Page 18 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

A scream from whoever was behind the door would either result in one of two things.

Either I would be carted away before I could challenge the piece of shit, a humiliation from which I would never recover.

Or I’d have to run, an awful defeat. Neither of those outcomes was appealing to me after I had worked so hard to steal back my birthright.

I took another sniff and was confused when I didn’t detect the bit of spice that told me there was another wolf nearby.

If I fucked up here, the Kings would undoubtedly step up their patrols and their guarding. I might not get another chance to end Troy.

I ought to walk away and continue my mission before this person found me out, but my curiosity won.

I had to know what was going on in this room.

So, I slowly twisted the knob and took a tentative step inside.

I was prepared to be ambushed by a shifter, regardless of what my nose was telling me.

But there were still no wolves nearby. The first thing I noticed was an empty bed so big it would take up over half of my living space back home.

I scowled. Really? Troy sleeps on gold sheets? I cannot wait to knock this fuck down a peg and then quickly torch this place to the ground.

My gaze roamed to the back wall, and my heart just about stopped.

There was a woman stripped down to her underwear and tied to the wall.

Ropes had left her skin raw and red, and she was silently crying tears that dripped onto the wood floors.

I stared at her, a slew of questions forming in my brain before I finally settled on one. What kinky bullshit is this?

I should have known that a man like Troy would leave a woman so vulnerable while he partied it up with the other Kings.

I could judge him, but for all I knew, this might have been consensual.

The woman’s head was down, and she was whimpering quietly to herself.

She hadn’t heard me, which meant I could still salvage this.

If I was quick and quiet, I might be able to leave the room without her noticing me.

I took a careful step back. I never once made any sort of noise, but just then, the woman looked up.

My reflexes kicked in, and I crossed the room in a blink.

Worried she’d scream, I went to cover her mouth, but I stopped when I saw her eyes.

They were steel blue and almost glowed in the darkness.

I knew those eyes—they’d plagued my dreams for weeks, maybe even months now.

What did this mean? Was the girl in my fantasies real? I didn’t know what to think. Those dreams fucked with me, and it seemed they continued to do so even as I stood awake.

I sniffed the air again, smelling nothing but the earthy sweet scent of her natural aroma.

She was every bit as beautiful as I’d thought she’d be—thick auburn hair bound back in a braid and a sweet, heart-shaped face with features so delicate they were almost elven.

As for her body, she wore only a bra and panties.

She was petite and lithe, but there were curves to her hips, to her thighs, to her chest—I quickly looked away.

It was wrong to ogle her when she was in such a compromising position.

This woman was the source of the fear I’d smelled outside the door, and she was clearly a prisoner. I’d never known a human—hell, I’d never known a wolf to smell this wonderful. How was any of this possible?

Though my thoughts spiraled out of control, my wolf wasn’t anywhere near as alarmed or perplexed. He wagged his tail and howled again, pining to be closer to this woman. The urge was so powerful, it actually made me take a step closer before I got control of myself. Stop that.

“Who are you?” I asked the woman.

She didn’t immediately respond. She continued to stare at me, those will-o’-the-wisp eyes spearing right through my soul.

My hands clenched and unclenched as I waited for some kind of response.

Did this woman see something familiar in me too?

If so, did that mean that we’d shared all of those intimate dreams? I didn’t know how I felt about that.

The woman’s tears continued to fall, dripping from her chin to the ground, but her gaze never wavered from mine.

The longer we looked at each other, the more I realized that I saw something darker and older than just fear in her expression.

It was something I recognized in myself, something I’d felt more than once when I was just a teenager, before I took over the Wargs pack.

Back then, every day had been a struggle.

The previous Alpha was lazy and preferred to let my pack waste away rather than trying to fight for resources.

He would hog the better things for himself and leave my people with nothing.

I was sick of watching my friends and my mom waste away to nothing just trying to get food on the table, and I’d finally felt strong enough to do something about it.

Unlike me, this girl seemed to be at the mercy of an actual monster.

She couldn’t fight back, not as she was.

Whoever this girl was, she’d seen some shit, and it had left her scarred. Like I was scarred.

“Who are you?” I asked again, and my voice came more softly this time.

Hearing my voice again seemed to get her to snap out of it. Some of the shine returned to her eyes, but she remained silent. I watched her war with herself over how she ought to respond. Her only options were to scream for help or ask me to save her.

I ran my hand through my hair as she debated.

I wanted to ask her more questions, but we hadn’t gotten past the first one.

I wanted to know what the hell she was doing in the Alpha’s room, naked and all tied…

up. I stopped. My eyes moved from the ropes to the red welt on her cheek.

Realization hit me at a hundred miles per hour.

Rage surged up within me, and my wolf snarled.

Troy, the sick fuck, was planning on taking advantage of this girl tonight.

He probably wanted to use her to celebrate after he became Alpha.

Whatever else he wanted to do to her could only get worse from there.

I’d known that the women of the Kings’ pack were treated poorly, but this? This was foul.

Something yanked at my chest, and the need to save the woman overruled everything else—the challenge ceremony, my mission, and even the opportunity for victory.

I couldn’t afford to think about any of those things while this woman was in such obvious danger.

I needed to get her as far away from Troy as possible.

I glanced at the door. Troy could come in at any moment.

I could take his life without thinking twice about it, but could I do it without risking harm to this woman?

Could I get her out safely? Or should I leave her here and save her after the challenge ceremony had ended?

When I became Alpha, I could make sure that anyone involved in her capture suffered dearly.

But the idea of leaving her like this made my blood boil.

I needed to come up with something better.

Fuck me. Why do I care about this random woman?

The question echoed in my mind with no answer.

I knew there was no logic behind it. Even stranger, I found that I didn’t need logic.

She needed me, and that was all that mattered.

Now, if I could just come up with my next move, I could stop acting like a sitting duck.

“Hey.” Though her voice was soft and hoarse from all the crying and yelling she must have done, it stopped everything for me. I turned my attention to her, ready and willing to do whatever she needed me to do. But her next words left me speechless.

“Who the hell are you?”