Page 1 of The Alpha's Stolen Mate

Chapter One: A Lovely Day

Gabriel POV

The fur on my back raised as I stared into the shockingly bright eyes of the creature who wanted to kill me. We were in identical offensive crouches, our teeth bared, and low, matching growls coming from deep within our throats. I shifted my stance slightly, waiting for the cougar to make the first move. As the animal studied me further, his eyes changed. No longer did they have an aggressive edge to them. Now there was a cautious glint in them. The cougar backed away slowly, keeping its eyes on me the entire time he retreated.

When I heard the animal's paws hitting the forest floor, making his escape, I allowed my body to relax. It took a moment for my heartbeat to return to normal. That was the first time I’d encountered an animal in the woods who was the same size as me. I'd only been able to shift into my wolf form for a few weeks. The first time had been the night before my sixteenth birthday. All I could remember was the agonizing pain as my nails and teeth extended, my spine curved, and my body morphed into a giant wolf with light-brown fur.

The transformation had gotten easier since that night, and until today, I'd only encountered bunnies and squirrels in my wolf form. These small creatures ran away from anything larger than them. As I continued my run through the woods, I wondered why the cougar had stopped its attack. Had the animal’s sixth sense picked up on the fact that there was a supernatural quality to me? Did the cougar correctly guess that I wasn't quite an animal or human, but something in the space between?

Despite my stand-off with the cougar, I was glad I had listened to my parents and had come to the woods for a run this afternoon. Spring was coming to an end, and the sun pleasantly warmed my back as I looped around the tall trees, their vivid green leaves gently floating down.

In my wolf form, all of my senses were heightened. Tipping my head back, I inhaled the scent of ripe berries, the earthy smell of dirt, and the aroma of new flowers blooming. I could hear a bird chirping from half a mile away, and my peripheral vision allowed me to see most of the lush forest in a way that I would never be able to fully appreciate in my human form. Before I left the house, my mother had said it was a lovely day for a stroll through the woods. I couldn't agree more.

My father agreed to the run, too, but for an entirely different reason. Ever since I started transforming into my wolf, he had been wanting me to shift forms at least twice a day to practice. My dad said that once the transformation was like second nature to me, he would start my Alpha training.

When I transformed that first time, it was like a switch flipped inside my father. No longer was he just my dad, but now, even at home, he acted like Alpha Everett of The WaterLock Pack. All he did was go on and on about how I needed to start preparing to one day take his place because our pack was small, didn’t have much money, or a lot of warriors to patrol for us. I knew my dad loved me, but sometimes it was like he saw me as an Alpha inheritor first and a son second.

Don’t think about that right now. Just enjoy your run.

Digging my nails into the dirt, I propelled myself even faster through the woods, kicking up leaves, sticks, and pebbles in my wake. Soon, my worries were a mile behind me. They couldn’t catch up to me if they tried. As the wind whipped past my face, I wondered if this was how a dog felt sticking its head out of a car window.

When I entered a small clearing, I skidded to a stop, realizing I was on the edge of our pack’s territory. It had been a long time since I'd been in this area. A bubbling stream flowed happily down through the middle of the clearing. Skinny trees were scattered across the banks of the water, creating shade for large, flat rocks. To the right was a field exploding with a riot of color. Deep purple, bright yellow, bold pink, and dark blue flowers gently swayed with the wind.

Sometimes nature’s simple beauty dazzled me. It was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that my own pack’s territory was hiding an area as pretty as this.

An electric shock went through me when I saw a girl lying flat on her back on a rock, reading a book. Her long black hair was the exact color of ink, and it moved through the wind, hypnotizing me like a swinging pocket watch. She hadn’t heard me, absorbed as she was with her book.

I couldn’t see her face, and even though there were a lot of girls in my pack with long black hair, there was something familiar about her. Looking at this girl was like gazing into my future. I couldn’t move from my spot, frozen in a completely different way than when I had encountered the cougar a mere ten minutes ago. No, this emotion coursing through me was new. Why did it seem like this girl could change my life with a single word? Like all it would take was one glance from her, and nothing in my life would ever be the same. Who was she?

A loud rustling to the left interrupted my staring. The girl turned at the sound, setting her book down. My breathing stopped when I saw her beautiful face. It was her!

Summer Golding.

A pull unlike anything I’d ever experienced tugged at my heart.

I opened my mouth to call out a greeting, but before I could even take another breath, a creature leaped out of the bushes. This beast wasn’t a bunny, a squirrel, or even a cougar.

It was another werewolf.

Now I understood how the cougar had figured out I was supernatural. Shifters had a different aura around them. Like the magic that allowed us to transform was a tangible thing that you couldn’t see with your eyes, but you could sense it in the atmosphere around the shifter. Of course, I'd seen another shifter before, but that was when I was a human. Seeing it through my wolf form was different. This aura was only noticeable with my animal senses.

The wolf was sandy-colored with patches of fur missing, and half of his left ear was gone. I could see his ribs, and he was staring at Summer like she was his next meal. This wasn’t anyone from our pack. I didn’t recognize his scent. That could only mean one thing: the beast was a Rogue wolf.

A Rogue wolf was a shifter who had committed a crime that resulted in them being exiled from their pack. These wolves were forced to live in the wild, fending for themselves. Ever since I was born, there had been an increasing number of Rogue wolf attacks throughout our kingdom.

The first time I heard the term “Rogue wolf” was when I was seven. I was walking by my father's home office and overheard a conversation he was having with my mom. They were talking about how there had been three different Rogue wolf attacks in our kingdom in a span of a week. One of the victims had been a sixteen-year-old girl taking a walk through the woods. The other two were young boys around the same age as me at the time. All three victims passed away from their injuries.

As I stared at the Rogue who had his eyes locked on Summer, I remembered what my father told me that night after I overheard him speaking with my mom. First, he explained what Rogue wolves were and warned me to stay within our borders and immediately tell him or one of the guards if I saw anything suspicious. Then, he said the words that were playing on a loop in my mind right now.

If a male Rogue attacked a girl, it was usually to assault her in some way.

Hot fury unlike anything I’d ever experienced coursed through my veins.

I’m going to kill him. I’m going to completely annihilate this bastard.

I made eye contact with Summer, trying to nonverbally convey that she should run. She had never transformed into her wolf. She had no way to defend herself.

Summer let out a high-pitched scream, and in that moment, her terror flowed through me. It was like her fear was my own. The Rogue and I pounced at the same time. He leaped for Summer, but I intercepted him, sinking my teeth into his right shoulder. When he howled in pain, a burst of pleasure shot through me.

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