Claimed by the scarred Alpha

LUCIAN

The engine roared to life beneath me. I floored it before the door even shut, the tires screaming against gravel as the back end swung wide. Stones sprayed against the manor walls like buckshot. I didn’t look back. The rearview mirror showed empty courtyard, empty windows, but I knew that wouldn’t last. Isabelle’s letter had bought me minutes, maybe less.

I was lucky too. The sentinels at the gate weren’t expecting me to move this crazy.

My hands steadied on the wheel out of pure muscle memory, the way they’d steadied on a knife handle or a gun. The long driveway stretched ahead, lined with oaks that blurred into green smears as I pushed past eighty. The gate loomed at the end, wrought iron and spikes. I aimed for the gap rather than the release mechanism, clipping the edge hard enough to spark metal against metal. The impact shuddered through the chassis, but the gate gave, swinging wide with a shriek of tortured hinges.

Then I saw them.

Three black SUVs materialized from the tree line where the drive met the main road, engines already running, positioned to block the exit. Sentinels. I recognized the formation, the way they’d angled their vehicles to create a choke point. Standard pack enforcement protocol probably. Someone had made the call already.

"Fuck you, Isabelle," I spat, but my mouth was dry.

The lead vehicle’s window rolled down. I caught the glint of a rifle barrel catching morning sunlight. I swerved left before the shot came, the bullet punching through my rear passenger window instead of my skull. Glass exploded inward, peppering the back of my neck. I didn’t flinch. I’d had worse.

I yanked the wheel hard right, tires protesting as I took the shoulder at sixty. The car bounced over roots and uneven earth, my head snapping against the ceiling. Another shot cracked behind me, wide this time. This was from a different vehicle I supposed because like the other, they weren’t trying to disable the vehicle yet. But the difference was that these ones wanted me alive for questioning, which meant I had maybe thirty seconds before that priority shifted to dead.

The shoulder narrowed ahead, forcing me back toward the road. I threaded the gap between two SUVs, scraping paint from both sides of my car in a scream of metal. A sentinel leaned from the passenger window of the right vehicle, pistol steady in both hands. I saw his eyes through the gap. He was young, determined, and utterly stupid.

I grabbed my own piece from the glove compartment without looking, one hand on the wheel, and fired three times through my open window. The first shot shattered their windshield. The second took him in the throat. His body jerked back, blood painting the interior glass, and the shock of that seemed to make his driver lose control. The SUV veered hard left, clipping the rear of the other sentinel vehicle.

Both cars spun. I watched in the mirror as they tangled together, one flipping onto its side and sliding into the ditch with a sound like crushed aluminum cans.

Two down.

I allowed myself one breath of satisfaction, and one tight smile.

Then the rear window exploded.

Bullets stitched across the back seat, tearing through leather and foam. I ducked low, my chin nearly touching the wheel, as I punched the accelerator.

The speedometer climbed past ninety, then a hundred. The road ahead curved through forest, narrow and winding, built for leisurely drives between pack territories, not desperate flight.

Another SUV emerged from a side road ahead, trying to cut me off. I didn’t brake. I aimed for the gap between their front bumper and the tree line, a space maybe six inches wider than my car. The sentinel driver panicked, jerking left when he should have held steady. His rear end fishtailed, his tires losing purchase on the asphalt.

I shot past, close enough to see his face, twisted with frustration and fear.

He was young too.

They were all so young.

The thought flickered and died as gunfire erupted from my left. A fourth vehicle had joined the chase, running parallel through the trees, branches whipping against their sides.

I reached across and emptied the rest of my clip at their windshield. The glass starred but held, because it was bulletproof.

Of course.

The Alpha’s personal vehicles would be armored. I tossed the empty gun onto the passenger seat and focused on the road.

The curve ahead tightened. I took it at ninety, feeling the rear end break loose, drifting through the turn like I’d done a thousand times in younger years when I’d still felt immortal. The tires caught, and I powered out, leaving the armored SUV struggling to match the maneuver.

My phone buzzed against my thigh. I ignored it. It was probably more men reporting dead friends, or more evidence of how thoroughly Isabelle had dismantled my life while I’d been sleeping off moonshine and cigar. The thought made my jaw ache.

I’d taught her everything she knew about survival, about gathering intelligence, about waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

I’d made my own executioner.

The road straightened into a long valley, with fields of tall grass on either side, and no cover for miles.

It was a bad terrain.

I needed trees... buildings... something to break line of sight.

Behind me, I noticed three vehicles now and they were gaining.

They’d radioed ahead and coordinated the pursuit better.

I would have been proud if I weren’t the prey.

I spotted the roadblock before they expected me to. Two more SUVs parked nose to nose across the asphalt, a wall of black steel and chrome. Six sentinels stood behind them, with rifles raised. I had maybe four hundred yards to decide whether to die on their terms or mine.

I chose neither.

The grass field to my right looked flat, deceptively so. I jerked the wheel and left the road at eighty-five, the car becoming airborne for one sickening moment before slamming down. The impact jarred my teeth, sent pain lancing up my spine. I fought the wheel as the tires fought the earth, gripping and slipping, gripping and slipping.

In the mirror, the pursuit followed. All three vehicles left the asphalt, kicking up dust clouds that turned the morning sun into a hazy orange blur. We raced through the field parallel to the road, grass whipping against the undercarriage, the suspension bottoming out on hidden ruts.

I saw my opening. A drainage ditch cut across the field ahead. It was narrow but deep, and maybe ten feet across.

The sentinels behind me were bunched too close, following my exact path like trained dogs. I waited until the last possible second, then swerved hard left, parallel to the ditch.

The lead pursuit vehicle didn’t react in time. The driver saw the gap too late, hit the brakes and the edge simultaneously. The front end dropped, momentum carrying the SUV forward in a slow-motion arc. It nosed into the opposite bank, its rear wheels spinning in empty air, right before it rolled and the roof caved in on impact, crushing the occupants inside.

"Fuck yeah!" I screamed.

The second vehicle tried to avoid the wreck, swerving right into the path of the third. They collided with a sound like thunder, metal folding against metal, as glass exploded outward in diamond sprays.

One spun into the ditch. The other rolled three times before coming to rest on its roof, its wheels still spinning.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The sound tore from my throat, raw and desperate and triumphant. Four vehicles down. I’d beaten them. I’d beaten the Alpha’s best, his precious enforcement arm, his clean-up crew. Isabelle’s betrayal had made me sharp, made me fast, made me—

The truck filled my windshield.

I saw it too late. A fifth vehicle, positioned on the road ahead, waiting for exactly this moment. They’d herded me here. The realization landed cold and heavy in my gut even as my hands moved instinctively, jerking the wheel hard right.

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