Claimed By The Mistborne Alpha-Chapter 12: Alpha

My paws sank into the soft earth as I stood face to face with the massive wolf, its crimson eyes gleaming under the bright green glow of the full Moon.

"Maeve...that’s your name?" 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

I stumbled backwards at the undeniable male voice, my claws scraping against roots and broken leaves.

The voice...it was in my head. It definitely did not come from the wolf standing in front of me, staring...more like glaring. But somehow, it also felt like it did.

"Answer me!"

The wolf stepped closer and suddenly morphed right before me, its thick black and white fur dissolving like smoke into smooth moonlit skin. Its canine head, replaced by that of a human. Until he was simply...a man. But there was nothing simple about his human form.

The most beautiful human I’d ever seen.

His face, framed by thick and wild silver hair was angular and sharp like impossible perfection, as if carved by the Moon Goddess herself. His thick brows lined the most striking now hazel eyes, leading down to his straight nose and a mouth that seemed more sinful than it should. His face sat upon broad shoulders that led to the sculpted planes of his chest, down to the faint ridges of muscle across his stomach, and down to his–

I jerked my face away from his naked body as my cheeks burned with a feeling I didn’t want to understand yet.

The stranger kept watching me curiously, like he expected me to say something.

"Shift back to your human form, Maeve."

The way he said my name struck a chord in me. It felt so personal, like he’d said it a thousand times before. But there was no way he could have known my name already. Unless...

"Do you not know how to?" He asked again, this time frowning impatiently.

I straightened. I didn’t know how to but it shouldn’t be that hard, definitely not as hard as shifting for the first time anyway. I closed my eyes and imagined my claws and limbs retracting, the skin wrapping around my muscles until I felt my body getting lighter by the second and the cold getting harsher.

Until I was standing shamelessly in front of him, shivering, with my hands covering my chest, completely unclothed as my clothes lay tattered on the ground. I hadn’t even noticed that before.

"Was that your first time?" He asked, his head tilting slightly. His eyes raked over my face, studying it for a minute too long before moving down to my arms desperately trying to cover the nakedness as much as I could.

I was terribly unsuccessful.

Before I could speak, the fast pounding of two pairs of footsteps resounded again, shattering the moment.

The two Delta guards burst into the clearing, their weapons already drawn and aimed at my body. The moon was so bright that I couldn’t even try to hide myself in the dark. Embarrassment and fear ran through me as I backed up even more.

It didn’t matter if I was naked. If it came to it, I would run. Even if they shot at me, even if I knew that they would catch up to me, it didn’t matter because I was going to run to the end. If I could, I would just have to shift back into my wolf again so I could be faster this time.

But the guard’s line of vision had already turned from me to the man standing tall and confident in all his glory. Their eyes widened and one by one, they dropped to their knees immediately.

"Commander Korvash," they said, their heads lowering even further and voices trembling with barely concealed fear.

My stomach dropped.

Commander Korvash?

He couldn’t be the Alpha Commander Darek Korvash, could he?

Everything I had heard about him spilled over my brain like a scrambled mess.

Ruthless. Cold. Unforgiving.

He was the Supreme Commander of all the Lycans, the highest and most powerful position in the city of Kargahart. Barely anyone had ever seen him, but even in the periphery where news from Parthenn barely ever reached, we’ve always heard stories.

Terrifying ones.

They said he had played a huge part in the culling of humans suspected to have been infected by Varcolacs or whose mutations were too abnormal to be those of a Lycan.

That was just worse for me.

I was going to die now. I knew that. He was never going to let me go. He must know very well that an Omega doesn’t exhibit the kind of strength that I did before. And that, too, an Omega who just had her first shift into a werewolf.

"What are you trying to do, gentlemen?" He asked the guards, folding his strong arms against his chest.

"Sir," one of them mumbled, his body visibly shaking. "She...she is a Varcolac suspect, sir."

Darek arched his eyebrows.

"And why is that? She just shifted into her werewolf form right now."

The other guard looked up at him nervously. "Well...we received word that she exhibited strength unusual for an Omega. So we just wanted to get her tested to find out but then she ran off. So according to protocol, we were trying to shoot her down, sir."

Maybe I could have just avoided all this if I hadn’t run. But then, what if I were a Varcolac? I wasn’t sure either about what had happened to me.

Darek smiled.

"Thank you for following the protocol, gentlemen. But you can leave now. I’ll take it from here."

They obeyed instantly, throwing me startled glances of pity before running back into the darkness of the forest.

Oh God, no.

I didn’t realise that the guards being there, had me relieved for a moment. Even if they had just been chasing me through the forest a moment ago to probably shoot at me, it had to be nothing compared to what I faced now.

My eyes looked up at him, my breath catching in my throat, my fingers curling against my palms.

He turned to me again, the smile still on his lips but now more dangerous and devastating. He was looking at me like he couldn’t wait to see me drowning in my blood. Like he had so many plans for this Omega, whom he accidentally chanced upon to practice his torture techniques.

I gulped.

I’m dead. He was definitely going to kill me now.