Page 1 of Cruel Alpha

Prologue - Alyssa

The party was a mistake. Who did I think I was, getting all dressed up to go to a celebration for a guy who made my life hell, populated by people who hated me? My dress was too tight, hugging my ample curves in a way that had felt empowering and sexy when I was at home looking in the mirror, but now only made me feel exposed. Everyone was looking at me, and not in a fun way. Probably wondering what the hell I was doing here, which I couldn’t blame them for: I didn’t fit in with this crowd, didn’t fit in with thisPack. They were sleek, muscled, and powerful:everything a wolf was supposed to be and everything I wasn’t. Everythinghewas.

Caleb Thorne. The man of the hour. The heir to Lapine Pack. My mate. Not that he’d ever admit to that last part, of course. The week after I’d first shifted—sixteen and so excited—he’d bumped me in the hall, skin brushing skin. The first pull of the bond had been even stronger than I’d imagined; everyone talked about how unmistakable it was, that instant desire, that need to come together, to mark each other, to claim your mate, and I’d always thought they must be exaggerating. When it happened, though, my legs almost came out from under me. He’d been no less affected, I could tell, biting down hard on the inside of his mouth as he stopped and stared at me for several long moments. Then he’d turned his back and walked away. For the rest of the day, I’d told myself that he’d only wanted to spare me the humiliation of being taken and claimed in the middle of the school hall, that he would come to me that evening. I held on to that hope as days passed, then weeks, then months, until I was forced to accept that he would never claim me. The future Alpha couldn’t be mated to a chunky half-breed. What would the elders say? What would the other Packs think? The whole island would probably disappear into the sea out of sheer humiliation.

Naturally, I was surprised when he invited me to his Welcome Home party. I had been surprised to see him back on the island at all, busy as I was enjoying the peace and quiet that his absence afforded me. He’d been away for the last year, touring the other islands to “encourage positive relations between the Packs”. The months he’d been gone had been blissful; no one bumped me in the corridor so that I dropped my books; no one hid my clothes after gym so that I was forced to spend the rest of the day in my sweaty, unflattering shorts and a polo shirt; no one took much notice of me at all. Without him to impress, the rest of the school went back to doing what they did best: pretending that I didn’t exist. I liked it that way, so seeing Caleb Thorne leaning casually against a tree in the town square had been like a jump scare in my own personal horror movie.

I had kept my head down, praying that I would go unnoticed. Surely he would be more excited to see his asshole friends again than he was to needle me for the unforgivable crime of being alive. No—because the universe hated me personally. He straightened as I walked past.

“Hey, Alyssa!”

Ihadn’tmissed the sound of his voice. It was loud and arrogant and laced with authority, and it took every ounce of my willpower not to stop in my tracks. He was just as awful and gorgeous as he’d always been—maybe more so now. He was tanned from being out in the sun, and his previously lean frame had filled out considerably, the muscles of his pecs and his biceps straining against his white cotton t-shirt. He’d probably bought it a size too small just to show off. I kept walking, savoring the little victory of making him stand up straight and follow me. Had he gotten even taller?

He caught up to me within a few strides, visibly annoyed. He couldn’t reach out and grab my arm: it was summer, and, despite my self-consciousness, I was wearing a short-sleeved sundress. We both knew that if he touched my skin, he’d struggle to keep control of himself—until he marked me, the bond would try to pull us together every time his skin touched mine. Caleb Thorne might not think I was good enough for him, but the wolf within him wasn’t nearly so picky.

“Didn’t you hear me?” he asked. We both knew the answer.

“What do you want, Caleb?” I snapped. It was dangerous, talking to the Heir like that, but my self-preservation instinct had gone out of the window with my peace. Caleb didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care.

“I’m having a party tonight to celebrate being back on Lapine,” he said.

“Good for you.”

“I want you to be there.”

I laughed, short and humorless.

“What, so you can dump a bucket of pig’s blood on me?”

Caleb frowned.

“LikeCarrie?” The answer took me aback; I’d always assumed he had more important things to do than read human books. I’d readCarrieabout ten times, partly because it was one of the few books that came to the market from the mainland, but mostly because on my worst days, I envied the kind of power that Carrie had. I may have been half witch—and the Pack pariah as a result—but my magic was weak and untrained. I couldn’t use it to enact revenge on my teenage tormentors, even if I wanted to.

“You read books?” I said, too shocked to say anything else.

“I read books,” he confirmed, as if this was a skill that should make me swoon. “So you’re coming?”

“As if.”

“It’ll be fun,” he insisted. I didn’t know why he was so intent on getting me to go, but whatever his reason, I sure wasn’t going to like it.

“For you, maybe,” I said, pointed and dismissive. I expected him to either back off with a shrug like it had never mattered to him anyway, or to put on his Alpha Heir voice and order me there. He did neither. Instead, his voice got low and earnest.

“No one will mess with you, I promise,” he said, barely above a whisper. I was almost caught off guard—almost.

“Oh, well, if you promise,” I said, my voice heavy with sarcasm. A hand grabbed the loop at the top of my backpack, forcing me to stop.

“What is your problem?” he growled. That was more like the Caleb I knew, but I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me.

“My problem is that you made my life a living hell for three years,” I reminded him, pulling hard on the shoulder straps of my backpack, trying to wrench it free of his grip, “and now you’re expecting me to trust this isn’t just some elaborate plot to humiliate me.”

To my surprise, he let go of my backpack, looking suddenly contrite. At this rate, I was going to get whiplash.

“Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his black hair. “I was kind of a jackass, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, breathless and a little stunned, “you were.”

“Just—just come to the party,” he said. “I want to start over. Start fresh. What do you say?”

---