Prologue

ALPHA RYDER'S POV

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My gaze fixed on her as she coiled around the strip pole like a deity in the moonlight. She was cautious, like a novice, but her bare body was sexually alluring, enough to keep me glaring for a long time. At this point, there was no one else I could notice in the club except for her.

Her scent.

The sweat dripping from her body crammed my nose and her earthy smell almost smothered me to my seat. I longed to touch her, to feel her skin, to know the secrets that lay within. I had never perceived her type of pheromones in my entire life. It was fresh, raw, and natural, and had a different kind of flavor. I could almost taste it on my lips.

She didn't smell like a beta, gamma, delta, or omega. Who was she? Where was she from? My heart ached with every beat, she was distant, out of reach and so I sit here, lost in desire.

"25 minutes is a long time to be glued on a stripper"

I hadn't realized how much time I had spent gaping at her. She had broken my 2-second-glance rule.

"I could bring her to…"

"Show her to my room" I was a bit too quick to say that, I yearned desperately for this stranger, and my desire burned like a flame. A natural giddiness stirred up within me as I walked into my lodge, waiting for the woman that caught my eye.

I paced restlessly and loosened my buttons as moisture exuded through the pores of my skin. I could suddenly smell her again, and it kept coming closer, I have never been these anxious and the door knob was taking too long to creak.

When the door opened and she came into the room, my leg stiffen to the floor, she was a vision of beauty in the night. My hunger could not be tamed and I rushed over to pin her to the door, holding her neck rigidly.

"Ah!" She groaned when my claws pierced her skin, but her soft voice echoed like a moan in my ears. I wanted her with every breath, to taste the sweetness of her flesh.

Her eyes were dreamily fixed on mine, I searched for the colors of identification, but I saw nothing. It was like she didn't exist and was just a product of my wild imagination.

I touched her lips with my fingertip and we both shivered as if a spark went through us. I leaned closer and my lips held hers hungrily, I was restless, and I didn't know what effect she had on me. The taste of her breath on my tongue, I wanted it to last forever.

All my body gave it all up for this stranger, and more than a kiss, I wanted to rip her off, but she turned her mouth away from me. "I'm sorry" she cried with a shaky breath. "I can't do this" she wept.

"I'll take it slow. However, you want it." I held her hands in reassurance desperately begging for her to touch me and feel me. She turned back to look me in the eyes again, for in her eyes I saw the truth.

"I can't do this," she said again, this time dropping something from her hands. The sound of the steel shifted my attention as I look at the ground to see what she had dropped.

It was a small dagger and the blades glimmered blue.

I froze recognizing this aconite. It was a dagger filled with wolfsbane. The lady I fell for was trying to kill me. I instantly held her to the wall, my claws piercing her skin.

"Who sent you?" I roared, but her eyes were full of tears instead, her face stored with fear and pain.

She went down on her knees and held my legs. "Please forgive me, Alpha Ryder" she pleaded. I hadn't gotten over the shock that she was sent here to kill me, but she also knew my name. I was restless once more, angry and frustrated. Hair sprang from the pores of my skin and my teeth grew sharper, so I moved away from her so I wouldn't hurt her, but she saw this as a means of escape and she took off from the room.

I was mad, felt insane, and eccentric, but it wasn't because she ran away. It was because my life was in her hands, and she chose not to take it. I was so into her that I didn't know a dagger was almost pierced to my back. The great Alpha Ryder could smell wolfsbane from afar, but her scent filled my nose and I lost all control. If she hadn't changed her mind, I might be dead, hurt, or tamed by my enemies.

Who was she? How could she successfully make me crazy? Where did that scent come from? What pack or rank is she from?

I wasn't bothered about her mission any longer. She saved my life and charmed me. All I needed to do was find her.