Page 2 of Kidnapped By the Alpha

When I had been walking for a few minutes, I heard voices—voices that shouldn’t have been out here at this time of night. I slid off the road and crouched down slightly, staying low enough that the weeds and bushes hid me from view.

I crept forward, scanning from left to right to make sure I wouldn’t miss anything as I stepped carefully over twigs and rocks.

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to decide what you will or will not be doing,” a man’s voice said. He sounded pleased with himself, as if the conversation he was having was light-hearted. But based on the threatening undertones of what he was saying, I could tell it was anything but innocent.

I peeked through the bush ahead of me and saw two men sneaking up on a young woman about forty yards away. It only took me a moment to realize it was Madi, a fellow Sparkle Hollow she-wolf and the assistant to Luna Grace. Before I could warn her, one of the men stuck a syringe filled with red liquid into her neck and depressed the plunger.

My words of warning died in my throat as I saw the attack, unsure of what I should do. If she was incapacitated, then I would be facing the assailants alone.

“Get her in the car,” said the dark-haired man facing Madi.

Madi slumped over in the men’s arms, and I sprang into action. I couldn’t allow them to take her unchallenged, no matter what that might mean for my own fate. I jumped out from behind the bush and ran toward the group as the two menflanking Madi picked her up with ease and carried her to a car hidden on the side of the road.

Do you smell that?My wolf, Rae, had been quiet all evening, and her sudden interjection caused my steps to falter slightly. The wind had shifted as I ran, and a new scent filled the air. I couldn’t immediately place it, but there were definite notes of cedarwood.

I’m a little busy at the moment, Rae, I pointed out. I was still twenty yards away from the men kidnapping Madi. They must be from the Moonstone Pack. Who else would be in Sparkle Hollow territory?

April, stop,Rae said. She didn’t sound scared but excited.He’s here.

Who’s here?I asked, slowing to a jog as I processed her words. I wasn’t ready to give up on saving Madi, but Rae’s hesitation was making me question what I was actually seeing.

Our mate.

Her words brought me to a halt. Fated mates were rare, but not completely unheard of. At the age of twenty-eight, I had not expected to ever have one.

We don’t have a mate,I pointed out.Which one are you talking about?

The man who had ordered the other wolves to move Madi turned to face me. As our eyes met, I felt it myself, and I no longer needed Rae to confirm that this Moonstone wolf was fated to be my mate. His deep, storm-blue eyes seemed to pierce into my heart. I felt trapped in his gaze.

His mouth was open slightly as his eyes narrowed. It was clear that he was surprised by me, and I wondered if he and his wolf were experiencing the same revelation as Rae and I were. Iinspected his features, wondering what had caused the long scar that ran the length of his face.

We stared at each other for a few seconds until I saw disgust and anger replace the shock on his face.

“Who are you?” I asked him.

“I am nothing to you,” he replied. The words cut me, leaving me feeling broken in ways I couldn’t express. But he wasn’t done. “It would take more than a lowly she-wolf from Sparkle Hollow to be mated to me.”

I couldn’t speak—could barely breathe—as he turned his back to me and climbed into the passenger seat of the car. Rae was more affected by the rejection than I was, and I felt her retreating into my mind to assuage her grief at the loss.

It wasn’t until the car was out of sight that I realized I hadn’t done anything to prevent Madi from being taken. Shame and terror filled my heart as I turned and ran as fast as I could toward Sparkle Hollow.

Chapter 1 - Jasper

Present

I drove into town with no real purpose, only knowing that I needed to get away from my wolves for a few hours to clear my head. After almost two years as their alpha, I had become increasingly frustrated with our lack of success in the region.

As a member of the Moonstone Pack, I only needed to mention the pack’s name to strike fear into the heart of any wolf I encountered. Being the alpha of the Dark Moon Pack felt like starting over—and with fewer resources to boot. We had managed to convince a few wolves to join us initially, but our slow pace was not what I had intended when we had left our old pack.

By now, I had wanted to have all the smaller, more docile packs in the area incorporated into our fold. Instead, we had barely found a home base from which we could live and run our operations. Only within the past few weeks had I located suitable lodgings for the pack to take over, and they were subpar at best.

Without Aiden, I felt as though I was doing everything on my own. Iwasdoing everything on my own, at least as far as planning was concerned. I suppose I should be grateful that I had managed to bring along a fair number of fierce warriors when I’d left my ex-best friend and his luna behind. We had managed to use force and acts of aggression quite successfully to get us what we needed in the interim.

Just outside of the town of Pinedale, we had found a group of abandoned cabins nestled in the trees between two hills. It was the perfect place for us to set up a permanent camp. By all appearances, the buildings hadn’t been used in decades,and my wolves were currently in the process of making them more livable. Unfortunately, they needed a lot of hand-holding to know what I wanted them to do, and I was finding the entire process even more exhausting than waging a full-out war.

While they handled the tasks I had set for them, I had instructed my second, Killian, to keep watch while I scouted the town.

There was no denying that there were wolves living here. I could smell them from a mile away. Once we were prepared, we could infiltrate their pack and take whatever we needed from the town.

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