Alpha Domination (Alpha Wolf Book 1) Read online

  He frowns, but his eyes are definitely bloodshot, and I can see that he’s close to passing out. My panic is split equally between concern for him and myself. He reaches for his collar and then simply breaks the buttons on his shirt. There’s a key on a necklace, which he hands to me as I pretend not to have noticed the mouth-watering expanse of flesh before me.

  I turn the key in the lock just as he falls unconscious. The cuff unclips from my ankle, clattering against the floor. Skittish euphoria snakes through my blood. The steps are in sight with an open door. I race up them, glancing back at his prone figure, momentarily faltering. He won’t come after me. Not in his current state.

  The house is warm, but thinly furnished and there are no photographs. It seems to be a single storey dwelling with few rooms. The kitchen and lounge are one with a roaring fire in the grate.

  I run to the front door, flinging it wide.

  It’s a cabin in the woods. A cabin in the woods in the middle of fucking nowhere. At night! Am I in some kind of horror movie?

  It’s freezing outside and the snow is coming down thickly. I have no shoes and no clothes except for the thin shirt I’m wearing. Even if I could find something to wear, there’s no way I’d find my way to any kind of help without freezing to death first.

  I close the door and draw a deep breath.

  Somehow, I can hear him moaning my name. He must have regained consciousness a little. Reluctantly, I return to the basement doorway. He looks piteous. Maybe helping him now will make it easier for me to escape properly later.

  It can’t hurt to earn his trust...?

  I take him some water and help him sit to drink it. He clutches his head, still swaying. Some of the water drips down his chest and when I put my hand there to dry it, he grasps my wrist. His heart is beating against my fingers, slower than it should be.

  “What’s wrong with me, George?”

  Apart from being a lunatic. “Hattie put something in your drink.”

  “Help me up the stairs. I need a shower.” The water seems to have achieved some good, but he still looks like he’s done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I hook an arm under his and help him slowly to his feet. We struggle up the stairs, but I get him to the shower eventually. It’s in a little unflattering room off from what appears to be his bedroom.

  He starts stripping down before I can avert my gaze, seemingly unfazed by his own nakedness in somebody else’s presence. Not that he has anything to be embarrassed about. And not that I should be staring, my pulse speeding.

  He spends most of his shower telling me to stay there and that, as he’s an ‘alpha’, I have to obey his rules, submit to him, or some rubbish.

  I hover in the doorway to the bedroom, trying not to look at him in the shower, heat rising up my neck. It seems safer to avert my gaze. There’s a dusty mirror on a dresser opposite the rumpled bed. He has cream blinds, that might once have been white, on the window behind the headboard and a little set of drawers topped by a lamp and empty beer bottles. It all makes for the picture of a very bare life.

  More lucid, he steps from the spray and struggles to turn it off. After a few minutes of his clattering, I lean in and switch it off myself, keeping my face turned from him. He’s still naked and now he’s wet, too.

  Under more normal circumstances, I’d probably be thrilled, but he’s held me captive in his basement for a good twenty-four hours or more so I’m telling my racing heart to think of something else except the sexy musk of his soaked body.

  Besides, what about Carrick?

  But thoughts of Carrick dissolve when Nathaniel steps towards me, his gaze deep and dark. My knees begin to oddly weaken and I grasp the edge of the sink for strength.

  I am a strong woman. Strong women don’t react to a naked man like this. Strong women take control. Even when they can see everything, shadows and plains, dappled by the sheen of the shower spray. My lips part awkwardly.

  Everything is glistening.

  “My name is Nathaniel.”

  My gaze staggers upward. Is this really how he wants to introduce himself properly? His tones are more even now and the spark in his eyes is less dull.

  He reaches for a towel, securing it around his waist. I swallow down the heat that has been rising in my neck and face.

  The towel is a good shield. Yes. I can deal with the towel. The towel is good.

  “You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

  I bite my lip, trying to figure out how best to play this.

  “I’m not mad,” he insists, “but you are a werewolf, now.” I glance up to find him staring resolutely at me. “You’ll be coming into your abilities, soon. By the next full moon, everything will be different for you.”

  “You’re crazy, I–”

  “Stop denying it!” he barks. I jump at his quick irritation. “Part of you knows it’s true.”

  My thoughts turn to the wolves that had chased me and how I thought I’d transformed to escape them, how I’d been shot at as a wolf before consciousness had petered out. But that was mad. Insane.

  “And if you go back home before you can control it, you’ll hurt the people you love. Your friends, family, husband–”

  “I’m not married,” I blurt without thinking. Why is that the thing I protest the most?

  He assesses me slowly. “We have less than a week until your first full moon. If I let you go before then, you’ll draw attention to me. I’ve spent years making this place safe and now there’s a rogue werewolf biting people like you and bringing hunters to my door.”

  I back towards the exit. “I’m not staying here for a week.”

  “Then you die,” he says bitterly. The harsh line of his mouth assures me he means it. “I’m not above killing you to protect myself and everyone else around here.”

  My voice falters. “What happens after a week?”

  “You leave and get far away from here, for good.”

  Seeing Is Believing

  The basement door is open and there’s no chain around my foot.

  Light filters in through the bars of the small window. I sit up on my shitty mattress and realise there’s a new set of clothes on the floor beside me. Sifting through them, I guess these must be the clothes Hattie brought after Nathaniel dumped me back in the basement, locking the door.

  I briefly wonder if they had sex as an image of his glistening body flashes unbidden in my head.

  The clothes are an improvement. Socks and knickers, but no bra. Jeggings and a striped, long sleeve t-shirt. There are even some canvas plimsolls. My lips purse as I realise the improvement is still nothing suitable to escape with in such frosty weather. I dress quickly and rush to the bottom of the stairs where I stand, frozen, longer than I mean to.

  Is the open door a trick?

  Eventually, I brave it. Upstairs is flooded with light. The windows reveal it’s stopped snowing outside, but the layer of white is deep around the feet of the trees.

  A box of condoms is sitting on the worktop next to the sink. The plastic seal is still encasing them.

  “Experiencing an urge?”

  I swallow, following the sound of his sarcastic tones to the worn sofa opposite the fire. He hasn’t even looked up. There’s a book open in his lap and he’s laid out with all the air of a headmaster when a schoolgirl enters his office. I can feel myself bristling.

  “There’s cereal or toast, but I don’t have jam.”

  I hover in the kitchen, trying to decipher him. First, he has me naked and tied up, then he kisses me, which I’m still trying to forget, and now he’s offering me breakfast. Maybe I’m still in the woods. Maybe I hit my head and I’m unconscious there.

  Eventually, he looks up at me and raises an eyebrow.

  “Do you want to starve?”

  I hesitate. “What cereal do you have?”

  His eyes close for a moment and he sighs before placing his book on the sofa seat and coming into the kitchen where I’m standing. I cross my arms over my braless boobs as he reaches ar
ound me to a cupboard and lifts down a box of cornflakes. “I assume you know where I keep the milk,” he mutters coolly, giving me a once over. I half want him to kiss me again, heat rising up my neck. His lips are liquid desire...

  I pour a mental bucket of cold water over myself. He doesn’t seem so angry with me today and that seems like something I shouldn’t tempt right now.

  “Please thank Hattie for the clothes.”

  He grunts and turns to lean back against the counter and observe me as I open the fridge in the cramped kitchen area. The cool air calms the flush I can feel suffusing my pallor. When I turn around, his gaze flickers upwards as if he’s been checking out my backside.

  He’s readied a bowl on the worktop beside him for me. I tip in just the right amount of cereal, still feeling his intense observation. The tension is electric. I clear my throat. “You didn’t get to enjoy yourself with Hattie, last night, then?”

  A frown crosses his brow. His gaze lights on the condom packet and the maths unfurls in his head. The expression on his face swaps to a smirk. “I don’t always use them.” I glance up and he catches my gaze, holding it. “It feels much better without.”

  I swallow.

  “You already knew that, though, right?”

  I stutter and he smirks.

  “I’m teasing you, Georgie.”

  “Look, Nathan,” I say, purposefully shortening his name to see if it irritates him, “you said I had to stay here for a week and then you’d let me go. What do you intend to do to me in a week?”

  He pauses, considering me slowly. “You still don’t believe everything that’s going on, do you?”

  His gaze is intense and I can hear that edge of anger in his voice again, so I start to pour the milk for my cereal. His hand clasps around mine, forcing me to set the carton on the counter.

  “Georgie, this isn’t a game and I’m not some lunatic that’s kidnapped you. You’ve been bitten.”

  I catch my lip between my teeth.

  “You’ve been bitten and you’re going to turn into a wolf. Whether you want to or not, it will happen. You’ve got to get used to that idea. The life you had doesn’t exist any more. And the person who bit you, who thinks they can do this without your consent, they’re your biggest threat. Not me.”

  I shake my head and try to return to my cereal, but he grasps my wrist, urgently.

  “Face facts, Georgie. Someone out there chose you. They bit you. And you turned up, naked, on my doorstep, after changing.”

  My pulse is racing and I know he can feel it beneath the grip on my wrist.

  “Why did you change?”

  “Excuse me?” I can hear my voice and it’s scared and breathy. I shouldn’t be entertaining these mad ideas. Not after I’d worked so hard convincing myself that he was a lunatic and that my dreams had just been stressed flights of fancy nothing more.

  His gaze centres on me, intense and coaxing, as if he’s coercing a lost child. “You changed, Georgina. I know it, dahlin, and, deep down, you know it. But, somehow, I don’t think it was out of choice or your body’s need. So why did you change? Did something panic you? I mean, you got shot. Was it a hunter?”

  “There was...” I let the words peter out. If I tell him, it’ll only compact his theory. He shakes my wrist to draw my attention back to him. “My cereal is getting soggy,” I murmur stupidly.

  “Georgina...”

  My name is a warning, but I’m already terrified.

  “Don’t make me pull rank on you. I’m an alpha. I’m not afraid to make you submit to me.”

  “If you’re an alpha, where’s your pack?” I blurt, remembering snippets of fantasy novels I’d combed over the years.

  It’s the wrong thing to ask. His fist tightens and his lips thin to almost nothing. He stares at me for the longest time. Then, his hand abruptly releases me and he returns to the sofa, this time with his back to me. “Eat your cereal. You have a busy morning.”

  I swallow and glance down at the red circling my wrist. He hasn’t found me a spoon, so I try nearly all the drawers in the kitchen before I’m successful.

  Nathaniel doesn’t pipe up to help once. It’s clear that I’ve rattled him in some way.

  Hesitating, I take the only other seat in the living area, which is an armchair in the corner by the fire. It’s angled towards the sofa and means that, if he cared to look up, we’d be facing each other, but he’s adamantly ignoring me.

  The cereal is good. Great, even. Much better than the bread from the previous night. I keep my head down as I eat, determined not to make eye contact with him. Sadly, the food doesn’t last very long and, soon, I’m chasing around the excess milk with my spoon.

  “Full?”

  I glance up, but he’s not looking at me and suddenly I feel embarrassed that I was so quick to seek his eyes. I lower my head again, glaring at the spoon in my empty bowl. “Er, yeah. Fine.”

  I can hear him snort, but I daren’t look back up. Shame seems to be circling my insides and I don’t know why.

  “Get another bowlful.”

  I do as I’m told, perching on the edge of the chair and eating in silence, once more. He seems invested in his book, but I can’t see a title or an author and the cover is plain, too. Maybe it’s a list of other girls he’s abducted. Or maybe it’s contact details for his missing pack.

  I catch myself on the last thought. That’s almost admitting I believe him. And I’m determined I don’t. It would be ludicrous that I’d turned into a wolf. And his whole thought process behind that was insane. Just because I’d been bitten by a wolf and turned up naked on his doorstep did not mean I was a bloody werewolf.

  If I had turned up naked on his doorstep and he hadn’t stripped me naked himself.

  Ugh...

  “Put your bowl in the sink and go down to the basement.”

  I look up and he meets my eyes with an unwavering glare. Like a robot, I do as he says, heading down to the cellar with trepidation churning my gut. It seems unwise to test his patience when he’s already upset about what I’ve said. Will that translate to something awful like torture?

  A moment later, he enters the room, locking the door behind him. My pulse is skittering. He walks down the steps with purpose, a key in his hand. I realise it’s the key for the chain and try to back away, but he snatches my wrist with ease and drags me closer to the shackles.

  We end up struggling on the floor whilst he yells at me to hold still. My plimsolls make no impact on his shins and, as he writhes against me, I can feel his body in antagonizing relief without a bra to shield my breasts. My brain traitorously reminds me of seeing him naked last night.

  Then he hikes me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, fixing the cuff of the chain in place whilst I scream and thump my fists against his back. He throws me down on the floor, knocking the wind out of me and seizing his chance to pin me down.

  “Hold still!” he barks in my face. His hair is messy and he’s as out of breath as I am. I make a move as if to head butt him, but he dodges easily and then rolls his eyes at me. “You need to learn to trust me, Georgina–”

  “Fuck you!” I snap, heat prickling my eyes.

  He looks at my gritted teeth and the way I’m trembling. Then he shakes his head. “Don’t trust me, then, but you do as I say.”

  “I’m not a werewolf!” I scream. “You’re not a werewolf! You don’t have a pack and I will not ‘submit’ to you!”

  “You will,” he hisses, and I see a glint in his eye that both thrills and terrifies me.

  He stands up, backing away from me until he reaches a corner that my shackles won’t. Still trembling, I force myself to my feet, ready to fight him again, even if I won’t win. He’s watching me. The muscle in his jaw flexes.

  His threat is still lingering in the air. Does he think he’ll break me?

  His hands reach for his waistband and then he’s flipping his shirt off over his head. A frown forms on my forehead. He’s simultaneously unbuckling his belt and
kicking off his shoes. My mouth is running dry.

  Is it going to happen now? Was this all some kind of perverted fantasy and this was its culmination? Would he attack me and then kill me?

  His trousers and socks are gone. I’m staring at his crotch, my mouth ajar, when I realise he’s cocked his head and raising an eyebrow at me. “Not today, dahlin.”

  But he shimmies the pants off, anyway.

  My teeth clack as I force my mouth to close. He moves towards me and I have to keep my eyes level with his. He’s totally naked, now. And somehow completely at ease.

  “You don’t believe. So, I’ll make you believe.”

  “Wh-What are you going to do?”

  He smirks. “Make sure you don’t close your eyes.”

  I frown as his lashes shutter. He crouches and, just when I consider kicking him in the face, he lets out a groan halfway between pain and relief, like a stiff muscle being loosened. Another noise is freed from his lips, but I’m ignoring it in favour of the strange shift in his back. The bones seem to be moving and contorting in ways that aren’t possible.

  I step away.

  His palms slam against the concrete floor. His whole body is contorting and I can see his spine lengthening further than his rear. His skin bubbles up with goose bumps that spout thousands upon thousands of hairs. I whimper, hearing him growl somewhere between human and beast.

  This isn’t happening.

  The wall hits my back. I’ve edged as far away as I can from him.

  He’s not human any more, but not anything recognisable either. And now his legs are both lengthening and shortening in terrifying ways.

  My throat is burning and I finally realise that I’m screaming. My chest is going to explode.

  And then he’s a wolf and I panic. The wolf is coming towards me. It’s happening again. It’s happening again. It’s happening.

  My arms start to burn. My skin is bubbling. I look at my hands. There’s goose bumps just like the ones that were covering him, but now they’re on me.

  Is it contagious? Is it a disease? What the fuck is happening?

  As the panic in my chest wells up, the bumps get worse, starting to sprout hair. My spine stretches and I double over, making gagging noises, barely able to breathe through the changes and the urge to scream.