The pounding bass of the club thumped in her veins, matching the erratic rhythm of her breath. Lights strobed, casting fleeting glimpses of strangers' faces, but her focus was locked on one figure—the man who had just caught her mid-fall on the dance floor.
.
"You've been filming me?" His voice was a low, gravelly drawl, laced with danger and something even more intoxicating. His eyes—those molten amber eyes—glowed faintly under the club lights, like embers that refused to die.
Callie felt her throat tighten. Of course she'd been filming him—everyone had. He wasn't just the most talked-about figure in their city's underground nightlife; he was the man who trended without even trying. No last name. No official account. Just AlphaX, the rumored king of an elite, untouchable circle. The hashtag #AlphaTrending was practically its own currency online.
"I wasn't—" she began, clutching her phone against her chest, but he stepped closer.
The crowd seemed to melt away as if the air itself obeyed him. His scent—dark cedar, rain, and something that made her bones ache—slid into her senses like a forbidden addiction.
"You think a little screen can protect you from me?" he murmured, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. It wasn't a question.
Her pulse spiked. Every instinct screamed run, but another, wilder voice whispered stay.
She swallowed hard. "Maybe I'm not the one who needs protecting."
That earned her a smirk—slow, dangerous, knowing. He plucked her phone from her hand without even looking, flicking his thumb across the screen. The feed was still live, her millions of followers watching in real time.
In one motion, he turned the camera on himself, leaning in until his mouth was dangerously close to hers. The comments exploded:
> OMG IS THIS THE ALPHA???!
THE WAY HE'S LOOKING AT HER??
ARE THEY ABOUT TO—
"You have no idea what you've started, Luna Callisandra Veyra," he said, deliberately using her full name. Not just her influencer name, but the one buried in her legal records—the name she never shared online.
Her heart stuttered. "How—"
"Because you're mine."
The word mine carried weight. Heat. Command. A promise and a threat wrapped in one. Before she could speak, his hand slid to the small of her back, pulling her flush against him, and every nerve in her body lit up.
The moment was primal, magnetic, and utterly against the rules she'd set for herself.
But what terrified her wasn't how close they were—
It was how much she wanted him closer.
The first thing I heard when I woke up wasn't birdsong, or the lull of waves outside the balcony—it was my phone buzzing like an angry hornet beside me.
I groaned, dragging the covers over my head. If this was another brand email about sponsored sunscreen, I was going to throw my phone straight into the Bacnotania sea.
But the vibration didn't stop. It grew. Call after call. Notifications piling like an avalanche.
Something in my gut twisted. I grabbed the phone, swiped it open—
—and froze.
It wasn't sunscreen.
It wasn't brand deals.
It was me.
Me and him.
One stolen photograph: Kael, Bacnotania Island's infuriatingly magnetic resort owner, his tall frame angled over mine, his mouth dangerously close to my ear as if whispering a secret meant only for me. His hand was at my waist, steady, possessive.
The caption burned hotter than the sun:
"Alpha Kael claims his Luna."
I sat up so fast the sheets tangled around my legs. "Oh, no. No, no, no—"
Hundreds of reposts. Thousands of comments. My followers tagging me nonstop. Some thought it was a new PR stunt. Others thought it was a romance reveal. And some—gods help me—were spinning theories about "wolf-bonding" and "mate marks."