Claimed by the Wrong Alphas

Slater

I stood behind a tall shelf in the library, pretending to browse through old texts on werewolf genealogy while my attention was completely focused on the woman across the aisle.

She was impossible to miss. Dressed in a way that screamed expensive taste and newfound wealth.

Her designer blazer was tailored perfectly to fit her slight frame, the fabric was a rich emerald green that probably cost more than most people’s monthly allowance.

Her shoes were Italian leather, her handbag bore the unmistakable logo of a luxury brand, and even her perfectly blonde hair spoke of regular visits to high-end salons.

This was Trisha Canary, and everything about her current lifestyle was wrong.

I maintained my position cautiously, ensuring I stayed in the area where the security cameras couldn’t capture me. I’d mapped out the library’s surveillance system weeks ago, noting every blind spot and motion sensor placement.

Trisha Canary had been the Therapist—Riley’s therapist at Ebonvale. I knew this because Riley had mentioned once that the school decided to put her in therapy after her bunkmate passed mysteriously, and that affected her so much.

Back then, I thought she was overreacting, since we’d seen more dead bodies than most packs would, since we lived in the middle of nowhere, far from other packs and were constantly at war with rogue wolves.

But Riley had sounded so disoriented and would cry to me every day on the phone without revealing anything about what she was going through. When she had informed me that she was trying therapy, I was glad but still thought it was unnecessary.

But after spending a year at Ravenshore, I was surprised to find I hadn’t been in therapy yet. The atrocities, the deaths, the disappearances that go on in this school were enough to make anyone go mad.

After Riley’s disappearance, Trisha had opted for what she called ’selective retirement’—a fancy way of saying she’d suddenly stopped working despite being barely thirty years old.