Claiming the Last Alpha She-Wolf

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Chapter 1

~Rhiannon’s POV~

I shouldn’t have crossed the border.

I knew it the instant the wind shifted, the moment the warm, feral scent hit the back of my throat, thick with musk, blood, and something anciently different.

Wolves.

Not the ones whispered about in bedtime stories. Not the shapeshifters in romance novels or the cursed princes in old fairy tales.

These were real. Wild. Territorial. Pack wolves. The kind that didn’t warn you twice. The kind that would rip out your throat just for stepping where you didn’t belong.

I bolted.

My boots slipped on the damp moss, slick and treacherous beneath me as I crashed through the underbrush. Twigs snapped underfoot. Leaves slapped my face. My heart hammered louder than my footsteps, drowning out thought, fear, everything.

I clutched the satchel at my side. It slammed against my hip with every step, the weight of the moonlotus root inside pulling me off balance.

I’d risked everything for it—climbing past border wards, dodging patrols, weaving through shadowed trees—because my father needed it. And now I was paying the price.