Mark of Sin: Bound to the Cruel Alpha

Against all odds, the door yielded under my shove, swinging open into the darkness. I froze on the threshold, a beat behind my own reality. I must have left it unlocked when I rushed out earlier.

Or maybe my keys were sitting on the desk all along. I didn’t care about the logic—all that mattered was that I could step inside, collapse onto the mattress, and surrender to sleep.

I slipped into the pitch-black room and tossed my backpack toward where I assumed the armchair was. My spatial awareness betrayed me; the bag crashed loudly into the far corner with a dull thud, knocking over something soft. Probably one of Annie’s random piles of pillows or blankets that she dropped wherever she pleased.

I kicked the door shut with my heel and blindly flipped the deadbolt.

Annie had her own key. If she ever locked herself out, she’d wail in the hallway like a siren—waking me even if I were six feet under, only to bore me back to death with her endless complaining. A hysterical, tired giggle bubbled in my throat as I pictured her standing over me with a broom and a bucket of holy water.

Stripping right in the middle of the room, I didn’t have a single drop of energy left to search for pajamas. Down to my tank top and panties, I navigated toward my bed on pure muscle memory. I threw myself onto the mattress with a ragged sigh, feeling the bone-deep tension begin to melt from my limbs.

The next instant, a scream ripped from my throat—wild, primal, and terrifying.

It was cut short immediately. A massive, rock-hard hand clamped over my mouth, suffocating the sound before it could wake the entire floor.

There was someone in my bed. Someone enormous.

I was slammed hard against a towering, impossibly hot chest. The initial paralysis gave way to sheer panic. I thridded, clawed, and twisted against his grip with desperate fury, but my frantic struggles were utterly useless. In the chaos, the heavy hand on my mouth slid downward, slipping under the hem of my tank top to cup my bare breast. Panic flooded my veins—who was this? Why had I been stupid enough not to check the room before stripping down?

"Don’t! Please, don’t touch me! Wh-who are you?!" I gasped against his palm, trying to shove his forearm off my chest.

The intruder went completely still, but his hand didn’t budge. I tried to hurl myself off the edge of the mattress, but his hold was an iron vise. Drained by exhaustion and blinded by terror, my thoughts scrambled like trapped prey in a cage.

"That is exactly what would have happened to you in any dark alley tonight. You absolute idiot."

A man’s low, rumbling voice sliced through the shadows, striking my frayed nerves like a whip. I froze, my blood turning to ice.

It was Magnus! He had broken into my room. He was waiting for me in the dark.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" I spat, shoving against his massive shoulder.

He didn’t budge. Instead, he buried his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply against my skin and hair before letting out a sharp, dissatisfied huff.

"You smell like ash and burning timber. Where were you?" he demanded, his grip tightening around my waist. I winced as his fingers dug into my flesh—that was going to leave a dark bruise tomorrow.

"I... I went home," I forced out, holding myself rigid. Every tiny movement pressed my bare skin closer against his overwhelming heat.

Now that the initial terror was ebbing, his scent hit my senses with suffocating clarity—rich leather, bitter tobacco smoke, and an underlying, volatile alpha musk that made my unawakened mark throb beneath my skin.

"Lang, are you completely dense? I asked you where the hell you were. Your parents don’t live in that house anymore. I was there—and you were nowhere to be found."

A terrifying, suffocating wrath laced his tone. I could feel it in the air—he was going to destroy me for running away tonight. Right here, right now.

"I was near the neighbor’s lot," I whispered, shrinking back. "I was freezing from the long walk, and someone had a fire going in an old oil drum... I just stopped to get warm..."

A sudden wave of shame washed over me. Why was I explaining myself like a guilty child? I had done nothing wrong.

Magnus let out a long, heavy exhale and finally released his grip. The moment his hands left my waist, I scrambled off the mattress, bolted across the dark room, and slammed my hand against the light switch. Overhead fluorescent light flooded the space, and I whirled around to look at him.

He was sitting on the edge of my bed, completely unraveled. I had been dead wrong thinking he was merely angry—he was in a state of absolute, suppressed rage. His white hair was disheveled, his crisp dress shirt rumpled, and his eyes... Goddess, his eyes had gone pitch-black, swallowed entirely by his rising wolf.

Magnus’s gaze dragged slowly down my body, inspecting every inch of bare skin. Reality crashed over me: I was standing in front of an enraged Alpha in nothing but a thin tank top and cotton panties. A fierce blush rushed to my face, scorching my cheeks.

"Don’t look at me!" I gasped.

I bolted to the wardrobe, yanked the doors open, and grabbed the first massive t-shirt I could find, pulling it over my head in a panic. The hem fell nearly to my knees, hiding my body, but the gesture only seemed to infuriate him further.

He rose from the bed and began stalking toward me with slow, predatory deliberation. I backed away until my spine slammed into the wooden wardrobe door, the hard metal handle digging painfully into my back. There was nowhere left to run.

"That’s too big for you. Whose shirt is this, Lang?" Magnus leaned in, his face inches from mine, his dark eyes burning into my soul.

I shuddered. The sheer possessiveness vibrating through his voice made every nerve ending in my body scream in warning.