Page 3 of Alpha Unbound

Hank’s still here.

He’s meaner now. Older. Smarter. He stays behind the counter at McKinley’s Mercantile like it’s his personal command post, but he’ll fly at anyone he considers a threat to me. He still doesn’t like strangers. But he likes me.

The store’s mine now. Has been for years. It’s been in my branch of the McKinley family for generations, but I’m the firstwoman—hell, the first anyone under forty—to run it on her own. The pack didn’t like it. Said I should stick to stocking shelves, not signing vendor agreements. Said the store needed a man at the helm, someone to 'keep the family’s reputation intact,' which is kind of funny considering most everyone in the Appalachian Mountains knows we're moonshiners and have an outlaw streak a mile wide.

I wasn’t exiled. Not exactly. They still invited me to family dinners and kept a box of my favorite tea in the kitchen of the main house. But I was the question mark in a long line of periods. The one who didn’t marry young, didn’t join the hunt, didn’t pretend blood meant blind loyalty.

One of the older pack members even tried to freeze me out by canceling supplier routes through our territory. I found alternative routes. Better ones. Outsmarted him and made a profit doing it.

Broke with tradition. Again.

And every time I look at Hank, I remember I didn’t just save a goose. I remember snow soaking through my boots, the weight of a hundred eyes in that kitchen, and the rush in my chest when I realized I wasn’t afraid anymore. That night ignited a fire within me that I never let die. Every decision I’ve made since—the store, the fights, the independence—traces back to that moment. To that choice.

I saved a part of myself that day. The part that refuses to roll over and obey. The part that knows love doesn’t have to come with a leash.

And God help the next man who tries to tell me otherwise.

CHAPTER 1

HUDSON

Wild Hollow, Appalachian Mountains

Present Day

The town sign creaks in the wind as I drive past.Welcome to Wild Hollow—Population 3,112.That number’s a lie. Half of those names don’t show up on census records. The town holds humans, shifters, and those almost swallowed by the mountain’s deep roots.

There’s something about the air up here—thicker, heavier, like it remembers things. Secrets. Blood. Burdens. I step out of the truck and yank my coat tighter against the cold. The cold wraps around you like old stories, clinging to your skin and whispering warnings in the wind. Pines lean in close, and the mountains brood in silence, ancient and unmoving. Every step on the gravel sounds louder here, every breath carries weight, and even the sky feels darker—like the land itself is watching. Waiting. Like it remembers me. And it doesn’t forgive easily.

I’m back.

I didn’t come home for the nostalgia. Didn’t come back for the badge, either. I came because Elias Rawlings is dead—thehead of the Rawlings pack—and the alpha’s seat is empty, and this town is circling the drain. Someone’s gotta keep the pack from tearing itself, and the town, apart.

Apparently, that someone is me.

The sheriff’s office still smells like stale coffee and old pine. Deputy Morris left me a set of keys and a hand-scribbled list of things 'still broken.' It’s half the damn town. The roof leaks, the back door sticks, and the file room’s full of half-solved mysteries. My kind of welcome.

The police scanner’s guts are scattered across my desk—wires frayed, the mic chewed up like something had gnawed on it during the last thunderstorm. The office creaks around me, the radiator coughing like it’s dying in slow motion, and outside, the wind scrapes the windows with skeletal fingers. It’s the kind of quiet that feels wrong. Heavy. Expectant. I just get the damn thing back together when the scanner crackles to life, static dragging like a blade.

“Disturbance at McKinley’s Mercantile. Again.”

McKinley's. Of course it’s the McKinleys... it's always the McKinleys.

I slam the file shut, clip my badge to my belt, and head out.

The McKinleys were always a thorn in the town’s side—and a stick in mine. They weren’t the main pack in the Hollow—that was us, the Rawlings pack. But the McKinleys operated like a rogue pack when it suited them.

Elias always said the McKinleys were wolves who thought the law was optional and traditions were to be ignored when inconvenient. Half charm, half chaos, one hundred percent pain in the ass. I remember their kids cutting class, running shine through the holler like it was a damn family sport, and laughing at anyone dumb enough to try and enforce any rule against them.

Looks like nothing’s changed.

The bell over the door rings like a dare when I walk in.

McKinley’s smells like cinnamon and danger. The store stocks everything from canned soup to locally made soap. There’s a display near the register advertising 'hand-knitted whiskey cozies', which is exactly the kind of nonsense that thrives under the McKinley name.

Then I see her. Kate McKinley—with her wild riotous red curls and shining green eyes.

And I’m not the only one staring. There’s a guy standing stiff in the far corner by the greeting card rack—middle-aged, khaki shorts in winter, camera around his neck, and a very recent bite mark on his forearm. His eyes are wide and jittery, like he just barely escaped a horror movie. And Hank, still proudly posted beside the register, lets out a low hiss in his direction like he’s not done yet.

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