Page 1 of Alpha Unchained (Wolves of Wild Hollow #2)

ELENA

T he sun is barely up, just a thin slash of light slanting through the curtains—gray and bruised, like the sky hasn’t made up its mind yet.

I wake tangled in twisted sheets that still carry the scent of sweat, sex, and him—Luke.

It’s everywhere, raw and dizzying, thick in the back of my throat and sunk into my skin.

My body aches in ways that don’t feel like regret.

I'm flushed and trembling, lips swollen, every inch of me left raw and aching, like if I lie still enough, I’ll feel his hands ghosting over my skin all over again.

My neck throbs where his fangs found me—the mark still raw, each pulse echoing with the memory of his bite.

I press my fingers there, half-expecting blood, but all I find is skin: fever-warm, electric, a pain that makes me want to arch into it, not away.

For a second I don’t even know if I’m awake or dreaming, caught in that place where everything is heat and want and the echo of his name in my mouth.

For a moment, I forget. Or maybe I just pretend to. Pretend this is a new morning, the start of something instead of another ending. His scent is everywhere. The pillow beside me is cold, but I roll into it anyway, burying my face in the hollow where his shoulder would be if he hadn’t?—

I open my eyes. He’s not here. I already know it, but I reach for him anyway, searching for the heat of his skin, the weight of his arm, the rough scratch of his jaw against my hair. My hand lands on empty air.

No heartbeat but mine. No breath but mine. The silence hums in my ears, too loud, my own heartbeat quick and alone.

The wild thing inside me—this new, sharp wolf edge that came with his bite—rises. Not with rage, not yet. Just confusion, then fear, then the old familiar ache of being left behind.

I sit up, wincing. Every muscle remembers him.

My thighs are sticky, my chest is tight, and I’m still shivering from the aftershocks.

Every nerve still sings with him. I can still feel his mouth at my throat, the way his teeth broke skin, the sound I made when he sank into me.

I can feel the echo of his voice, low and dark and promising things I didn’t dare hope for.

I look for his clothes. Gone.

His boots. Gone.

His presence is everywhere but the one place I want him—right here, in this bed, where I can make him swear that last night was real and not just a fevered dream, not just another story I tell myself when the Hollow gets too quiet and the loneliness begins to creep in.

The room is still. A single beam of sun glances off the window glass, catches the edge of something on the kitchen counter.

A note.

My heart stutters.

It’s held down by one of my stones—gray with a vein of gold, the one I found by the creek the summer after my mother died. I told Luke once it looked like it was full of lightning, that it hummed in my hand when a storm was coming. He remembered. Of course, he did.

I wrap myself in the sheet and walk across the cold floor. I don’t want to read it. I do. I want to throw it, tear it, tuck it in my pocket and pretend it’s a love letter.

But I know better. If this were a love letter, he’d still be here.

I turn it over. My name. No greeting, no endearment, just Elena in that sharp, impatient scrawl that always looked like he was etching the truth straight onto the page.

I take a breath. Break the seal. I read.

I love you, but I can't stay.

They would use you and Kate against me.

This was never just about Wild Hollow.

It was about you.

That’s all. Four lines, but they do more damage than a barrage of bullets.

I want to scream. I want to break something, but the fury comes out as a low, raw sound—half growl, half sob, nothing human left in it.

My wolf stirs under my skin, furious and hungry.

The mark on my neck burns. My whole body riots with the need to chase him, to drag him back, to bite and scratch and make him stay.

To make him answer for all the things he set loose in me last night, only to leave them raw and bleeding in the morning light.

I clutch the note to my chest. The cool, hard edge of the cabinet bites into my back as I slide down to the floor, knees pulled tight, bare skin prickling against the cold tile.

My breath stutters, sharp and uneven, chest pressed small by the ache swelling inside.

For a minute, I just shiver and breathe, letting it hurt.

The old Elena—the girl who played nice, who kept her head down, who swallowed her words and her hunger—is gone.

She died the moment his teeth broke skin.

The woman left in her place is something else entirely.

I think of last night—how he undressed me, slow at first, fingers drifting up under my shirt, knuckles tracing my ribs, brushing the underside of my breasts so gently I wanted to scream.

Then something wild caught in him, snapping the careful rhythm.

He pushed my shirt up, bunched it in his fists, and tore it over my head.

His mouth was everywhere, learning every inch of me, memorizing skin and freckle and every place that made me gasp.

His hands followed, broad and rough, spreading my legs, sliding up the insides of my thighs, staking a claim deeper than anything he’d ever said.

It felt like he was making a map of me, but not to find his way back—like he was burning a trail he’d let no one else follow.

The sound of my name in his mouth—God, the way his voice broke when he said it—need and apology, hunger and prayer all tangled together.

My name didn’t sound like a plea. It sounded like a confession, like surrender.

I remember the way his body pressed me down into the mattress, the delicious ache of him parting me and sinking deep, slow at first—a teasing, grinding torture—then relentless, each thrust harder, rougher, until he lost himself in it, in me.

He moved like a man gone mad with hunger, devouring, starved, with nothing between us but heat and sweat and the unspoken need that lived under my skin.

I held his gaze, even as my body broke apart for him, pleasure coming in shuddering waves.

Even then, the wolf inside me clawed for the surface, desperate to answer his call, to run wild for him, to howl her surrender.

His mouth was everywhere—hot, claiming, dragging his tongue along my collarbone, scraping his teeth over the mark he’d bitten at my throat.

His breath was searing and heavy, lips finding every sensitive inch, each touch driving me higher, making me tremble for him, open and hungry and helpless beneath the weight of him.

'Open your eyes, Elena. Look at me when I take you.'

I had looked in his eyes and thought I saw forever, but I didn’t agree to be marked or claimed.

I didn’t want it then, and I sure as hell don’t want it now.

I didn’t understand what it meant back then, didn’t know he’d walk away like it cost him nothing.

But I remember. I remember watching him, showing more of myself than I ever meant to—every fear, every raw edge I thought I’d buried. And he left anyway.

He knew what he was doing. He knew what it meant. And now he’s gone.

Why? The word hisses in my mind, sharp and bitter. Because he thinks he’s protecting me? Because he thinks leaving is love? Or is he just running from himself, from the fire he lit in my blood and the bond he can’t break?

I close my eyes and tip my head back against the cabinet, trying to breathe. My pulse hammers in my ears. My wolf is restless, pacing inside me, clawing at the inside of my chest. She wants to run, to find him, to drag him back and make him finish what he started.

But I don’t move... I can’t.

I sit in the cold, holding the note and the stone, and I let the ache settle in. I let myself feel it, sharp and ugly and true.

He marked me. He claimed me. And then he left.

I stand, wrapping the sheet tighter around me.

I catch my reflection in the microwave’s shiny black door—wild hair, bruised lips, eyes too bright…

and a bite mark on my throat. I can see where he sank his fangs into me.

I touch it, and the pain spikes—then settles into a low thrum.

It doesn’t feel like defeat. It feels like a warning.

A promise. The start of something I never asked for but can’t turn away from.

A wolf. A mate. All of it crashing down at once.

I move through the apartment over my bookstore, gathering the scattered pieces of last night—my bra on the lamp and the scent of his skin everywhere. I inhale, greedy, desperate, letting the memory of him fill my lungs one last time.

I let myself remember the way his breath caught when he slid inside me, the way his body curved over mine—sheltering and claiming all at once, like he belonged there. I remember how I felt—open, vulnerable, wanted. Not just wanted. Chosen. If only for a single night.

That was the lie I let myself believe. That he was choosing me, choosing us.

I press my palm to my belly. I swear I can feel the flutter of life within me, but how can that be? Not yet rounded but heavy with the weight of what I know is growing there. His child. Our child. The future he says he’s protecting, even as he leaves us behind.

The anger comes back, bright and clean this time. Not at him—no, not just at him. At a world that keeps asking me to choose between love and survival. At the pack that would take what it wants and leave the rest to rot. At the town that whispers and judges but never really sees.

I tuck the note into my jewelry box, sliding the stone in beside it. I get dressed—jeans, a sweater, boots. The armor of ordinary things. I wash my face, braid my hair, and cover the bite with a scarf. I hide the evidence. But I don’t hide from the truth.

He’s gone.

He may come back, or he may not. But either way, he left a mark that won’t heal.

I glance around my place—at the books piled high, the old records on the floor, the empty coffee mug on the table. The life I built to keep myself safe. I built the walls brick by stubborn brick to keep everyone out.

He shattered them in a single night—every defense, every careful boundary, gone.

But if he thinks that means I’ll wait for him, or beg, or break? He’s wrong.

I open the door. The morning air is chilly, sharp enough to bite. I lock it behind me, feeling the shift in my bones—the wolf restless but quiet, waiting. I am not the same girl who fell for him five years ago. I am not the same woman who let him in last night.

I’m something else now. Something wild. Something that refuses to be left behind.

He marked me, but absence will not claim me.

If Luke McKinley wants to fight for us, he knows where to find me.

But I will never be the woman who waits by the window, watching the road, praying for headlights.... the woman he thought he left behind.

That part of me—waiting, hoping, stuck in the past—is done. I don’t wait for rescue. Not from him. Not from anyone.

I tuck my chin, face the sunrise, and face the beginning of a new day. My hand drifts to the wound at my neck, feeling the throb of my pulse beneath my skin—a reminder of what he took, and what I’ll never let him take again.

Not my hope... Not my future...

If he comes back, he’ll have to earn it... all of it.