deep chapter name here
The cafeteria was buzzing like a hive of teenage angst. Greasy pizza, soggy fries, and hormones clung to the air but then it hit me. A scent so strong, so devastatingly intoxicating, it burned through the tater tot funk like a forest fire.
Cedar. Leather. Motor oil. Cinnamon gum.
I froze mid-bite of my peanut butter sandwich. My lungs betrayed me, inhaling destiny. My knees buckled. My binder the one with the Twilight stickers slipped from my hands and hit the floor in slow motion.
And then… I felt it.
A growl ripped across the cafeteria like thunder rolling over Taco Tuesday. Students turned. Girls screamed. Forks clattered. There, in the doorway, stood Darius Darkfang Moonbane the Great Alpha, captain of the football team, biker gang leader, and rumored bear-wrestler. His shirt was missing (again), because apparently buttons feared him. His eyes glowed a radioactive amber, as if someone had shoved molten lava into two wolf-shaped contact lenses.
“MATE.”
The word left his mouth in a guttural snarl so powerful the vending machine shook. Three freshmen fainted. The janitor wept openly.
I blinked, clutching my peanut butter sandwich like it could shield me looking side to side. “Me?”
He prowled forward, each step slow, deliberate, the way a predator stalks its prey or how a model walks in slow motion during a commercial. His jaw clenched, his abs rippled in sympathy, and his voice rumbled like a Harley engine revving with the wrong fuel.
“You. Are. Mine.”
Every girl in the cafeteria gasped in unison. One yelled, “OMG, pick me, Alpha!” and immediately passed out from sheer secondhand embarrassment.
I backed away, tripping over nothing (as usual). My brain screamed: This isn’t happening. You’re just a normal girl. Normal! Nobody notices you except for when you trip over doorframes or spontaneously monologue about your tragic parents who mysteriously vanished in a wolf attack.
But Darius’s nostrils flared. He sniffed again, growling low in his throat, like a wolf who had just discovered scented candles. “No one can stop the bond. Not the Council. Not destiny. Not even your peanut butter sandwich.”
Somewhere outside, thunder crashed. A single raven flew past the window at the exact right moment creating an obvious red herring we will never circle back to.
And I knew my life as a perfect and average girl who tripped over air was over.
