The Alpha’s Secret Obsession Now novel Chapter 48

Morgan’s POV

The prey doesn’t see me coming until my teeth are already closing around its throat.

Blood bursts across my tongue, rich and copper-sweet, and the rabbit’s small body goes limp beneath my jaws with a satisfaction that sings through every fiber of my being.

The forest stretches endless around me, moonlight filtering through pine branches in silver shafts that illuminate the hunt like a blessing from something ancient and wild.

The instinct commands me to run, and I obey without question, my paws striking earth in a rhythm that feels more natural than breathing ever did on two legs.

Another scent catches my attention—something larger.

My muscles bunch and release as I surge forward through underbrush, and the thrill of the pursuit overwhelms every other sensation until nothing exists except speed and hunger and the primal joy of being exactly what I was always meant to become.

The deer appears between two massive pines, its eyes catching moonlight as it registers my presence too late.

I leap.

‘MORGAN, WAKE UP NOW.’

Nireya’s voice tears through the dream like claws through silk, and I surface into consciousness with a gasp that burns my throat raw.

The television flickers in the corner of the living room, casting blue shadows across furniture that takes several heartbeats to recognize.

Ricky sleeps beside me on the couch, her head tilted back against the cushions, her breathing slow and steady in the rhythm of someone deeply unconscious.

Sweat soaks through my shirt, plastering fabric to skin that feels wrong beneath my fingers—too tight, too hot, stretched across bones that are trying to reshape themselves without permission.

‘Look at your hands, Morgan,’ Nireya urges, and the panic threading through her presence mirrors my own. ‘We’re running out of time.’

I lift my palms and catch my reflection in the dark window across the room, the television’s flickering light casting my silhouette against the glass.

The face staring back at me belongs to someone caught between forms—jaw elongating, ears shifting position against my skull, fur beginning to sprout along my cheekbones in patches that spread even as I watch.

My eyes glow amber in the glass, no longer controllable.

“No.” The word comes out garbled, distorted by a mouth that refuses to hold its proper shape. “Not here, not now, Ricky is right there—”

‘The kitchen,’ Nireya commands with urgency that leaves no room for argument. ‘Get away from her before we lose what’s left of our control. Move, Morgan.’

I stagger upright on legs that buckle and reform with each step, my spine curving in ways that send white-hot agony radiating through my nervous system.

The kitchen doorway feels miles away, but I force myself forward, gripping furniture for support as the shift accelerates beyond anything I can contain.

The counter meets my hip with a crash that sends a ceramic bowl shattering across the tile floor.

I barely register the sound over the roaring in my ears, the pressure building behind my eyes, the desperate scramble of my consciousness trying to hold itself together against the tide of instinct threatening to sweep everything away.

‘You need to let it happen,’ Nireya says, and her voice carries an apology I wasn’t expecting. ‘Fighting only makes the transition violent. The more you resist, the less of yourself remains when we complete the change.’

“I can’t—” My fingers find the windowsill and grip until wood creaks beneath pressure that no longer feels like my own. “If I shift completely, I don’t know what I’ll do. The dream, Nireya, I was hunting, I was killing, and it felt good—”

‘You are stronger than your hungers, Morgan.’ Her presence wraps around mine with fierce protectiveness.

‘I have watched you prove it again and again since we awakened together. But you need to trust that the wolf is not separate from who you are—she IS who you are, and she knows the difference between prey and friend.’

‘Run,’ Nireya commands, and this time the instruction carries no ambiguity. ‘Run, Morgan, before you do something we cannot undo.’

I run.

The forest rises around me as I flee the house, the suburbs, the scent of Ricky’s fear still clinging to my fur. Pine needles cushion my paws as I push deeper into darkness, and the moon watches my flight with silver indifference.

Minutes blur into a stretch of time I cannot measure.

My body settles into the rhythm of sustained movement, muscles working in concert, lungs filling and emptying.

The hunger recedes by degrees, replaced by exhaustion and the particular shame of nearly destroying the one human who showed me genuine kindness.

‘You stopped yourself,’ Nireya says quietly, her presence threaded through mine with pride I did not earn. ‘Good job, Morgan.’

I have no breath to respond, no words that would capture the tangled mess of relief and horror churning through my consciousness.

The impact comes without warning.

Another wolf slams into my flank with force that sends both of us tumbling through underbrush, teeth and claws scrabbling for purchase as momentum carries us in a violent arc.

Pain explodes through my shoulder as jaws close around muscle and bone, and the taste of my own blood floods my senses with copper terror.

The stranger’s eyes glow amber in the darkness—predator’s eyes, hunter’s eyes, the eyes of a wolf who has not come to play.

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