Page 72 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
Then, I hear it.
A scream. Raw, primal, filled with the kind of wild grief that cuts straight through bone and into the soul. It’s Astra’s voice, but broken, shattered in a way that makes my wolf howl. The sound is pure anguish, wordless and devastating, the cry of someone whose heart is being torn apart.
I instinctively know something has happened to Luna.
Rage explodes through me like wildfire. Not the cold, calculated anger I’m used to—this is primal, volcanic, the kind of fury that tears civilizations apart. My wolf snarls and snapsat anything in our path, desperate to reach her, desperate to kill whatever’s causing pain to our—
The thought confuses me for half a second. Our what?
But my wolf doesn’t hesitate. Ours, it snarls in my mind. She’s ours.
The possessiveness in that single word should frighten me, but instead, I find myself agreeing completely. Yes. She is ours. From the moment I stepped out of the shadows to protect her from her own packmates, she became mine.
Another sound cuts through the darkness—weaker this time, the sound of flesh striking flesh—and that pulse in my chest flickers like a dying flame. Through whatever this connection is, I can feel her slipping away from me.
The sound is coming from a run-down inn at the end of the street. I can smell fear radiating from the building, hear the sounds of a struggle. Someone is hurting her. Someone is putting their hands on what belongs to us.
My wolf’s fury reaches a crescendo that borders on madness. Kill them, it demands. Kill them all for touching what’s ours.
I hit the inn’s front door at full speed. The wood splinters around me as I crash through, my wolf form barely contained in the narrow hallway. The terrified inn owner stumbles backward, his face white with shock.
“What the fuck?! Jesus Christ—wolves! There are wolves in my—”
I jerk my head toward Seth, who is right behind me. He understands immediately, shifting to human form as I bound toward the stairs. The inn owner undoubtedly knows one of his guests is being attacked, and he is doing nothing about it. Seth will deal with him.
I don’t wait. The tugging sensation is stronger now, pulling me upward, and my ears have already locked onto the soundsabove—voices, weaker now. The thud of boots on floorboards. Male voices, cold and professional.
“Stop fighting. You’re only making this worse for yourself.”
The casual cruelty in those words makes my vision go red. My wolf roars for blood, for vengeance, for the right to tear apart everyone who dared touch what’s ours. I take the stairs three at a time, my claws gouging deep furrows in the wood. Behind me, I hear the inn owner start to scream, but he is cut off abruptly.
I reach the landing, and the sounds are clearer now. A door at the end of the hall. I can smell blood—Astra’s blood—and something else. Fear. Pain. The acrid stench of violence against what’s mine.
Ours, my wolf snarls. She’s ours and they’re hurting her. Kill them. Kill them all.
“That’s it. Just relax. Stop fighting.”
The voice that responds is barely a whisper, so weak I almost miss it. So broken it makes my chest cave in.
My wolf doesn’t hesitate. I launch myself at the door with every ounce of strength I have. The wood tears open like it’s made of paper, and the scene that greets me stops my heart.
Astra is on the floor, barely conscious, blood streaming from her nose and mouth. Her beautiful face is swollen and bruised. She is curled on her side, arms wrapped protectively around her torso, each breath coming in shallow, labored gasps.
But it’s her eyes that destroy me. Those bright green eyes that once sparkled with life and hope are now glassy and unfocused, the light in them fading like dying embers. One eye is blackened and nearly swollen shut. She is staring at nothing, seeing nothing, and I can feel through our pulsing connection that she’s slipping away from me.
In the corner, so still that it makes my chest tighten, lies Luna. Her small, black body is contorted in a horrible way, and I sense immediately that she’s barely clinging to life.
Two large men stand over Astra. One holds shackles that gleam like silver in the lamplight. The other is wiping blood from his knuckles.
Standing behind them is a man who can only be Andrew Crew. Next to him is another man, older, wearing expensive clothes and too many rings. He’s holding a fucking collar, ornate and golden, clearly meant for a neck.
For her neck. For the neck of the woman who belongs to us.
All the men freeze at the sight of me—a massive wolf standing in the doorway, wood splinters scattered around my paws, fury radiating from every line of my body. Terror flashes across their faces as they realize what they’re up against.
But even through the red haze of fury that threatens to consume me, all I can focus on is the woman on the floor. The way her chest barely rises and falls. The way her eyes stare at nothing, empty of everything that made her Astra.
The pulse in my chest—our bond—is growing weaker with every passing second.
