Claimed by My Mafia Alpha King

Nicholas’s POV

My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to tear straight through my ribcage.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

The heavy, violent sound roared in my eardrums. It drowned out the howling autumn wind. It drowned out the rustling of the dark pine trees. The blood in my veins was completely boiling. Every single cell in my massive body was screaming, vibrating with an unnatural, terrifying anticipation.

The exact second my large hand clamped down over her delicate wrist, a massive, unannounced shockwave of pure electricity exploded against my skin.

It was a violent, stinging current. It shot up my arm like a jagged blade of fire, crashing directly into my chest and instantly igniting my broken, hollowed-out soul.

The mate bond.

It was the damn mate bond. It was resonating with a terrifying, agonizing intensity. It pulled at my flesh, hurting so badly I wanted to roar, yet bringing a devastating, addictive thrill I couldn’t escape. This wasn’t a hallucination spawned from cheap whiskey and sleep deprivation. This was real. She was real.

I stared at the tiny back of the woman trapped in my iron grip.

The air around us was completely saturated with her.

Rain. Damp earth. And that sweet, intoxicating trace of vanilla that had tortured me in the dark for months. I had inhaled that scent in my nightmares. I had chased ghosts across the entire city just for a fraction of it.

But it was different now. It was entirely wrong.

It wasn’t faint. It wasn’t dying and suffocating like it had been in the freezing halls of Greystone. Her scent was incredibly rich now. It was completely overflowing with a fierce, burning, primal vitality. Her wolf wasn’t broken anymore. Her wolf was awake, practically radiating a blinding, raw life force. She had healed. She had survived without me.

That single realization completely shattered the last remaining wall of my sanity.

A massive, earth-shattering howl ripped through the dark corners of my mind.

My wolf was completely feral. It was the pure, unadulterated ecstasy of a starving predator finally sinking its teeth into its absolute obsession. The beast violently threw its weight against my ribs, tearing and clawing at my insides. It demanded that I rip the woman apart, consume her, and fuse her into my very bones so she could never, ever leave me again.

"Let go...!" a broken, sobbing gasp tore from her throat.

She started to struggle frantically. She used every ounce of her fragile strength, desperately trying to yank her wrist out of my iron grip. Her pathetic resistance was absolutely nothing to me. It was like a fragile bird fluttering against a steel cage. But the sheer fact that she was *trying* to pull away from me? That she was actively fighting my touch?

It was like pouring pure gasoline onto the unhinged, explosive rage burning in my chest.

A low, dangerous, guttural snarl vibrated in the back of my throat.

I flexed my arm, the heavy muscles instantly coiling tight under my dark suit jacket. With a brutal, completely unforgiving force, I yanked her backward. I didn’t care if it hurt. I didn’t care if she screamed. I violently twisted her body around to face me.

The hood of her oversized sweater slipped off.

A cascade of pale blonde hair tumbled down, whipping wildly in the freezing autumn wind.

And then, I finally saw her.

The face that had haunted my darkest nightmares. The face that had driven me to the absolute edge of madness. She was right here. She was a living, breathing reality, violently crashing back into my world.

Irina.

My mate. My wife.

My eyes burned like hot coals. The forest green color was instantly swallowed by a terrifying, pitch-black void. I found her. I actually found her. The agonizing, empty void in my chest finally clicked shut.

But as my obsessive, starved gaze locked onto her face, my heart felt like it was being sawed in half by a rusted blade.

Her expression... was pure, unadulterated terror.

Her face was completely drained of color. She was ghostly pale. Those beautiful, clear blue eyes held absolutely no joy. There was no relief. There was no longing for me.

There was only an endless, bottomless ocean of fear. Disgust. Absolute rejection.

She was looking at me like I was the devil himself. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

She was terrified of me. She was shrinking away from me, just like she always did.

"No... let me go! Let me go!" she started to scream, her voice cracking hysterically into the cold night.

She couldn’t even look me in the eye. She squeezed her eyes shut and blindly brought her free hand up, frantically pushing against my solid chest. Her worn sneakers slipped and kicked wildly against the cold pavement. Her entire body instinctively curled inward, desperately trying to escape my shadow, trying to disappear back into the dark, freezing pine forest.

She hated me this much?

She would rather let that pathetic human boy touch her arm on a crowded college campus than let me hold her?! She would rather hide in the dirt than stand by my side as my Queen?!

The thought flashed through my brain like lightning.

The jealousy and the rage completely obliterated whatever logic I had left. My wolf roared in sheer humiliation. He was furious at her rejection. He was drowning in a violent, destructive agony.

"You hate me this much?!" I roared, my voice vibrating the ground beneath our feet. "You want to leave me this badly?!"

My alpha aura exploded. It was a terrifying, suffocating shockwave of pure dominance that could literally crush human bones. The towering pine trees around us shook violently under the sheer weight of my fury. The dead leaves ripped off the branches, swirling violently in the air around us.

I stepped forward.

My massive body cast a dark, suffocating shadow over her. I aggressively backed her up until her spine hit the rough stone wall of the manor’s courtyard. I trapped her completely. There was no exit. There was no escape.

She kept screaming. She kept struggling, hitting my chest with her small, trembling fists. Her blue eyes were overflowing with terrified, desperate tears.

I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand her looking at me like that. I couldn’t stand the thought of her running away ever again.

My large hand shot upward.

I grabbed her by the throat.

I didn’t use my full, bone-crushing strength. I didn’t snap her fragile neck. But I pinned her. I locked my blistering hot palm around her delicate throat, pressing her firmly against the cold stone. I could feel her frantic, racing pulse beating wildly against my fingers. It was a frantic, terrified flutter, like a dying bird trapped in my grip.

I forced her to look up. I forced her to tilt her head back and face the terrifying, unhinged monster she had run from.

I stared straight into her terrified, tear-filled blue eyes. The madness completely consumed me. The bloodlust, the obsession, the unbearable, agonizing love I had for this broken woman all twisted together into a violent, explosive cocktail.

I let out a raw, chest-rattling roar that echoed into the dead night sky.

"Where else are you going to run?!"