Chapter 1 THE TRESPASSER

Chapter 1: The Trespasser

The scent of blood and pine was intoxicating.

I pressed my belly low against the damp earth, my black fur blending into the shadows of the ancient oaks. My muscles coiled, trembling with a mix of starvation and adrenaline.

Just one deer, I thought, my wolf pacing frantically in my mind. Just one, and we'll survive the winter.

I knew I was playing with fire. I had crossed the boundary lines hours ago. This was Blackwood territory the hunting grounds of the most feared pack in the northern hemisphere.

But rogues like me didn't have the luxury of choosing where we hunted. We either ate, or we died.

The buck lifted its head, ears twitching. I held my breath. Wait for it...

I lunged.

My claws sank into the deer's flank, but before I could deliver the killing bite, the wind shifted. A sharp, metallic whistle cut through the silence of the forest.

My wolf froze.

Run, my instinct screamed. RUN.

I didn't even get the chance to turn.

Shadows detached themselves from the trees, moving with lethal, unnatural speed. They were wolves, but they were massive-the size of small ponies, with eyes like burning coals and teeth that gleamed in the moonlight. Blackwood warriors.

I abandoned the deer, trying to dart left, but a heavy body slammed into my side, sending me rolling across the forest floor. Sharp teeth grazed my neck, a warning that my life could end in a single heartbeat.

I shifted back.

It was a painful, violent transition, my bones snapping and reforming into my human skin. I gasped, naked and shivering, pressing my hands into the mud as a ring of massive black wolves closed in on me.

"Please," I whispered, my voice cracking. "I was just hungry. I'll leave. I swear"

The wolves parted like the Red Sea.

A man stepped through the clearing, and the air around me instantly dropped ten degrees.

He wasn't shifted. He was dressed in a tailored black suit that stretched over broad, terrifyingly powerful shoulders. His hair was as dark as spilled ink, and his eyes... his eyes were a pale, piercing gray that seemed to see right through to my soul.

Alpha Kael. The Ruthless Alpha. The monster mothers told their children about.

He didn't look angry. He looked bored.

"A rogue," Kael said, his voice a smooth, deep baritone that sent a shiver down my spine. He stopped a few feet away, looking down at me like I was a bug on his shoe. "Trespassing on my lands, stealing my game."

"I didn't know it was your land," I lied, clutching my arms to my chest to cover myself. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"It won't," he agreed softly. He looked at the warrior nearest to me and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Kill her."

No.

The warrior snarled, stepping forward.

But as the wind shifted again, blowing my scent directly toward Kael, the unthinkable happened.

Kael went completely rigid. The bored look in his eyes vanished, replaced by a sudden, violent storm of shock and hunger.

His eyes bled from pale gray to a pitch-black. His wolf was surfacing.

The warrior lunged for my throat.

"Stop!" Kael's voice was a thunderclap, carrying an Alpha command so powerful that the warrior whimpered, instantly dropping to his belly in the mud.

The entire pack bowed their heads, trembling.

Kael took a step toward me, then another. His chest heaved, his breath coming out in ragged, possessive growls. He dropped to his knees in front of me, his massive hands gripping my jaw with bruising force, tilting my head back so I had to look at him.

"Where did you come from?" he demanded, his voice a rasping whisper.

"I don't know," I stammered, terror and a strange, forbidden heat pooling in my stomach. "I'm a rogue."

He leaned in, his nose brushing against the crook of my neck. He inhaled deeply, and a sound that was half groan, half animalistic snarl rumbled in his chest.

"Mine," he breathed.

Before I could process what he meant, his hand slid from my jaw to my hair, yanking my head to the side. He leaned down and bit the sensitive curve of my neck.

Not a kiss. A bite.

I screamed as his canines sank deep, breaking the skin. A rush of fire flooded my veins, a blinding, agonizing pain that was instantly followed by an overwhelming wave of dark pleasure.

The mate bond snapped into place like a steel chain.

I gasped, my vision blurring as the exhaustion and the pain finally caught up with me. The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was Kael pulling back, a droplet of my blood on his lips, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying promise.

"You belong to me now," he whispered.

Then, the world went black.