I Played the Alpha Boys—and Made Them Mine

Ella

I pushed open the heavy double oak doors.

The bass from the party's speakers was shaking the floor.

The moment I stepped across the threshold, something whistled through the air above my head.

Splash—

An entire basin of cold, viscous filth came down from the sky and poured itself with perfect aim onto the top of my head.

The music stopped dead.

The icy water ran down through my hair, struck my shoulders, and slid inside my collar.

A stench so foul it turned my stomach spread through the air in an instant — rotten eggs mixed with the silt of a sewer.

I was a drowned rat, through and through.

The hall went deathly quiet. A few seconds later, a wave of laughter erupted, loud enough to be deafening.

I wiped the filth off my face, and the sting was so sharp I could barely keep my eyes open.

I lifted my head and looked at the spiral staircase on the second floor.

Valerie's friend Jessica was leaning against the brass railing.

A red plastic bucket hung from her hand, still dripping. She looked down at me from above, a vicious smirk on her face.

"Oh dear, sorry." Jessica covered her mouth with exaggerated shock. "I thought this was the trash can. But looking at how you are now, I suppose I didn't dump it in the wrong place after all."

The people around her laughed even harder.

They lifted their red plastic cups and pointed at me, jeering.

I stayed where I was, filth dripping from my skirt onto the carpet.

My jaw was clenched so hard I tasted rust and blood in my mouth.

This was my everyday life.

A month ago, the school's most popular quarterback — Tyler, a pureblood werewolf — had confessed his feelings to me in the hallway, in front of everyone.

From that day on, my life turned into hell.

Tyler was the man Valerie had set her sights on.

Valerie was the proudest of the aristocratic werewolves at school, the heir to the Alpha family.

Offend her, and you were as good as handed a death sentence at this school.

She led the campaign of bullying against me.

She had my textbooks thrown into the pool, dead rats shoved into my locker, my clothes cut to shreds in the changing room.

I fought back. I took recordings to the principal's office to report them. Once I even slammed a cafeteria tray into Valerie's face.

It was pointless.

Every time I fought back, the humiliation I got in return multiplied.

The principal turned a blind eye to the recordings, and that night a few werewolves cornered me in an alley with no cameras. They didn't even have to raise a hand — just releasing their werewolf dominance was enough to make my knees give way and leave me gasping for air. I was a fragile human, nothing more.

I was only a scholarship student.

A human who could stand in this elite academy only because of a scholarship.

They were werewolves.

They had strength, speed and healing ability that ordinary people could never hope to match.

In this food chain where the strong devour the weak, they were the apex predators, and I was an ant that could be crushed at any moment.

There was no way I could fight back against these aristocrats.

Tonight's party — Valerie had used the student council's name to force me to attend.

I knew it was a trap dressed up as an invitation.

The filth from above was only the appetizer.

"Look at her, the poor thing." Someone in the crowd whistled.

"Get out of here, human scholarship student. This isn't a place you belong."

I took a deep breath, and my lungs filled with the stench of sewage.

I didn't cry.

Tears were the cheapest thing in this place.

I straightened my spine, endured the humiliation, and took a step forward.

My shoes were full of water, and each step made a ridiculous squelching sound.

The crowd parted for me on its own, as though making way for a plague.

I walked to the restroom on the other side of the doors without looking left or right.

Just as I passed the edge of the crowd, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.

One of Valerie's hangers-on — a girl in a tight silver sequined dress — deliberately slid a high-heeled foot out into the middle of the walkway.

I saw it perfectly clearly.

I could step over it. I could stop.

But I knew them far too well.

If I dodged that foot, there would be a second one, or a hard shove from behind.

Rather than give them something to seize on, I might as well play along.

I didn't change my pace. I walked straight at it.

My toe caught on her heel.

My balance was gone in an instant, and I pitched forward with no control over my body.

The marble floor swelled toward me in my vision.

I closed my eyes and braced for the pain and the next round of mockery.

But the pain never came.

I crashed into a hard chest.

A wall of solid muscle.

I could even feel the explosive power coiled beneath the fabric of his suit.

A faint scent of cedar mixed with expensive cologne wrapped around me instantly, driving the stench away.

A pair of strong arms caught me steadily around the waist.

The laughter around me stopped as though someone had pressed pause.

The air was filled with a suffocating pressure — the aura of a top predator.

I froze.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and raised my head.

What I saw was an extremely handsome face.

A jawline like cut stone, deep features, and a pair of amber eyes.

He didn't push me away, and he didn't frown at the stench on me.

He looked down, his eyes fixed tightly on me.

I expected to find disgust or contempt there, but I didn't.

His eyes were full of pity, and something else — a fierce, intense tenderness I couldn't understand.

As though he were looking at a priceless treasure lost and then found again. As though he were looking at a small animal badly wounded.

"You—" I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

He said nothing. He only tightened the arm around my waist.

Then he raised his head, and his gaze passed over mine to sweep the entire hall.

The temperature in the hall seemed to plummet to freezing in an instant.

I could hear the werewolves around me — the ones who were always so arrogant — holding their breath.

His gaze finally locked onto Jessica on the second floor, and onto the girl who had put her foot out in the crowd.

"Who gave you the nerve?"