𝐌𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄

The monotony of absolute power had long since dulled my senses. At twenty-five, I moved through the black-soiled forests of our Northern Territory not as the proud and prestigious hunter I used to be, but as a ghost wandering his graveyard.

As the Beta prince, the executioner-in-waiting to my father's iron-fisted monarchy, I had mapped every inch of our land, broken every law worth the thrill, and dismissed the rest of the world as entirely disposable. To me, humans and lower-ranked wolves were useless, boring things. They were instruments to be played with, assets to be manipulated, or bodies to be disposed of.

I adjusted the tactical strap across my chest, my combat boots crunching rhythmically into the damp, decaying floor of the pine forest. The midday patrol was a formality. My squad was a quarter-mile behind me, their loud, synchronous footsteps faint vibrations through the earth. Then, the wind died, changed direction, and suddenly struck me in the face. There was someone else out here. I had spent over two decades memorizing this forest, so self-doubt was never a question.

Even in my human skin, my tracking senses were a lethal, finely tuned talent. This wasn't the usual sour, sulfurous stench of a typical trespassing rogue. It was something entirely different, a cloying, sweet scent that hit the back of my throat like the air before a thunderstorm, layered with the metallic copper flavor of terror and a faint, velvety sweetness that made the hair along my forearms stand on end.

My inner wolf, usually a dormant, cynical weight in my chest, slammed against my ribs. My curiosity took control as I veered off the gravel path without a word to my earpiece, drawing into the deeper, unmapped shadows of the brush. I shoved vines peppered with thorns out of the way, branches and twigs snapping as I moved through them. I followed the heat of the scent until I found the ancient, hollowed-out root system of a dying oak.

Wedged deep into the rotting wood was a little white wolf, cowering in an attempt to hide from me. I squinted, taking in the impossible sight. She was unusually small, barely reaching my waist if she were standing on all four legs, with matted, dirty fur, and eyes that looked frantically desperate. Her eyes flickered to the weapons holstered on my chest, not missing the fact that I could eliminate her at any time, her sides heaving in ragged, hushed pants.

My chest expanded, my lungs drawing in the intoxicating taste of her air, my jaws tightening as my vocal cords prepared to let loose the procedural alarm, a howl that would bring my father's hunters crashing through the trees to take her where the rest of the rogues go. But before the sound could leave my throat, she looked up at me, a silent plea.

There was no defensive snarl, or baring of her teeth. She pinned me to the spot with a pair of wide, fractured amber eyes that seemed to strip the breath clean from my lungs. She didn't try to fight me, no, she knew that was futile. Instead, she shrank backward, digging her claws into the dirt as she tried to pull herself deeper into the hollow, silently begging me with a gaze so obviously vulnerable, that it brought my entire world to a grinding, sudden halt.

"Shift," I growled at her, furrowing my eyebrows im distrust. I loomed over the opening, my massive frame blocking out the midday sun, casting her in total shadow. My voice was a low, gravelly vibration that gave no space for rebellion. "Now."

She swallowed, a visible tremor rippling down her spine. "Look away," she whispered, her voice rough, scraping through her wolf's throat into the quiet air. "Please."

"No." I didn't even blink, my icy eyes locking onto her like a vice. "You'll run. Do it in front of me like I said." I repeated my demand.

Left with no alternative, she submitted. I watched, a strange, suffocating knot tightening in my stomach as the small wolf's form began to fracture. It was a brutal, agonizingly intimate process. The wet sound of shifting bones, the snap of contracting muscle, and the heavy grinding of cartilage filled the small clearance. It was a sequence of transformation that usually left me entirely indifferent. But as the fur receded, it revealed pale, unblemished skin, delicate curves, and long black, tangled hair that fell over her shaking shoulders. My breath hitched in my throat. She was certainly a sight to be seen.

Collapsed in the mud, her entire body was trembling, likely a mix of hypothermia and fear. She curled up in the tall, damp grass, pulling her knees tightly against her chest to shield herself from my piercing stare. She couldn't be older than nineteen. She was young, the spot on her neck completely unmarked by any claim, and radiating the distinct, heavy sweetness of fertility. The exact kind of defenseless prize my guards would tear each other apart to violate in the lower levels of the keep where we kept prisoners.

Driven by an impulse that defied every ounce of my logic, I stepped into the hollow. I knelt before her in my tactical gear, the fabric whispering against the brush, and extended a calloused hand. With an unfamiliar, agonizing gentleness, I reached out and tucked a damp lock of hair behind her small ear.

The moment my skin brushed hers, a violent bolt of electricity shot up my fingers, piercing straight into my chest and seizing my heart. My inner wolf roared in sudden, blinding recognition, a feral sound that echoed in my skull. I froze, my hand hovering in the space between us, my mind reeling. What the hell was that?

She flinched violently away from my touch, pressing her spine hard against the oak roots, her chest heaving as she stared at me in horror, her own breathing fractured.

"Beta Xander. Is there anyone over there? I thought I smelled something..." A guard's voice called out, his boots crunching in the distance.

The crackle of my squad leader's shout shattered the silence, echoing through the trees from fifty yards out. My head snapped toward the sound, my jaw tightening. I instinctively shifted my broad shoulders, using my body to completely block the view of the naked girl in the dirt. I looked back down at the girl.

She was waiting for the execution sentence. Tears were already brimming in her eyes at the realization of her impending doom, her lips parted slightly. Male rogues were used as target practice here and female rogues, well let's just say they weren't so lucky.

"No, nothing here," I called back over my shoulder, my voice deadpan, casual, and perfectly controlled, though my blood was suddenly burning like kerosene. "I'm checking the traps. Keep moving."

"Copy that!" the guard called back, his heavy boots fading slightly as the patrol shifted direction. "We just caught two males along the perimeter. We're going to circle back and drop them off at the slaughterhouse. Let's wrap this up before dark!"

The words hit her like ice water. The girl's face drained of what little color it had left. Horror appeared on her face, even more prominently than when she thought she would be taken.

"No," she gasped, a choked, strangled sob catching in her throat as she tried to scramble forward to get past me, completely forgetting her vulnerability, her hands clawing blindly toward the sound of the guards. "No, no, no..."

I moved forward instantly, my calloused hand clamping around her forearm, pinning her easily to the earth. "What's your plan, huh?" I hissed, bringing my face inches from hers. "If you follow them, you're dead before you hit the treeline."

"I have to go with them," she wept, her fingers clawing weakly, desperately at my thick wrist. I ignored the strikes that felt like lightening emitting from her touch. "They're my brothers. They're all I have left. Please."

I looked at her, the harsh reality of my father's rule crashing down on my chest. If I brought her in through the front gates, everyone would smell her status instantly. Every unclaimed male and my father alike would have more than a million questions for me. You can't just walk in with a rogue and expect everything to be kosher. That wasn't how things went in our region. Out here, naked and alone, I knew she was a dead girl walking.

"Listen to me very carefully," I said, my jaw rigid, committing high treason with every breath. "You must come back with me. I'll take you as my prisoner. Under my name and my protection, no one else will touch you. I'll keep you safe."

The word prisoner struck her like a physical blow. Knowing the grim, horrific reality of what happened to female rogues who trusted the men in power, she recoiled fiercely, her amber eyes flashing with a terrifying, defensive anger. She shook her head insistently.

"No," she whispered, her voice cracking with a fierce, suicidal resolve. "No. I'd rather die out here alone in the dirt."

Frustration and a sudden, desperate possessiveness flared through me, hot and relentless. I reached out, my large hands gripping both of her bare shoulders, and shook her firmly to snap her out of the spiraling panic.

"I don't think you understand. Look at me," I growled, letting the full, crushing weight of my Beta authority bleed into the air. "You have to trust me."

As my palms pressed against the bare skin of her shoulders, the current snapped between us a second time, but this time, the circuit completed.

The girl gasped, her entire body flinching instantly as the violent, tingling heat tore through her skin, melting the icy terror in her veins and replacing it with the suffocating warmth I was feeling too. Her wide, brown eyes locked onto mine, searching the lines of my face for deception, feeling the undeniable, deep pull that anchored her existence to mine.

The realization hit her all at once, hard and terrifying: I, whoever I may be, was her fated mate. Trembling, her resistance crumbled under the absolute weight of the spark. She let out a shaky, defeated breath, her head dropping slightly as she finally nodded against my chest. Maybe she was okay with being my mate, or maybe she finally noticed she had nowhere else to run.

"Okay," she whispered, her voice barely audible against the rustling leaves. "Okay, I'll go with you."