Page 31 of Stolen By the Alpha Hunter
And the gun goes off.
Alphas transform into wolves all over, some running straight toward me before they’ve had a chance to change, while the others bet on being able to overtake them once they’ve turned. The infighting gives me a chance to sprint out of there, my chest aching at the sudden exertion. I’m not used to this kind of activity—but I don’t have a choice.
I run straight for the edge of the platform, convinced for a moment that I’ll jump into the sea and swim for my life. I’ve done it before, even if it was dumb luck that I survived the last time. But when I get to the edge, I come face to face with my mortality when I look at the roiling sea, the hurricane tossing the waves up toward the edge. It’s at least two hundred feet down to the surface, and if I don’t die on impact, I’ll be dragged under by the tide.
An angry ocean in front of me, and even more angry alphas behind me…
I want to live.
A snarl tears through the air behind me and I make up my mind right then and there to stay on the Rig—or at least to find a way down to the dock. I run along the edge of the platform just as someone snatches at my heels, another lycan leaping on the one chasing me. Blood splashes against the backs of my legs, making the deck even more slippery than it was before.
The storm rages on the gulf as the eye passes over us.
I keep going.
I duck into a maze of shipping containers, desperate to find a place to hide even though I know on an instinctive level that the alphas will be able to scent me no matter where I go. My heart hammers in my chest as I run, my body buzzing with adrenaline. Someone is laughing behind me, a garbled sound that sounds more monstrous than human. Another snarl tells me that more than one alpha is on my trail, eager to get me in their claws.
Something big and hard hits me in the back, throwing me to the ground as claws dig into my shoulder. The scent hits me right after his body—Abel is the one on top of me, ready to bite. He laughs as he grinds his hips against me, tearing at my clothes until I’m barely covered at all and catching my skin with it.
The pain makes me partially shift, my nails growing longer as my hands morph into claws. I roll over and slash at Abel’s muzzle, and he lets out a roar of surprise as I slip out from under him and start running again.
I lose all sense of where I am and where I’m going. All I know is that I have to escape—that I can’t let any of these alphas catch me. I stay half-shifted, unable to take the time to turn fully as I sprint for my life.
I’ve almost made it to the elevator when two alphas collide right in front of me, both fully shifted with bare teeth and claws. They shred each other’s fur and flesh, one turning toward me with flashing red eyes. I fall on my ass and scramble backwards. One of these men will claim me. It’s only a matter of time.
My heart drops.
Cruelty…that’s what’s in store for me.
There’s barely any warning before a third lycan joins the fray. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t snarl, doesn’t bother with posturing or circling like the others. He just erupts from the chaos, tearing through them like they’re nothing.
A blur of dark fur and raw strength, a force so quick, so brutal, so precise that the moment it happens, the others barely seem to understand what’s hit them.
He ignores them completely.
He only sees me.
And then—he shifts mid-air.
One second, there’s a beast barreling toward me, muscles coiled, eyes burning like fire. The next, he’s a man, human again the instant his body collides with mine, taking me down, pressing me into the cold, rain-slick metal of the platform.
A sob catches in my throat as his weight bears down, a sharp contrast of heat against the freezing steel, his chest broad and solid, crushing me down, keeping me caged beneath him. I struggle, my hands shoving at his shoulders, twisting my hips, but the second I move, I feel it?—
His cock, hard and heavy, nestled between my thighs.
His knot, swollen, eager, right where it belongs.
I freeze.
Something in me reacts before I can stop it, before my mind can catch up, before my instincts betray me completely. A surge of rightness crashes through my veins, a deep, unshakable certainty, like I was meant to be here, like this is exactly where I belong. This should feel wrong. I should be terrified. I should be fighting for my life, screaming, snarling, trying to claw my way free.
But the moment his scent hits me…the first time I’ve smelled it, thanks to wolfsbane, like sea salt and tropical flowers…I know.
I know before I even see his face.
I know before he speaks.
I know before my wolf submits, before my body gives in, before my thighs squeeze together, trapping him there.
