This is probably what happens when you pretend to be someone you’re not. Alpha Heinrich ‘Henry Ralph’ Rudolph is supposed to be an invincible leader of the Silver Stone Pack of the Bitterroot Valley, not just the director of Alpha Pharmaceuticals.
Blowing a frustrated breath through my lips, I fold my fingers in my lap, wringing them, staring at my palms furiously.
The elemental magic I once wielded with ease has been slipping from my fingers, and even from the paws of my wolfwhen I shapeshift. It would have been easier to believe that I’m losing my powers because of the double life I live in the human world, pretending to be an ordinary man. But I can’t escape the truth.
Silver Stone, along with the Red Moon and Iron Breath packs, has been losing the ability to wield magic ever since demons attacked us. The constant attacks have been escalating, with only a brief two-week breather after the previous fight against them in the valley.
Wolves have been dying, our magic has been depleting, and only Red Moon has slowly been regaining their strength and powers thanks to Alpha Damian Hans’s experiment with a powerful ritual introduced to discover an alpha’s fated mate.
Fated mates were once an unknown phenomenon within the packs, a thing of legends, a thing unknown to us, until a research team searched high and low for a possible solution to our problems.
Alpha Damian proved that mating with his sacred mate was the path to recovery, yet demons still haunt the valley.
It’s only a matter of time before they return for another round of torment, and that’s why I made haste to perform the kambo ritual to trace my fated mate.
Two nights ago, I saw her face, heard her name whispered in my ear from the psychedelic effects of the poison, and knew what I had to do.
Knowing what to do and following through are two different things, and I'm unsure how to navigate the next steps. I have to take my fated mate to the valley—where no one knows I lead a double life as the director of this company—and I somehow have to convince a human that she is the key to a pack of wolves regaining their strength.
Sigh…
I look up from my dismal, failed attempt to use my earth magic to move a wooden ornament, my eyes instantly finding my assistant in the office across from mine, and my heart skips a beat.
Almost as long as it stopped beating when I saw her in that dress last night…
A knot in the pit of my belly tightens, my hands curling to fists on the desk—not out of frustration, but something even more primal, raw, animalistic. I gulp hard, swallowing down the heinous thoughts that intrude my mind, but there’s nothing that could wipe my mind clean of them.
Two nights ago, I entered the ritual, completely unaware of what was in store for me, except for the little that Damian told me about his experience. He called it “profound” and “life-altering.” Life would be altered for me once I figured out who my fated mate was, and the research team was waiting around me to hear her name.
I heard it in my trance-like state—the name of my fated mate floating around her like stardust, cloaking her essence as she walked toward me in a strange abyss conjured by my hallucinating mind. Her lithe, tall frame was swathed in a beautiful golden dress, and she walked toward me with floating steps and a mesmerizing smile.
I didn’t even need to hear her name to recognize her face. It was a face I’d been seeing for the past four years, ever since the business in the human world blew up, and as the director, I needed a personal assistant.
“Annika Singh…” I whispered as soon as I snapped out of the trance and opened my eyes to the real world in the valley. Amos, the head of the research team, almost sprang into workimmediately, but I grabbed his arm and told him that there was no need to trace the name.
I already knew who she was.
The reaction I received was a mixture of shock and confusion, especially from my father, who has no idea I live a double life in the human world. I claimed that Annika Singh was someone I met briefly while Damian was in the Hamilton Health-Daly Hospital two years ago after a demon attack left him badly injured, and that I knew where to find her.
What I didn’t tell them was that Annika Singh wasn’t just someone I met in passing; she’s the only human who’s known me—or, at least, the human version of me, Henry Ralph—for the last four years.
And if the ritual was easy, profound, and life-altering, then the real challenge would be trying to convince Annika to marry me for the sake of preserving my wolf pack.
She can’t know about my other life—my life in the valley—and no one from the valley can know about my life in the human world.
I am between a rock and a hard place, and it’s as if my inner wolf doesn’t see the bigger picture of the trouble I’m facing. All that little voice in my head can think about is the primal need to be near its mate.
That’s how I felt last night when Annika walked into the gala dinner in a black dress that was almost identical to the one I'd seen her wearing in the ritual, except that the one I'd envisioned her in was gold. Even her skin was glowing gold, shimmering as it usually does.
My heart stopped beating for a few countless moments, my breath hitching in my throat as I froze and gawked at her like she was the most precious being on earth.
Even now, she is the most beautiful, ethereal creature in the world, even dressed stoically in a navy-blue suit and black shirt as if she’s hiding her chest with armor. I can see it on her face, and in her brown eyes—that coldness she usually wears around me, her aura reeking of her dislike and indifference toward me.
There’s no way she’d ever agree to marry me. She doesn’t see me the way other women do, and perhaps I have myself to blame for it. I’ve been an asshole to her, and every other human I encounter outside of the valley, and that’s with good reason—I don’t want to get attached, but now I have to hitch myself to a human.
Yikes!
How do I do that without risking the secret of my double life?
