Page 7 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter
The word crawls inside me, deeper than sound, deeper than logic. It slides beneath my ribs, coils in my belly, makes my lashes flutter before I can stop it. I try to fight it, but my limbs grow heavy, my body giving in even as my mind screams. My breath shudders in my throat, my pulse stumbling, slowing.
I can’t stop it.
Not because I want to obey him.
Because he’s an alpha, and something in me answers to him whether I want to or not.
“Sleep, Esther,” he says again, softer this time.
Esther.
My name.
Or—it was.
I wish I could tell him that’s not who I am anymore. That the girl who wore that name died when she ran.
But the gag holds tight, and all I can do is wish I could scream.
Instead, my lashes sink fully shut.
And I obey.
It’sdark when I wake up again.
The only way I can tell is because there’s no more light pressing through the fabric covering my face—and because my heat is killing me.
It shouldn’t be this bad. Not this soon. Not this strong.
I wake up hot and uncomfortable, my body already aching, slick pooling between my thighs, the pressure inside me unbearable. My skin is too hot, too sensitive, every nerve tuned too sharply to the air around me.
And worst of all—I can smell him.
The wolfsbane must have worn off, because suddenly I can sense them both. Boyd—the beta—barely registers. He’s nothing to me, just a presence in the dark.
But Javi…
Javi is an alpha.
And my wolf wants him.
It should be any alpha. I’ve spent enough moons without a mate to know that when my heat comes, it’s a dull, restless thing—a need, but a manageable one. A hunger that anyone could satisfy.
But this? This is something else.
I shift, my jeans rubbing just right, and I whimper, breath catching on the friction. It feels too good—too much—like my body is trying to tell me something I don’t want to hear.
A sharp inhale sounds a few feet away.
Javi.
“Damn it…she’s up, Boyd,” he mutters, and I hear the scrape of a chair, the rustle of fabric as he moves. “I’ll run out of wolfsbane if I keep having to take it at this rate.”
“We’re almost there,” Boyd says, unbothered. “Don’t you worry about a thing, my horny friend.”
Javi doesn’t answer right away.
The boat rocks, and I feel him shift again.
