All Chapters of Ruined By The Alpha: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

15 Chapters

CHAPTER 1 - THEO ELLIS

The locker screamed at 11:07 pm.Metal doesn't make that sound unless something is tearing it open from the inside. I was standing in the dark hallway outside the varsity locker room with my inhaler in my pocket, and I heard steel give way one slow claw at a time.I shouldn't have been there.My name is Theo Ellis. I'm nineteen. On the roster I'm on the university swim team. In real life I'm the benchwarmer with the asthma file who times laps and learns how to be invisible.That's the hierarchy. Coach at the top. Then the A-relay. Then Karl Maddox above all of them. Then the rest of the team. Then me, somewhere under the bleachers where no one has to remember my name.Karl is twenty-one. Captain. Three school records. The kind of golden boy who walks into a party and everyone moves for him. For two years he has looked through me in the locker room. That's the deal. Gods don't talk to ghosts.I only came back because I'd left my inhaler in locker 14. My chest had been tight since dinne

CHAPTER 2 – FIVE AM

I didn't sleep.I went back to my dorm with my inhaler in my fist and my neck burning where his mouth had been. My roommate was snoring. I stood in our tiny shower for twenty minutes and scrubbed until my skin was red.It didn't work.I could still smell him. Not cologne. Heat and chlorine and something wild underneath, like the locker room but deeper. It was on my hoodie. On my skin. In my hair.Every time I closed my eyes I heard him: You smell fucking irresistible.At 3:47 am my alarm wasn't even set yet and I was already dressed. Sweats. Old team t-shirt. Inhaler in my pocket. I told myself I wasn't going because of pack law. I was going because if I didn't, he'd come find me. That was the lie I needed.The service door to the natatorium is around the back by the dumpsters. The keycard reader was dead at that hour. The door was propped open two inches with a folded kickboard.He'd left it for me.The pool air hit me at 4:52 am. Warm and wet and full of chlorine. The overhead light

CHAPTER 3 – IN THE WATER

I hadn't swum a real warm-up in two years.I timed laps. I handed out kickboards. I sat behind the blocks with my stopwatch and my inhaler and watched Karl cut through the water like he was born in it.Now I was standing on the block next to him at 5:17 am in borrowed jammers that were too big, with his blood drying on my neck and his eyes still gold at the edges."Watch me," I'd said.He was."Two hundred easy," he said. "Don't try to keep up. Just don't drown."He dove first. Clean. No splash. I went after him a second later, messy and loud.The water was cold at first, then perfect. My lungs opened up. My arms remembered. For fifty meters I wasn't the ghost with the asthma file. I was just a body moving.Karl stayed half a body length ahead, pacing me. Every time I breathed right, I saw him watching me from the next lane.We hit the wall together.He surfaced and pushed his hair back. "Again."We did four more two-hundreds. By the last one my chest was burning, but not from asthma.

CHAPTER 4 – PACK LAW

The Alpha wasn't on a phone.He was on a laptop in Coach's office, on video, and the second Karl pulled me through the door, the man on the screen looked straight at me like he could smell me through the camera.He looked like Karl in twenty years. Same gold-brown hair, same shoulders, same eyes that didn't blink enough. He was wearing a suit, not sweats. Behind him was a wall of windows and forest."Dad," Karl said. He kept his hand on my lower back. Not pushing. Just there.Silas Maddox — Alpha of the North Shore — didn't look at his son. He looked at me."That's him," he said. His voice was low and even. "The human.""Theo Ellis," I said. My voice cracked. "Sir.""Come closer."Karl's hand tightened on my back. "He's under my claim.""I can see that," Silas said. "I can also see you marked him with blood in a public pool, Karl. On a bleed night. Are you trying to start a challenge?""He saw me shift," Karl said. "Pack law.""Pack law says you bring the witness to the den for judgme

CHAPTER 5 – FIRST SHIFT

The footsteps stopped outside the bedroom door.Three sets. I could hear them through the wood, through the blood pounding in my ears. My skin was on fire and too tight at the same time. Another cramp rolled through my stomach and I bit down on a groan.Karl didn't move off me. He pulled the blanket higher and tucked my head under his chin, one big hand splayed across my back, the other still on my neck."Stay quiet," he breathed, so low only I could hear. "They can't see you like this."The handle turned.It didn't open. Locked.Jace's voice came through. "Maddox. Open up. Alpha wants the human downstairs."Karl's eyes were full gold now, lit from behind. His voice when he answered didn't sound human. "He's in my bed, Jace. You really want to come in here?"A pause. "He's shifting early. I can smell it from the hall. You didn't even wait for the moon.""Not your business.""It is when you hide a latent in your room on a bleed night," another voice said. "Pack law says—""Pack law say

CHAPTER 6 – NULL

The moon wasn't supposed to be full for another night.It was coming through Karl's bedroom window anyway, white and too bright, painting stripes across his bed. Across his back. Across my hands where I was holding onto him like he'd disappear.My bones were on fire.Not aching anymore. Burning. Like someone had poured hot metal into my spine and it was trying to find a way out."Karl," I gasped. "It's worse."He was still over me, pinning me down with his weight, his mouth on my neck where he'd bit me in chapter 5. His eyes were full gold and wild."I know," he growled. "I can smell it."He pressed his forehead to mine. His skin was even hotter than before. Sweat stuck his hair to his temples."Your scent changed again," he whispered. "It's not sweet anymore. It's sharp. Like ozone. Like before a storm."Another wave hit. My back arched off the bed. I couldn't stop it. My fingers dug into his shoulders, nails breaking skin.He didn't flinch. He groaned low in his throat and pushed his

CHAPTER 7 – LEAKED

The howling didn't stop.It rolled through the house like thunder, low and angry, shaking the windows in Karl's bedroom. Not one wolf. Ten. Twenty. The whole North Shore pack, answering the null in their Alpha's bed.Karl didn't let go of me. His arm was locked around my waist so tight I could barely breathe.Silas looked at the door, then at his watch. "3:04 am. You have less than three hours before sunrise, Karl. Get him quiet, or I will."He walked out. Jace followed him, holding his throat where Karl had choked him, smiling at me the whole way.The door shut. Locked from the outside.Karl spun me around and pushed me into the bathroom. He slammed the door and locked it too."Theo. Listen to me." He cupped my face, his hands shaking. "Your pulse is too fast. You're flaring again."I could feel it. The silver in my eyes was burning. Every time I breathed out, Karl's gold eyes flickered back to brown. I was canceling him just by standing close."I can't stop it," I said. My voice cra

CHAPTER 8 – LAKE CABIN

Run."Karl's hand was still over my mouth. His eyes were gold and glowing in the dark behind the oak tree.Behind us, the woods moved. Not wind. Paws on wet leaves. A lot of them. Low growls rolling through the trees.In front of us, at the pack house, campus police were knocking on the front door with Jace pointing at the windows.Karl pulled me down, low to the ground. "Stay on my back," he whispered in my ear. "Don't let go. Your flare is killing my wolf right now. I can't shift to fight them."He turned and crouched. I climbed on without thinking, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. He stood up like I weighed nothing and took off into the trees.He ran fast. Too fast for a human. Branches whipped my face. My heart hammered against his back. I could hear the wolves behind us getting closer, and I could feel Karl getting weaker with every step I held on."Theo," he panted. "You have to pull it back in.""I don't know how!""Think of a box," he said. "Put the silver in a box

CHAPTER 9 – MOTHER KNOWS

Karl didn't move from in front of the door. His shoulders were back, his eyes still trying to flash gold but staying brown because of my bite."Theo, don't," he said low.My mom knocked again. Harder. "I know you're in there! I can see the truck!"I got off the bed. My legs shook. I unlocked the top lock, then the second. Karl grabbed my wrist."If she opens that door, they smell you," he whispered. "The wolves outside will know exactly where you are.""She's my mom," I whispered back.I opened the door.My mom stood on the porch in her work scrubs, hair in a messy bun, eyes red like she'd been crying the whole three-hour drive. She looked at me — in Karl's too-big sweats, blood on my mouth, a fresh bite on my neck — then at Karl shirtless behind me with my teeth marks bleeding on his throat.She didn't scream. She just closed her eyes."Oh, Theo," she said. "You shifted."My stomach dropped. "What?"She pushed past me into the cabin and slammed the door shut. She locked it."Mom, how

CHAPTER 10 – THE CHOICE

Silas had the shotgun pointed at Karl's chest.My mom was in front of me. Karl was on his knees on the cabin floor, breathing hard because my null wave was still pouring out of the silver cuff. Jace's dad, the Beta, was on his knees too, human again, furious."It's sunrise," Silas said again. His eye was bleeding. "The council voted 7-2. Nulls are a threat to the bloodline. You both die."Karl didn't look scared. He looked up at his dad from the floor and laughed, short and bitter. "You're going to shoot your own heir?""I'm going to save the pack," Silas said, but his hand shook on the gun.I could feel the cuff burning my wrist. Hotter and hotter. The leather pouch my mom gave me was on the floor, open. The black root inside was smoking."Theo, take it off!" my mom yelled. "It's too much! You'll burn out!"I didn't know how. The silver in my eyes was so bright I could see it reflecting in the window. Everyone in the room was holding their chest like they couldn't breathe.Everyone e

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