Alpha Dom and His Human Surrogate

Ella

Cora spins to look at me, her eyes wide, and together we both run for the window. Cora gets there first, unhooking the latch and throwing the window open, bending out so that she can see. I lean out too, my eyes scanning the ground below.

My gaze locks, instantly, on the action.

A man one whose figure and face I’ve glared at too many times in the past few days – drags a small girl by the hand. He has his arm wrapped around the waist of a woman. She fights against him, but her movements are sluggish.

“He’s got them,” I say, grim, and then I look to the side at my sister, determined. “Tell Sinclair. Stay with the baby.”

Cora stares at me for a second and then her eyes go round with shock. ” Ella,” she says, reaching out for me, Ella, what -”

But I’ve already turned back to the window, and before I can even think about what I’m doing, I transform into my wolf and surge out.

I hear my sister scream my name behind me, but I’m already gone, leaping from my narrow window ledge to the next below us, and then another, steadily working my way down the palace wall as fast as I my paws can carry me. The majority of my concentration is on aiming my jumps and ensuring that I land in the right spot, my wolf’s instincts taking over, but a little part of my mind is suddenly grateful that my wolf is small and nimble.

Sinclair, with his gigantic wolf, would never be able to balance on these small ledges, and neither would Roger.

Instead, my smaller rose-gold wolf makes quick of the vertical surface of the palace wall and darts towards the ground. The girl screams again as my paws hit the flagstones of the courtyard and I’m already moving across them towards the man who drags the woman and the girl away.

I bolt across the courtyard towards them, I see from my periphery that I am not the only one to respond – palace guards begin to converge, their

my snarl rips through

to like it very much that they let me take the lead. But my authority brooks no compromise:

he hears my snarl, looking first above my head as if he was looking

yanks Jessica closer to him and Sarah struggles anew, though her movements are slow. I focus on her for a moment, noticing

he’s still a wolf. He is stronger, innately, and

eyes, my bared fangs. Xander just scoffs at me, beginning to

know that that’s precisely

then, vicious, he hurls Sarah to the ground and kicks her hard in the ribs. I hear bone crack and she moans, curling up,

and pulls a knife from his pocket, pressing it to her throat. “A step closer,” he growls, “and I will kill her, she-wolf. You can keep the old one –

the corners of my eyes I see the palace security creating a circle around us. My muscles go tense, because

already on the run, playing his last card? That won’t cow him. It

may do his best to leave as much collateral damage in his wake as he can. His knife, now, is pressed tight against a little girl’s

I do the

back into my human form and hold my hands out

do anything you’ll regret, uncle,” I say quietly. “If you give the girl to me now, we will give you

Xander wraps his fingers in her hair, tugging hard and making her shriek, but her hands drop as she goes with him. “She is mine, and I will take her.

I had Cora’s