Chapter 2 Running From the Alpha

POV: Seraphina Nyx Vale

I had nowhere to go. That was the truth I kept arriving at no matter how fast I rode.

No money, No phone, No bag,  A stolen motorcycle, a pregnancy I hadn't told anyone about, and a white dress that was soaking through in the rain. I had left the only life I knew with nothing in my hands and nothing behind me worth going back for.

My wolf paced and snarled inside me. That is our mate. Our pack. Our place. Go back and fight.

"There is nothing to fight for," I said out loud, into the dark. "He made his choice."

She went quiet after that. Not calm. Just out of words.

I watched the road signs change as human territory opened around me. The trees thinned. Small towns appeared and disappeared. Gas stations. A shuttered diner. A billboard advertising weekly motel rates. Everything out here was ordinary and indifferent, and I found I was grateful for that. Nothing here knew what I was. Nothing here expected anything from me.

By the time pale grey light started creeping across the sky, I was running on nothing. My arms ached from holding the handlebars through the wind and the wet. My stomach pulled with a low, dull pressure I was trying not to think too hard about. I had not eaten since yesterday afternoon.

A neon sign cut through the morning haze ahead of me.

ROURKE'S. Open 24 Hours.

I pulled into the gravel lot and sat on the bike for a moment, just breathing. Through the window I could see men hunched over drinks, a bar still running at the tail end of the night. Motorcycles lined the front in a rough row, custom and heavy and road-worn. My wolf noticed them before I did. Not wolves. Humans. Rough ones.

I climbed off the bike. Every muscle protested. I walked to the door and pushed it open.

The noise dropped by half the moment I stepped in. I understood what they saw. A woman, young, soaking wet, wearing a white dress under a jacket two sizes too big, walking into their bar at dawn like she had fallen out of the sky. Several of them stared openly. One man near the door let out a low whistle.

I walked to the bar and sat down. The bartender, a heavyset woman with tired eyes and a no-nonsense jaw, looked me over once.

"What can I get you?"

"Water," I said. "And whatever food you have."

She nodded and disappeared into the back.

The man who slid onto the stool beside me smelled like cigarettes and engine grease. He leaned close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him.

"You look lost, sweetheart." His voice was wet and pleased with itself.

I stared straight ahead. "I am not your sweetheart."

He laughed. His hand landed on my shoulder.

That was a mistake. I caught his wrist before he could even process that I had moved. I stood, twisted, and put him face-first onto the nearest table with enough force that the glasses rattled and one hit the floor and shattered. He made a choked, winded sound. I stepped back and straightened my jacket.

The bar went completely silent.

The man scrambled upright, put three feet of space between us, and stood there red-faced with his pride in pieces. Nobody moved. Then, from the far end of the bar, a slow clap. One pair of hands. Deliberate. Unhurried.

I turned.

He was tall, broad across the shoulders, with the kind of face that had taken a few hits over the years and settled into something harder and more interesting for it. Dark blonde hair. A jaw that hadn't seen a razor in days. Eyes that were sharp in a way that didn't match how relaxed the rest of him looked. He wore a cut with a patch I didn't recognise.

"Axel Rourke," he said, setting down his glass. "And you just made Big Terry cry in front of my entire club."

"He touched me without asking."

"Fair point." He tilted his head toward the stool beside him. "Sit down. I'll buy you that water."

I should have walked out. Every careful part of me said to take the food, get back on the bike, and keep moving. But my legs were trembling and my stomach was sending up quiet waves of pain, and I had nowhere to go. I had established that already.

I sat. He signalled the bartender, then looked at me sideways.

"You ride in on that Ironfang custom out front?"

"Yes."

"That's a fifty-thousand-dollar motorcycle."

"I know what it's worth."

He turned his glass slowly on the bar top. "Whose is it?"

I met his eyes. "Mine now."

Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile. More like recognition. The look of someone who had seen a person standing exactly where I was standing and understood what it cost to be there.

"Where are you headed?" he asked.

"Away."

"From?"

"Everything."

He nodded slowly, like that was a complete answer. The bartender set a plate of eggs and toast in front of me and I ate without embarrassing myself, though it took everything I had to keep the pace steady.

Axel let me eat before he spoke again. "I run a crew. Twelve riders. We move between territories, no permanent home, no rules we didn't write ourselves." He paused. "We're heading north in two hours. You could ride with us. Just until you figure out your next move."

I set my fork down. "You don't know me."

"I know you flipped Big Terry in under two seconds and didn't flinch after." He shrugged. "That's enough for a two-hour audition."

My wolf stirred. Cautious, but not opposed.

Joining humans was dangerous for what I was. Every hour would carry the weight of a secret I could never let slip. One wrong moment, one slip of speed or strength or instinct, and everything would fracture. But going back was not something I was capable of. Not that night. Maybe not ever.

I thought about the road behind me. I thought about the white dress and the golden room and the woman with the rounded stomach standing in the light. I thought about seven months of silence from the only man I had ever trusted with everything I was.

Then I stopped thinking about it, because thinking about it was not going to feed me or keep me or get me somewhere safer than here.

"Okay," I said quietly. "Two hours."

Axel raised his glass. "Welcome to the outside, sweetheart."

I let that one go.

I had nowhere to go. Now, at least, I had a direction.