Title:Alpha of My Heart
Chapter One: The Stranger at the Border
The forest was unusually still that morning, the thick fog curling low around the trunks of ancient pines. Birds were quiet. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Rina stepped carefully over the bramble, her bow slung over her shoulder and her heartbeat quickening for no reason she could explain. As the healer's apprentice, she wasn't meant to be this close to the territory's border. But a missing herb pouch had led her here—so she told herself.
In truth, she'd felt a pull, a strange tugging sensation that led her toward the east.
Toward them.
The Rogues.
They hadn't crossed into pack land in over two years, not since the blood treaty. But the boundary was still dangerous, guarded fiercely by her Alpha—cold, relentless, and respected more out of fear than love. Alpha Kael of the Blackridge Pack.
"Stop."
The voice cracked through the mist like thunder.
Rina's breath hitched as she turned slowly.
He stepped out of the fog like a creature carved from stormclouds—tall, broad-shouldered, his dark coat swaying with each silent step. His eyes were golden. Not yellow. Gold. Liquid fire that pinned her in place.
Alpha Kael.
"I didn't mean to trespass," she said, trying to summon the calm voice of a healer, not a startled rabbit.
"You're beyond the safe path." His voice was low, clipped. "You shouldn't be here."
"I was searching for—"
"Lie better," he cut in, stepping closer. The tension in his jaw, the way he moved—power, barely restrained. "You felt the pull."
Rina's mouth went dry. "What?"
"I did too." His gaze locked onto hers, unreadable and consuming. "That's why I came."
She didn't know whether to run or fall to her knees.
Then he spoke the words that would change everything.
"You're mine."