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THE ALPHA WHO REFUSED TO APOLOGIZE
Novel & story · English

THE ALPHA WHO REFUSED TO APOLOGIZE

Maya never believed in monsters. She believed in libraries, deadlines, and surviving college quietly. Until one night, deep in the forest behind an Alpha house, she witnesses something she was never meant to see. A wolf. A kill. A bite that wasn’t an accident. Now her body is changing in ways science can’t explain. Her senses are sharper. Her wounds heal too fast. And every moment she is away from Jaxson Wilder—the ruthless Alpha who bit her—feel

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Part 2

### Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Maya never believed in monsters.

She believed in libraries, deadlines, and surviving college quietly.

Until one night, deep in the forest behind an Alpha house, she witnesses something she was never meant to see.

A wolf.

A kill.

A bite that wasn’t an accident.

Now her body is changing in ways science can’t explain.

Her senses are sharper. Her wounds heal too fast. And every moment she is away from Jaxson Wilder—the ruthless Alpha who bit her—feels like withdrawal from a drug she never agreed to take.

He doesn’t apologize.

He doesn’t explain.

He doesn’t soften the truth.

His touch is the only thing that stops the pain.

His presence is the cure—and the poison.

Trapped in a bond she never chose, forced to live under the same roof as the wolf who refuses to feel remorse, Maya must decide what terrifies her more:

Losing herself to the Alpha who claimed her…

—or surviving without him.

Because some bites don’t turn you into a monster.

They make you dependent on one.

Complete Chapters 20

Rating 4.4 ( 19 reviews ) Age Rating mature

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1

The bass wasn’t just a sound; it was a physical assault.

It slammed against my ribcage, rattling my teeth and vibrating through the soles of my beat-up Converse. The air in the Delta Sigma house was a toxic cocktail of cheap beer, expensive cologne, and the unmistakable, humid stench of three hundred sweating bodies grinding against one another.

I hated it. I hated every single molecular particle of it.

“Maya! Stop looking like you’re at a funeral!” Chloe screamed over the thumping beat of a remix I didn’t recognize. She draped an arm around my neck, her weight threatening to topple us both into a nearby table covered in crushed red solo cups. “This is the Alpha house! Do you know how hard it is to get on the list for a Wilder party?”

“I liked it better when we weren’t on the list,” I shouted back, though my voice was swallowed instantly by the noise.

Chloe just grinned, her glittery eyeshadow catching the strobe lights. She was in her element—a chaos demon in a miniskirt. I, on the other hand, was wearing a dark grey oversized sweater and jeans, clutching a cup of lukewarm soda water like it was a holy relic protecting me from social interaction.

“Live a little, Maya! It’s absolute primal energy in here!” Chloe laughed, spinning away to dance with a guy who looked like he spent more time bench-pressing Buick sedans than studying for midterms.

Primal. That was one word for it.

I pressed my back against the wall, trying to make myself as two-dimensional as possible. Blackwood University was prestigious, ancient, and weirdly isolated, tucked deep into the mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest. The scenery was gothic and beautiful, perfect for a scholarship student like me who just wanted to keep her head down, get her degree in Archival History, and get out.

But the social hierarchy here was… strange. Intense.

The guys at this house—the “Wilders,” as everyone called them, though only one of them actually had that surname—were the kings. They were too big, too fast, and too beautiful in a way that set my teeth on edge. They walked through the campus like they owned the pavement, and everyone else just parted like the Red Sea.

I scanned the room, my analytical brain trying to find a pattern in the chaos. I saw faces flushed with intoxication, eyes dilated, hands grabbing at hips. It was a sea of indulgence.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a sensation, like static electricity ghosting over the back of my neck. The fine hairs on my arms stood straight up.

I looked toward the massive staircase at the far end of the great room.

He was standing on the landing, looking down at the party like a monarch surveying a particularly disappointing kingdom.

Even from across the room, through the haze of smoke and strobe lights, he was terrifying. He was taller than everyone else, his shoulders broad enough to block out the light behind him. He wore a simple black t-shirt that strained against his chest and dark jeans. His hair was black, messy in a way that looked intentional, and his face was a mask of bored, lethal indifference.

But it was his eyes that stopped my heart. Even from this distance, they seemed to catch the light—amber, glowing, predatory.

He scanned the crowd, his gaze sweeping over the writhing bodies. Then, abruptly, his head snapped toward me.

I froze. It was impossible. There were hundreds of people between us. I was a shadow against the wall. But for a split second, I felt pinned. Skewered. The air in my lungs turned to ice. He didn’t blink. He didn’t smile. He just… looked . It felt less like a glance and more like a target acquisition.

Then, a blonde girl in a red dress stumbled up the stairs and grabbed his bicep, whispering something in his ear. The connection broke. Jaxson turned away, his expression darkening, and he disappeared down the hallway on the second floor.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. My hands were shaking.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “That’s it. Capacity reached.”

I needed air. I needed silence. If I stayed in this house for one more minute, I was going to hyperventilate.

I tried to wave at Chloe, but she was currently doing a tequila shot off someone’s abs. I texted her: Need air. Going outside. Don’t die.

I pushed off the wall and began the arduous journey to the back exit. I dodged flailing limbs and spilled drinks, keeping my eyes on the floor. When I finally burst through the French doors onto the back patio, the drop in temperature was a blessing.

It was late October, and the night air was crisp, smelling of damp earth and decaying leaves. The patio was crowded with smokers and couples making out in the shadows, so I kept walking. I stepped off the concrete and onto the sprawling lawn that led down toward the edge of the property.

The music was still loud out here, a muffled thumping that vibrated in the ground. I needed to get away from the bass. I needed to think.

I walked past the manicured hedges, past the old stone fountain, toward the tree line.

The Blackwood Reserve bordered the campus. It was thousands of acres of protected forest—dense, ancient pines that towered hundreds of feet into the air. Students were technically forbidden from entering the woods at night, but everyone did it. Usually to smoke weed or hook up.

Tonight, the tree line looked like a wall of ink. The moon was nearly full, casting long, skeletal shadows across the grass, but the light didn’t seem to penetrate the forest.

I stopped at the edge of the trees, wrapping my sweater tighter around myself. The silence here was heavy. It wasn’t empty; it was watching .

“Just five minutes,” I whispered. “Calm down, reset, go back in, drag Chloe out.”

I took a step into the woods. Then another.

The muffled thumping of the party faded faster than it should have. The trees seemed to swallow the sound, insulating me in a blanket of pine needles and shadow. The air was colder here, sharper. It smelled muskier, like wet fur and ozone.

I walked until the party lights were just a faint glow behind me. I found a large, fallen log and sat down, resting my head in my hands.

Why did I let her bring me here? I chided myself. I have a midterm on the Industrial Revolution in two days. I should be highlighting, not hiding in a horror-movie forest.

The sound was as loud as a gunshot in the silence.

It came from deeper in the woods. To my left.

“Hello?” I called out, my voice trembling slightly. “If you’re hooking up, I promise I’m leaving. I don’t want to see anything.”

Then, a low, vibrating sound. It was too deep to be a human throat. It sounded like rocks grinding together deep underground. A growl.

My survival instincts, usually dormant in the safety of the library, flared to life. Run.

I stood up, turning to head back toward the lights of the house.

Something massive hit the ground in the clearing just beyond a cluster of thick oaks. It sounded like a sack of cement being dropped from a second-story window.

Against my better judgment—against every logical synapse firing in my brain—I didn’t run. Curiosity, the fatal flaw of every historian, tethered my feet. I crept toward the oak trees, peering around the rough bark.

There was a small clearing bathed in moonlight.

He was shirtless now, his skin pale as marble in the moonlight, slick with sweat. He was standing over another man—a guy I didn’t recognize. The stranger was big, too, with a shaved head and a leather jacket, but he looked terrified. He was scrambling backward in the dirt, blood streaming from his nose.

“I didn’t know!” the stranger wheezed, spitting blood. “I swear, Wilder, I didn’t know she was marked!”

Jaxson didn’t speak. He stalked forward. The movement was wrong. It was too fluid. Too predatory. His spine seemed to ripple under his skin.

“You crossed the boundary,” Jaxson said. His voice wasn’t the deep rumble I’d heard in the library or classrooms. It was distorted, layered, as if two voices were speaking at once—one human, one… something else. “You came onto my territory. You touched what is mine.”

“It was a mistake!” the man screamed.

It happened so fast my eyes couldn’t track it. One second Jax was five feet away; the next, he had the man by the throat, slamming him against a tree with enough force to shake the branches above. Leaves rained down on them.

“Please,” the man choked out, his legs kicking uselessly in the air. “Don’t. Don’t let it out.”

Jaxson’s back was to me. I watched the muscles in his shoulders bunch and spasm. He was shaking, a violent tremor that started at his core and radiated outward.

He threw his head back and let out a sound that curdled my blood. It was a scream, but it dissolved into a roar.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.

I watched, paralyzed with horror, as Jaxson’s bones audibly snapped. His spine arched at an impossible angle. The sound of tearing flesh filled the clearing—wet and sickening. He fell to his hands and knees, but his hands were changing. Fingers elongated, cracking and reshaping, nails bursting into long, black talons.

Dark fur erupted from his skin like a time-lapse video of mold consuming fruit. It exploded along his spine, covering his shoulders, his arms. His clothes didn’t just rip; they shredded, falling away in tatters.

The man against the tree was screaming now, scrambling to get away, but he was too slow.

The thing that had been Jaxson Wilder was gone. Standing in his place was a monster.

It was a wolf, but that word felt woefully inadequate. It was massive—easily the size of a pony. Its fur was midnight black, swallowing the moonlight. Its shoulders were comprised of corded muscle that looked hard as iron.

Its snout was long, teeth bared in a snarl that displayed jagged white daggers. But the eyes… the eyes were the same. Burning, intelligent amber.

The wolf didn’t just chase him; it erased the distance. It was a blur of black shadow. It tackled the man, jaws snapping shut around his shoulder.

The scream was cut short as the man was slammed into the earth. The sound of crunching bone echoed through the trees.

I squeezed my eyes shut, tears leaking out, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack them. This isn’t real. Someone spiked the punch. I’m hallucinating. I’m having a psychotic break.

I waited for the sounds of murder. I waited for the wet tearing of flesh.

I kept my eyes shut for a count of ten. One. Two. Three…

I just needed to back away. Slowly. Quietly. I would go back to the dorm, lock the door, and never speak of this again. I would transfer schools. I would move to Antarctica.

The clearing was empty of the man. His body was gone—dragged away, or maybe he had managed to crawl off while I was closing my eyes.

It was standing in the center of the clearing, panting. Steam rose from its black coat into the cold night air.

And it was looking directly at the oak tree I was hiding behind.

The wolf lowered its massive head. It sniffed the air. A low rumble started in its chest, vibrating through the ground and into my shoes.

It took a step toward me. Then another. Its paws made no sound on the dead leaves. It moved with a terrifying grace, a lethal elegance.

I couldn’t move. My body had betrayed me, locking my muscles in a rigor of terror.

The wolf stepped around the tree.

Up close, it was overwhelming. The heat radiating from it was intense, like standing next to an open furnace. I could smell the copper tang of blood on its breath. I looked up—way up—into those amber eyes. There was no humanity in them. Only instinct. Only violence.

It loomed over me, blocking out the moon.

I pressed my back against the rough bark of the oak, trembling so violently my teeth chattered.

“Jax?” I whispered. The name felt stupid, absurd on my tongue.

The wolf flinched. The ears flattened against its skull. It let out a snarl that sprayed hot saliva across my face. It leaned in, its wet, black nose inches from my neck.

I squeezed my eyes shut again, waiting for the bite. Waiting for the end.

Instead, I felt a hot, rough tongue rasp over the pulse point of my neck.

It wasn’t a kiss. It was a taste test.

My knees gave out, and I slid down the trunk of the tree, hitting the dirt. The wolf followed me down, looming over my crouched form. It growled again, but this time the sound was different. It wasn’t just aggression. It was… possessive. Frustrated.

Suddenly, the wolf convulsed. It backed away, shaking its head as if in pain. The cracking sound returned—bones realigning, reshaping.

I couldn’t watch the reverse transformation. I buried my face in my knees, sobbing quietly.

The voice was human, but it was raw, raspy, as if his throat had been shredded.

I shook my head, refusing to look up.

A hand gripped my chin. It was a human hand, large and calloused, but scorching hot. He forced my head up.

Jaxson was kneeling in front of me. He was stark naked, oblivious to the cold, his body slick with sweat and streaks of blood that wasn’t his. His chest heaved with exertion. His hair was wild, falling into his eyes.

But his eyes were terrifying. The amber glow hadn’t faded. The pupils were blown wide, eclipsing the iris. He looked drugged. Unhinged.

“You,” he breathed, staring at me like I was a ghost. Or a meal. “Why are you here?”

“I… I was just getting air,” I stammered, my voice cracking. “I didn’t know. I swear, Jax, I won’t tell anyone. I won’t—”

“You smell,” he interrupted, leaning in closer. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling sharply. “God, you smell like… chaos.”

“Please,” I whimpered, trying to push him away. My hands came in contact with his bare chest. His skin burned my palms. Under his ribs, his heart was beating at a frantic, hummingbird pace.

He pulled back, his jaw clenched tight. He looked like he was in physical pain. A vein throbbed in his temple.

“Run,” he ground out through gritted teeth.

“Run!” he roared, the sound echoing through the trees. He grabbed his own head, his fingers digging into his scalp. “Get away from me. Now!”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

I scrambled to my feet, slipping on the damp leaves. I turned and ran. I ran blindly, branches whipping my face, tearing at my clothes. I didn’t look back.

But I could hear him behind me.

I could hear the heavy thud of footsteps that were too fast to be human. I could hear the ragged breathing getting closer.

I burst out of the tree line, back onto the manicured lawn of the fraternity house. The music was still thumping, the party still raging, completely unaware of the nightmare twenty yards away.

I sprinted toward the light, my lungs burning.

Almost there. Just get to the crowd. He won’t hurt me in front of people.

I was ten feet from the patio when the weight hit me.

It wasn’t a tackle. It was an embrace, brutal and swift. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me off the ground. My back slammed into a hard, hot chest.

Jaxson spun me around, dragging me into the shadows beneath the large stone staircase of the patio, hidden from the partygoers above. He pinned me against the cold stone, his body caging mine.

“I told you to run,” he whispered, his voice trembling. He was vibrating against me, his control snapping like a dry twig.

He looked down at me, his eyes wild. He looked at my mouth, then my neck. He let out a low, guttural whimper that sounded like pure need.

“Too late,” he groaned. “It’s too late.”

I felt his breath against the sensitive skin where my neck met my shoulder. I felt his teeth graze my skin, sharp and threatening.

With a growl that vibrated through my entire skeleton, he bit down.

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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2

When Jaxson’s teeth sank into the junction of my neck and shoulder, the world didn’t just go white; it dissolved.

The sensation was a paradox that my brain couldn’t reconcile. It was the searing, tearing agony of flesh giving way, of muscle being punctured by something sharper than surgical steel. It was the wet, hot slide of teeth breaking the skin barrier.

But underneath the agony, buried deep in the screaming nerves, was a jolt of pure, liquid electricity. It felt like he was injecting molten gold directly into my bloodstream. It was a rush of endorphins so potent, so overwhelming, that my knees buckled completely.

If he hadn’t been pinning me against the rough stone of the patio foundation, I would have collapsed into the dirt.

I heard a sound—a high, keening whimper. It took me a terrifying second to realize it had come from my own throat.

Jaxson didn’t stop. He growled, a vibration that rattled through his chest and into mine, resonating in my very bones. He bit deeper.

I gasped, my hands instinctively flying up to push him away, but the moment my palms touched his bare shoulders, my fingers curled. I didn’t push. I gripped . I dug my nails into his skin, holding on to him as if he were the only solid thing in a spinning universe.

It felt like he was drinking me.

I could feel the suction, the frantic, starving pull of his mouth. He wasn’t just biting to wound; he was biting to claim. He was taking something from me—my energy, my heat, my will—and replacing it with a heavy, dark smoke that filled my head and made my limbs feel like lead.

Time lost its meaning. It could have been seconds; it could have been hours. The thumping bass of the party above us was a distant heartbeat, irrelevant and small compared to the thunderous pounding of Jaxson’s heart against my chest.

Jaxson stiffened. His body went rigid against mine, hard as granite.

He tore his mouth away with a wet, sickening sound.

The loss of contact was immediate and jarring. The cold night air rushed into the space between us, hitting the wet wound on my shoulder like a slap. The strange, euphoric haziness evaporated, leaving only the sharp, throbbing reality of the pain.

He stumbled back, crashing into a trellis covered in dead ivy. The wood splintered under his weight.

I slumped against the stone wall, sliding down until I hit the dirt. My hand flew to my neck. It came away warm and wet. In the shadows, the blood looked black on my fingers.

“Jax?” I whispered. My voice was broken, a collection of breathless shards.

He was standing five feet away, chest heaving. He was still naked, his skin pale in the sliver of moonlight that cut under the patio. But the monster was gone. The wolf was gone.

He was staring at me, his eyes wide and horrified. His mouth was smeared with blood. My blood. It dripped from his chin, landing on his bare chest.

“I didn’t…” He choked on the words. He looked at his hands, then at me, then at the blood on his chest. He was trembling so violently that his teeth chattered. “I didn’t mean to… I couldn’t stop.”

“You bit me,” I said. The words felt heavy, absurd. “You actually bit me.”

The reality of it was crashing down on me now. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a cold, creeping shock. I had been attacked. I was bleeding. I was under a frat house stairs with a naked, blood-covered guy who had just turned into a giant dog and eaten a stranger.

Jaxson took a step toward me, his hand reaching out. “Maya, let me see. I need to—”

The sound tore through his throat. He flinched as if I had struck him. He looked at his hand, then curled it into a fist.

“You need a doctor,” he said, his voice rough, shifting between panic and a strange, cold command. “You’re bleeding. I hit the artery. I can smell it.”

“Stay away from me,” I sobbed, pressing my hand harder against the wound. The pain was blinding now, a rhythmic throbbing that matched my heartbeat. Every beat pumped more blood out between my fingers.

“I can’t stay,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. He looked up at the patio above us. Someone had walked to the railing—a silhouette holding a red cup, laughing. If they looked down, they would see everything.

Jaxson looked back at me. His expression hardened. The horror was still there, but something else was taking over—survival instinct. Or maybe cowardice.

“I can’t be here,” he said. “If they find me like this… if the Council knows I lost control…”

“You’re leaving?” I stared at him, incredulous. Tears blurred my vision. “You’re just going to leave me here?”

He looked torn. For a second, his amber eyes flashed with that terrifying light again, and he took a step toward me, looking like he wanted to scoop me up. But then the sound of a door opening above us made him freeze.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. The words sounded hollow. “I… I have to go.”

He didn’t run like a human. He moved with that same impossible, fluid speed I had seen in the woods. He vaulted over the back fence of the fraternity yard, a blur of pale skin and shadow, and vanished into the darkness of the Reserve.

I sat there in the dirt, the smell of damp earth mixing with the copper tang of my own blood.

The shock was a physical weight, pressing me into the ground. I needed to move. I knew that. I needed to get help. But my body refused to cooperate. I just stared at the spot where he had vanished, my mind looping the image of his blood-stained mouth.

Above me, the song changed. A cheer went up from the party.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “I’m going to die under a frat house while they play Kesha.”

The absurdity of it sparked a tiny flame of anger in my chest. That anger was better than the fear. I grabbed onto it.

I used the stone wall to leverage myself up. My legs felt like jelly. The world tilted dangerously to the left, and grey spots danced in my vision. I clamped my right hand firmly over the wound on my left shoulder. The blood was soaking through my sweater, making the wool heavy and sticky.

I couldn’t go back through the party. I couldn’t let anyone see me like this.

I stumbled out from under the stairs, sticking to the shadows of the hedges. I moved like a ghost, skirting the edge of the lawn. Every step sent a jolt of agony through my shoulder, radiating down my arm and up into my jaw.

I reached the side gate—the one that led to the alley behind the Greek Row. It was unlocked. I slipped through, leaning against the brick wall of the neighboring house to catch my breath.

The alley was quiet, illuminated only by a flickering streetlamp at the far end.

I began the long walk back to the dorms.

It was usually a fifteen-minute walk. Tonight, it felt like a marathon.

As I walked, the strangest thing started to happen. The pain, which had been a sharp, screaming thing, began to dull. It didn’t disappear, but it changed. It became a heavy, throbbing heat.

And my senses… they were wrong.

I could hear the scratching of a raccoon in a dumpster three alleys over. I could hear the hum of electricity in the streetlamp above me. The smell of the damp pavement was so intense it made me nauseous.

Shock, I told myself. It’s just shock. You’ve lost blood. You’re hallucinating.

I kept my head down, clutching my shoulder. I passed a group of students heading toward the parties. They were laughing, loud and oblivious. I shrank into my oversized sweater, turning my body so they wouldn’t see the dark stain spreading across the grey wool.

“You okay?” one of them asked as they passed. A guy with a backward cap.

“Fine,” I croaked. My voice sounded foreign. “Just… too much to drink.”

I finally reached Harrison Hall. The dormitory looked like a fortress of normalcy. I swiped my key card with trembling fingers, praying the little light would turn green. It did.

I bypassed the elevator. I didn’t want to be trapped in a metal box with mirrors. I took the stairs to the third floor, clutching the railing, hauling my dead weight up one step at a time.

Please let the room be empty. Please let Chloe still be at the party.

I unlocked room 304 and pushed inside.

I locked the door behind me and threw the deadbolt. Only then did I let myself breathe. I leaned my forehead against the cool wood of the door, closing my eyes.

I was safe. Jaxson wasn’t here. The wolf wasn’t here.

I pushed away from the door and stumbled toward the small bathroom I shared with Chloe. I flicked on the harsh fluorescent light.

I looked in the mirror and gasped.

I looked like a victim of a horror movie. My face was ghostly pale, my lips blue. My hair was a tangled mess of leaves and twigs. But my eyes…

My dark brown eyes looked lighter. Fever-bright.

I looked down at my shoulder. The grey sweater was ruined, soaked black with blood from the neck to the elbow.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Assess the damage.”

I grabbed the hem of the sweater. My arm was stiff, protesting every movement. I hissed through my teeth as I peeled the wet wool away from my skin. It stuck to the wound, pulling at the raw edges.

I finally yanked it off and dropped it in the sink.

The wound was gruesome. It wasn’t just a bite; it was a mangle. Four deep puncture marks—canines—were clearly visible, two on the top of my shoulder, two near my collarbone. But the skin between them was torn and purple, bruised in the shape of a jaw.

But it wasn’t bleeding anymore.

I frowned, leaning closer to the glass.

Wounds like that—deep arterial punctures—should have been gushing. But the blood had slowed to a sluggish ooze. And the edges of the torn skin… they looked strange. They were knitting together.

I watched, mesmerized and horrified, as a tiny thread of skin stretched across the reddest part of the gash.

It was healing. Visible, rapid healing.

“That’s not possible,” I murmured.

I turned on the tap, letting the water run until it was icy cold. I grabbed a washcloth and pressed it to the wound.

The scream that tore out of me was involuntary.

When the cold water touched the bite, it didn’t feel cold. It felt like acid. It felt like I had pressed a branding iron to my skin.

I dropped the washcloth, backing away until my back hit the tiled wall. I slid down, clutching my knees to my chest.

It wasn’t a gradual rise in temperature. It was an explosion. One second I was shivering from shock; the next, I was burning from the inside out. Sweat popped out on my forehead instantly. My bones felt like they were melting.

And with the fever came the hunger.

I gasped, clawing at my chest. There was a hollow ache in the center of my ribcage, a vacuum that was trying to suck my organs inward. It was a feeling of profound, devastating emptiness.

I closed my eyes, and instantly, an image flashed behind my eyelids.

Not the monster. The man. The way he looked when he was pinning me against the wall. The smell of him—pine, rain, woodsmoke, and blood.

The ache in my chest lessened slightly at the thought of him.

“No,” I rasped. ” absolutely not.”

I crawled out of the bathroom and dragged myself to my bed. I pulled the duvet up to my chin, shivering uncontrollably as the fever spiked.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

I reached out a trembling hand and grabbed it.

Chloe: Where are u?? I’m with a guy from the soccer team. Not coming home tonight. Don’t wait up!

I let the phone drop to the floor.

I curled into a ball, the pain in my shoulder throbbing in time with the frantic beat of my heart. But the pain wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was that my body was betraying me.

Despite the fear, despite the horror of seeing him tear a man apart, despite the blood drying on my skin… I wanted him to come back.

My skin felt too tight. My blood felt too hot. The room felt too big.

Come back, a voice in the back of my head whispered. A voice that sounded like mine, but deeper. More animal. Come back and finish it.

I shoved my fist into my mouth to stifle a sob.

The bite mark on my shoulder pulsed— thump-thump, thump-thump —like a second heart.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the room began to spin. The fever dreams were already starting. And in every single one of them, glowing amber eyes were watching me from the dark.

And for the first time in my life, I was afraid of the dark. Not because of what might be hiding in it.

But because part of me wanted to go into it.

Inkitt’s mission is to discover talented writers and turn them into globally successful authors.

Authors can write and upload their manuscripts on Inkit for free and writers retain 100% of their copyrights while writing on Inkitt

Readers can read all books for free, without any ads and give the authors feedback.

Books that perform well based on their reader engagement are published on our Galatea app.

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