Page 4 of The Alpha's Bounty
I’ve found my fated mate.
And she’s a criminal.
TWO
Mina
“Hands up.”
The words hit me like a gunshot.
I freeze mid-step, the strap of my worn backpack biting into my shoulder.The voice is deep, commanding, and threaded with something that instantly knots my stomach.My pulse jumps, and before I can even think, my hands go up into the cold air.
The surrounding forest is silent, but not the peaceful kind of silence I enjoyed earlier.No, it’s sharp-edged now.Like the world is holding its breath, waiting for whatever’s about to happen next.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath.
Slowly, carefully, I turn until I’m facing him, my gaze sweeping over the shadows between the trees.
That’s when I see him.
Tall.Broad-shouldered.Moving toward me with a steady confidence you can’t fake.His dark brown hair is windswept, his green eyes locked on me like they’ve got nowhere else to be.Every step he takes is quiet and deliberate.His boots barely make a sound over the frost-crusted ground, and even though he’s still a few yards away, I feel it.That pressure.The weight of his gaze pinning me where I stand.
I’ve seen bounty hunters before.Usually, they’re thick, quick-moving guys who wear too much tactical gear and think their black sunglasses make them intimidating.This man?He doesn’t need any of that.He’s dangerous in the way mountains are dangerous: solid, immovable, and impossible to ignore.
Fear scrapes down my spine.
I swallow hard and keep my hands up, forcing my voice to remain steady.“Look, if this is about the bounty?—”
Of course, it’s about the bounty.It couldn’t be about anythingbutthe bounty.
My entire life has been about surviving whatever came next, and right now, “next” looks a hell of a lot like being dragged back to face the people I swore I’d never allow to hurt me again.
I grew up in the foster system.Which is a nice way of saying I was passed around from one house to the next, each its own brand of hell.Some families didn’t care if I existed, so long as I stayed quiet and didn’t break anything.Others made it clear I was there to earn my keep.And by “earn my keep,” I mean do every damn chore in the house while they pocketed the monthly check the state sent them for taking me in.
I learned early that nothing was free.Not food.Not clothes.Not kindness.
By fifteen, I had a part-time job at the diner on the edge of town.I worked double shifts during the summer and saved every tip in a coffee can under my bed.I foolishly thought that if I saved enough, I could escape before they broke me entirely.
Except they found the money.Told me it was “rent.”Told me that keeping a roof over my head and food in my stomach meant every cent I earned belonged to them.
So, I waited.I planned.And the day I turned eighteen, I took what I could.A few hundred dollars, enough to get a bus ticket and a crappy motel for a couple of weeks.Enough to get the hell out.
I didn’t make it past the county line before I was arrested.
They called it theft.I called it taking back what was mine.The cops didn’t care about the difference.I spent two nights in a cell before they let me out on the condition that I show up for my court date.But panicked when I found out that my foster family had told everyone I’d been stealing from them foryears, painting me as some career criminal who’d taken advantage of their so-called “kindness.”
I didn’t go to court.I ran.
That was almost six months ago.Since then, I’ve been drifting from one small town to another, finding work where I can, never staying long enough for people to ask questions.Always watching over my shoulder and keeping to the edges.
I thought I’d bought myself more time before I had to go back and face those people.
Guess not.
Weariness settles in my bones as I consider what’s about to happen.I’ll be back to square one.I’ll have to face those monsters, prove that they stole from me in the civil case, and deal with the fallout for running from the court case in the first place.
I don’t want to do any of that.I want to find a place where I belong, make friends, and fall in love.I want to have a family.Arealfamily.
