Page 1 of Betrayed Alpha Bride

Chapter 1 - Clara

Cool air caresses my skin, a hint of ice in the breath of wind that stirs through the room. It does nothing to soothe me. Warm sweat beads on my brow and trickles uncomfortably down my sides, making me itch.

I have to help my son, but I don’t know what to do!

Sitting up, I punch the cushions behind me, trying to get more comfortable on the couch. It doesn’t matter how many times I readjust. I can’t settle, and I know it’s not the couch’s fault.

As I flick through pages on my phone, a dull pain spreads across my forehead.

Great. Now I’ve got eye strain as well as a stress headache.

I put the phone down for a second, my vision blurry from staring at the rolling pictures and text. I was scrolling so fast, I wasn’t even absorbing the information.

Like I’m going to find anything on the internet that would help me. This is a stupid idea!

Taking a deep breath, I swing my feet to the floor and put my hands on my temples, massaging them. Stress has been building in me by the day, and I know if I don’t help my son soon, terrible things are going to happen.

For seven years, we’ve been safe in West Glacier, Montana. It’s been a peaceful, quiet existence, without interference from the pack or their damn politics.

I was an outcast there… born without a shifter gene, a freak, a dangerous anomaly. Even before the incident, I wanted to leave.

My mind violently shies away from remembering why I abandoned my pack. I fled from Quartz Key to West Glacier, the nearest town to the range inhabited by werewolves, the mythic creatures I’m supposed to be related to.

In the human world, these places have their own names, but to us, the mountains and valleys between Rainbow Peak and Mount Oberlin are called Wolfshade. The area is scattered with small towns unknown to humans, linked by a road called Lycan Pass.

Just thinking about it stirs homesickness in me. I do miss the wild peaks and deep valleys, the heavy feel of magic in the air wrapping me in comfort and safety. But living in the human world is difficult. I have to keep my guard up at all times.

It would be good to go home… and I may have no choice.

My son, Nico, has begun to show signs of shifting soon, and I can’t help him—because I can’t change. I was never able to shift, and other wolves don’t recognize me as one of them. More than once, I was told my scent disturbed the others because I smelled like a human.

I’m just a dull, ordinary human, not a shifter, a witch, or any other magical creature. So painfully “normal” that I disrupted the magical system that permeates the air throughout Wolfshade.

The first night I walked in on Nico having a vicious nightmare, it ripped my soul in two. Not just because my son was in pain, but because I can’t help him, and I will never be able to.

I have no options. None. I can’t watch my son suffer!

His nightmares are getting worse and more frequent. Nico tosses and turns, boiling hot and sweating with fever almost every night. He tells me he dreams of being chased through the forest, a predator on his heels with sharp teeth that runs him down. He always wakes just as it pounces.

It’s his wolf. And it will haunt him until he embraces it and changes for the first time.

Nico needs guidance to work through his first change, and it will be traumatic for him even if he has help. If the change goes badly, he could be injured, scarred for life, trapped in his wolf shape forever, or go mad.

There are endless options, really, and none of them are pretty.

Sighing, I reach for my phone again and flop back onto the couch. I’ve been randomly searching lore about werewolves and other magical creatures, hoping to find something helpful. All legends and stories have roots in fact, and I had no other choice but to try.

My eyes start to ache again as link after link comes up, all of it modern, trope-driven, creature-feature stuff. I’m almost ready to close my phone in defeat when a bright blue pop-up blinks at the bottom of the screen.

I’ve pretty much trained myself to never look at ads, but my eyes are immediately drawn to it.

Why is there an ad for a bride service on a page about werewolves in American history?

My thumb hovers, ready to close the page. But at the last second, I tap on the ad.

What the fuck am I doing?

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