw them crashing between the trees, vivid yellow eyes trained on me. Panting, I pushed harder, leaping over a fallen log. My paws beat the ground in swift silence while the dragons scrambled noisily behind me now. Where one staggered and stalled at the log, the rest chasing me climbed over the one that was stuck, rolling over each other like vicious ocean waves. A couple of them started gaining on me. I heard their rasping getting closer and closer. But I wasn’t afraid. This wasn’t the first time I had come into close contact with the Inkscales; I’d been fleeing from them for months. No, all I felt was determination.

A shadow eclipsed the starlight, and a heavy mass crashed into my backside. With a snarling yelp, I hit the ground and immediately twisted around to face my attacker. The dragon’s chest loomed over me, its arms stretched out, curved black claws poised to grip my flanks. I bared my teeth and snapped at the reptile, which didn’t dissuade it. Soon, the others that were in pursuit would be upon me—I couldn’t waste any time. As the dragon reared back, parting its jaws to grab me, I took a deep breath and bowed my head.

The impact was immediate. Then, a squeal of pain. A torrent of steaming hot blood.

With all the strength I could muster, I shook my head side to side, ridding myself of the weight on it. A dark hole glistened in the dragon’s throat. The blood streaming down my face sizzled and stained my fur; the pain was enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I didn’t care. The dragon had impaled itself on the only physical trait I had inherited from my mother: my spiraling, opalescent unicorn horn, now glistening a violent red.

As the dragon gurgled and choked on its blood, I scrambled to my feet. The other Inkscales were just seconds away from crashing down on me. I broke into a run, but my slow start had given them the advantage. Teeth quickly clasped my right haunch and raked down to my ankle. I gritted my teeth and ran harder despite the pain. Looking over my shoulder, I experienced a flash of worry at how close they were. Then, to my surprise, they skidded to a halt, tearing up the grass and tripping over each other.

It should have occurred to me why they’d stopped, but I only felt relief.

Until the ground vanished from under my feet.

Suddenly, I was hurtling through the air, my heart leaping into my lungs as I sought an explanation for the weightlessness in my body. Wide-eyed, I watched the land drop into verdant ridges below, the forest teetering on a mountainside I hadn’t realized I was approaching. Then, in the span of my next heartbeat, my body hit the slope. Agony exploded through me, and I rolled down the incline, bouncing off the bushes and rocks. Everything around me blurred together as I made my descent. It felt like it took minutes for me to fall down the mountain, each thump another firework of worsening pain, when in reality, it must have taken only about thirty seconds for me to come to a stop in a patch of leafy brambles. I lay there on a ledge, dizzy, as I stared up at where I had dropped from. The faint moonlight illuminated the dragons looking over the ledge, searching for me. They flared their wings and took off, flying overhead. But they must not have seen me because they proceeded further down the valley while I stayed still, stunned by the fall.

The longer I remained there, the greater the chance was of them finding me. They would be able to smell my blood, let alone my wolf scent. I had to move.

With a sharp inhale through my teeth, I got to my stomach and tried to stand. My legs trembled, my ribs screaming in pain. I wouldn’t be able to go far, and for a moment, I thought I was absolutely screwed. I hadn’t been paying attention to where I’d been running, and it would be the death of me. Just a moment’s ignorance would end my life and rip away any chance I had of finding and rescuing my mother. But then, I noticed the dark crevice beside me.

There was a hole among the tangle of roots beneath a tree that was firmly anchored in the mountainside. I staggered into the hole, cramming myself as tightly as I could into the darkness before turning around and staring out into the night.

The Inkscales soared up and down the valley, searching. They screeched and hissed to one another, uttering draconic noises of frustration. While distantly, I thought I heard a couple of lupine barks. Maybe it was my imagination. For all the dragons knew, I could have broken my bones and died somewhere further down the mountain. They couldn’t see me; they hovered above the brambles saturated with my scent but couldn’t land without injuring themselves in the thorns and dense undergrowth. Most likely, they would wait until sunrise, when the light of their Sun God would allow them to pick me out of the vegetation. But I wasn’t going to wait around that long.

With a deep breath in, I closed my eyes and focused on all the wounds I had suffered in the past couple of minutes. My magic wasn’t strong enough to heal me entirely. The blood that was smeared all over me—the dragon’s blood on my face, my own blood seeping out of my shorn haunch and the cuts and scrapes from the fall—was slowly poisoning me. I couldn’t even lick myself clean, or else I’d suffer even worse effects from ingesting blood. But I could at least mend the worst of my injuries so I could flee from here while it was still dark.

A gentle tingling flushed through my body. My magic had been summoned from the well of my unicorn horn and was rushing through my veins and seeping into my muscles. The gash on my temple bridged the flesh until it closed and was no longer bleeding. The ribs I had landed on, surely fractured by the impact, throbbed and got warm. Other broken bones fused back together. My ankle, which had been twisted sharply, cracked back into place. While I knew I still had manual healing to do, at least now I wouldn’t be suffering from sharp, stabbing pains any time I tried to walk.

For several long minutes, I lay there and allowed my magic to repair what it could. The heavy wingbeats of the dragons slowly faded, and I could hear their claws scrabbling up the mountainside. The Inkscales would be back before long; I had to move quickly if I wanted to avoid being trapped here.

I swallowed my agony and extracted myself from the hole. Limbs still shaking, I crawled underneath the brambles, enduring their prickly tangle until I came out on the other side adorned with leaves and twigs. Then, with careful steps, I continued to climb down the mountain, back to level ground. I was forced to keep looking up and around me, like a mouse ever vigilant for the talons of raptors. Every now and then, a flying shadow passed across the stars.

Finally, I made it to the valley floor, and I dragged myself through the trees. The sound of a creek was music to my ears. The gentle babbling ushered me forth until, at long last, I saw the starlight glinting off its surface. With a sigh, I stopped at the water’s edge, bent my head, and drank, soothing my dry throat. But thirst wasn’t my main concern; I needed to clean the blood off me.

The ice-cold water was a reprieve for my sore paws. I had been running for so long that I didn’t even realize how tired my feet were and how nice the numbing sensation would be.

In the water, I rinsed all the sickening, sticky crimson out of my fur. Bathing under the stars, I knew I wasn’t safe. There were always eyes on me. But for that moment, at least, I felt like I could wash away the evil and corruption of the dragons that sought to kill me. My anger was soothed.

Then, on the other side of the creek, shadows took shape again.

I could never truly be alone.

Chapter 2

Colt

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