The Alpha’s Secret Obsession Now novel Chapter 42

“How do I get back?” My voice emerges thin and desperate.

‘Follow our scent trail. Before dawn breaks and someone sees you.’

I force my legs to move, following the faint trace of my own passage through the underbrush with senses that feel sharper now.

The dream lingers at the edges of my consciousness—Paul’s hands, Paul’s mouth, Paul’s voice begging for forgiveness.

None of it was real.

But the danger I pose to everyone around me is becoming more real by the hour.

The December cold seeps through the ruined fabric of my nightshirt within minutes, settling into my bones with a persistence that makes my teeth chatter.

My bare feet ache against the frozen ground, each step sending shocks of pain up through my ankles and into my calves.

I have been walking for perhaps ten minutes when my body begins to fail me.

The exhaustion hits without warning—a wave of fatigue so profound that my knees buckle and I grab the nearest tree trunk to keep from collapsing entirely.

My muscles burn with the particular soreness that follows physical exertion I don’t remember performing, and my lungs struggle to draw enough air through the frigid atmosphere.

‘You’re not going to make it back like this.’ Nireya’s voice drips with the particular patience reserved for small children and very slow learners.

‘The house is over two miles from here, and you’re already turning blue. I’m genuinely curious how you see this ending.’

“Two miles?” The number lands like a physical blow. “How did I get two miles from the safehouse without waking up?”

‘You ran here as a wolf.’ She says it matter-of-factly, as though discussing the weather.

‘Four legs cover ground much faster than two, and the shift happened while you were still dreaming. By the time I realized what was happening, we were already deep in the forest.’

I press my forehead against the rough bark of the pine tree, letting the texture anchor me to reality while panic threatens to overwhelm rational thought.

This would be easier with Paul.

The admission burns through me like acid, unwelcome and undeniable. He knows things about being a wolf that I haven’t even begun to understand.

“So I need to walk two miles in December, barefoot, wearing a nightshirt that’s barely holding together, before Ricky wakes up and realizes I’ve vanished.”

The situation sounds even more impossible when I say it aloud. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll freeze to death before I make it halfway.”

‘Which is why you need to shift back and run home the same way you ran here.’

Oh, wonderful. Shift back. Why didn’t I think of that? Perhaps while I’m at it, I’ll also sprout wings and fly home, since we’re apparently suggesting things I have absolutely no idea how to accomplish.

The confidence Nireya has in my nonexistent abilities would be flattering if it weren’t so delusional.

“I don’t know how to do that, Nireya.” My voice cracks on the admission. “The first time I’ve shifted, it happened by accident. I have no control over when you take over.”

‘You’ve convinced yourself the shift is something that happens to you rather than something you choose.’

Nireya’s tone sharpens. ‘You’ve been treating me like a parasite that hijacks your body instead of a part of yourself.’

“Because that’s exactly what it feels like from my perspective.” I push away from the tree and wrap my arms around my torso, trying to conserve what little body heat remains. “Pure possession.”

‘It’s possession because you fight me every single time instead of working with me.’ The words carry an edge I’ve never heard from her before.

‘You hold on to your human form because you’re terrified. But Morgan, the shift isn’t something I do to you. It’s something we do together.’

The rebuke stings more than the cold.

I stand in the frozen darkness, my body trembling with exhaustion and hypothermia, and force myself to actually hear what she’s saying.

I stop fighting.

The moment I surrender completely, the pain transforms.

What was agony becomes release—the exquisite relief of a joint popping back into place after dislocation, of a cramped muscle finally stretching free.

My body flows into its new shape like water finding its natural course, and the cold that was killing me moments ago becomes a crisp, invigorating chill against thick silver-gray fur that now covers every inch of my form.

I stand on four legs, my massive paws planted firmly in the frozen earth, and the world explodes into sensation.

Scent hits me first—the layered complexity of pine and soil and distant water, the musk of deer that passed this way hours ago, the sharp ozone of approaching snow.

My ears rotate independently, catching sounds I couldn’t have imagined as a human: the heartbeat of an owl in a tree fifty yards away, the rustle of mice beneath the leaf litter, the distant rumble of cars on a highway miles from here.

Nireya’s presence doesn’t feel separate anymore.

We are one creature, one consciousness, one fierce and powerful being that was never meant to be divided against itself.

The moon hangs fat and silver above the tree line, and an impulse rises from somewhere primal and undeniable.

I lift my head and howl.

The sound that tears from my throat is triumph and grief and longing woven together into a single sustained note that echoes through the frozen forest.

‘Now run,’ Nireya urges, and her joy bleeds into mine until I cannot tell where she ends and I begin.

Then instinct takes over, and I run.

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