Alpha Marcel

“I, Lia Volkov, reject you…”

“You’re being serious right now?” He asked, stopping her.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” She asked, her eyes hardening. “I am going to reject you… and you, Alpha, are going to accept it…”

***********************************

Marcel was bred to be a weapon.

A fighter.

An executioner.

The Alpha sent where rogues needed to be destroyed.

He never questioned it. Rogues were chaos. A stain on wolfkind. They were not to be protected, only eliminated. And he would never mate one.

Until his wolf chose her.

She is everything he was meant to end. A rogue with no pack, no protection, and no place in his world. The bond ignites against his will, only for her to be the one to reject…

But as the line between hunter and protector is shattered.

Because their kind wants her dead.

The rogues want her claimed.

And Marcel’s wolf will no longer be silenced.

She was never meant to survive him.

Yet she may be the one thing that brings him to his knees.

Lia:

I didn’t stop running.

My shoes struck dirt and gravel, lungs burning, pulse roaring in my ears as branches snapped back against my jacket. My pants were torn at the knee, streaked with mud and blood I didn’t remember earning. I hadn’t worn dresses in a long time. That version of me had died the night my father cast me out. The night where my whole life had changed.

Alphas weren’t meant to become rogues.

Yet here I was.

Hunted from every side, pushed into a darkness that I didn’t know I could survive.

The forest blurred as I pushed harder, ignoring the sharp protest in my legs. Behind me, somewhere beyond the dark, there were always footsteps. If not wolves sent by the Council, then rogues eager to cash in on my name. An Alpha-born rogue was worth more alive than dead, at least to the right people.

My own blood had decided that much.

The bond hit without warning.

It slammed into my spine, white-hot and violent, stealing the breath from my lungs. I staggered, catching myself against a tree as my vision swam.

No.

My wolf recoiled, snarling in instinctive fury, not submission. I didn’t need the pull tugging at my chest to know what it was. I’d felt bonds before, watched others kneel to them.

This one felt like a challenge.

Like war.

I turned slowly, already knowing who stood there.

Marcel Del Gardi.

The one person who always found me, and yet, always kept me alive despite his reputation.

“You know, running is not going to get you far.” He said, and I scoffed, wanting to run back. But my wolf wouldn’t allow it.

“Then follow up to that reputation of yours and end this.” I said, glaring at him.

“You and I both know that I can.” He said casually. “I am choosing not to for one reason, which you, just like me, feel.”

Even in the dark,