Page 32 of Traded to the Alpha Wolf

He doesn’t wait for me to finish. He thrusts all the way in, one long, merciless drive.

It’s almost too much: the stretch, the fullness, my body still trembling from the aftershocks of orgasm. But he doesn’t let up. He sets a brutal pace immediately, hips slamming into me, the sound obscene, skin to skin so loud it echoes off the walls. He braces my thighs wide, forcing my knees almost to my chest, his eyes locked on mine, gold burning through the blue, and every time I clench around him, he groans, deep and guttural, a warning that he’s close but not letting go. Not until I do. He leans over me, palms on either side of my head, so big he blots out everything else. He thrusts harder, deeper, grinding his pelvis against my clit in a way that makes me sob, desperate for more even though I feel like I might break apart. He kisses me, biting at my lower lip, devouring every sound I make, and when I come again, it’s not gentle.

The orgasm rips through me, raw and violent, my nails raking down his back, my whole body seizing as I clamp down around him. He growls and pulls out, flips me over like I weigh nothing, and then he’s driving into me from behind, fists on my hips. I can barely breathe, can barely think, and the only thing that matters is the relentless, punishing force of him inside me. He wraps a hand in my hair and yanks my head back, the pain sharp and sweet, and bites down on my shoulder, right where my neck meets the curve of my body. I cry out, knowing that he’s marking me as his, and he fucks me harder. I can feel him getting close, the way his grip tightens, the way his breath goes ragged. “Come for me again,” he snarls, and I do, my channel spasming around him, as he finally tenses, spilling inside me.

He holds me there, flush against him as I feel the aftershocks. This wasn’t just sex; this was a bond cementing between us, and part of me thinks I should feel shocked, but all I feel is peace.

Chapter 19 - Cade

The room is full of predators, but Mara is the only one who looks like she might actually eat someone alive.

She’s wearing her clothes like armor today, with tight black jeans, boots, and a jacket that could conceal any number of weapons—this is the girl who survived her parents’ deaths and got closer to the hunters than anyone else we know. I know this is a big deal to her; she’s going to lay out everything she’s learned over years of tracking the hunters, all the information she risked her life to gather. She wants to be taken seriously because she’s not willing to give up her revenge, and I’m right behind her.

The diner is on lockdown for today’s meeting, and when she enters the main room, the entire table falls silent; they know how important this is. Mara doesn’t flinch from the scrutiny; instead, she sets her laptop on the table with a deliberateness that draws all eyes.

I take her in from across the room, watching the line of her shoulders, the steely set of her jaw. There’s something electric about her right now, like she’s running on pure adrenaline.

Brooks is the first to break the tension, grinning. “Is the clicker really necessary?” he says, pointing at the presentation remote she’s palmed like a weapon.

Mara’s face is pure deadpan. “You want to try and take it from me?”

The room erupts in a ripple of laughter, but even the ones who think they’re in on the joke, like Alder, Kaiden, and even Grey, keep their hands away from the table.

It’s been a week since the attack, the blood, the hospital bed. A week since Mara almost died in my arms, since I tore a hunter’s throat out for touching her. She should still be healing, but instead she’s been up every morning before me, trying to remember every detail she ever learned about the hunters, hunched over research, cross-referencing names and supply lists and truck manifests and whatever else she can scrape from the dark web. She barely sleeps. She barely eats. I can’t decide if I’m proud of her or if I want to lock her in a room until she remembers she’s not made of steel.

Willow and Kit flank her, both looking tired, too, but determined. Kit’s got her notepad open with her own notes. Willow sets up three glass bottles of water, each lined up just so, and gives Mara a little nod. They’ve been working together all week, the three of them, and it’s clear that Mara’s not just the guest star today. She’s the main event.

Rowan stands at the far end of the room, arms folded, his face unreadable. He’s good at that, but I can tell he’s actually worried. Not about the data, but about where it’s going to lead us.

Mara clicks the remote, and the first slide flashes up on the screen. It’s a map showing the western states overlaid with a constellation of red and yellow pins, each labeled with a date, a company, and a casualty count.

“Every hunter supply shipment over the last five years, and they go back even further, showing the European link has been longstanding,” she says, voice steady, “plus what you already had from the alliance’s own records. I scrubbed the transport manifests for phony names, cross-referenced against business registrations, and I can tell you at least four routes bring in stuff directly from Europe.” She lets that settle, eyes sweeping the table like she’s daring anyone to challenge her.“Every single one of these is run by a shell company, usually registered to a fake address in the Netherlands, Paris, or the UK, but shipments are coming in across the western states, and the actual trucks are coming out of hubs in Idaho, Montana, and here.” She clicks again, and the map zooms to our valley, the routes tracing the mountain passes in neon blue.

“Each time a new compound went up, the Order didn’t just ship in weapons. They brought in cases of medical supplies, most of it off the books. You might have thought it was for patching up after raids, but these aren’t wound kits or trauma gear. We think they’re…hormones and gene therapy kits, because of where they originate. Stuff you need a medical license to buy, but none of these companies have a doctor on staff. So, you know what that means.”

I watch the room; half the alphas are blinking in confusion, but Brooks gets there first. “They’re running experiments,” he says, voice low, “not just on shifters, but on their own people. Or on…” He glances at Mara, his face going carefully blank.

“On omegas,” Mara confirms, not even blinking. I watch as she hands the clicker off to Willow, who thanks her and then starts explaining what their research has led them to believe.

I listen intently as Mara’s information is linked with the alliance's intelligence, and a horrifying picture emerges. Willow keeps her voice gentle, but it cuts through the room anyway. “We’re now pretty sure the Order’s been running some kind of operation aimed at omegas for a very long time. They’re pinpointing rare omega triggers in the blood, using gene therapy to force an activation.” She gestures at the wall of data. “We don’t know how long they’ve been at this, but they know what they’re looking for now. Mara’s results must have beena breakthrough, even though it didn’t go entirely to plan; our research shows they were frighteningly close.”

Kit pipes up. “They’re finding more like her, right? Human-born, but with omega traits?”

Willow nods. “That’s the theory. They can trigger dormant omegas from a distance; anyone with a whiff of the gene is a candidate. I think that’s what the ‘vitamins’ were for. If they’d kept her longer, finetuned what they were giving her, she might have started affecting every alpha in a hundred-mile radius.”

There’s a shuffling at the table. Kaiden and Brooks both look at Mara with a new mix of awe and wariness, like she’s a lit match in a fireworks factory. I see Mara notices it, too. She shrugs, but there’s a faint pink high in her cheeks. “I never wanted to be anyone’s experiment,” she says, voice flat. “But I guess it’s better to know than to just be a pawn.”

My head is buzzing. I think of the quiet way Mara’s heat felt unnatural, the panic I’d felt when I realized how much I needed her, and how, after, I’d felt more like myself than I ever had. It was like she’d burned off the bullshit, left me with only the truth. I’d realized then that my feelings for her were so much more than the heat, but looking back, it was far more intense than I’d imagined possible.

But the Order hadn’t been able to predict that outcome. They thought making me desperate would make me weak. Instead, it made me sharper, more focused. More dangerous.

Alder leans forward. “What’s the endgame here? If they can trigger omegas like this, what’s it get them?”

Mara is the one who answers. “It gets them chaos. It gets them a generation of shifters who can’t control themselves, who can’t focus on anything but the nearest omega. It gets thema lot of dead alphas and maybe a lot of dead packs. And if they’re refining it, eventually they can sell it as a weapon across the world. Like a bioweapon for wolves. They weren’t expecting Cade to show up when he did, but they obviously hoped they’d primed me for use. Handing me over saved their asses and gave them the opportunity to see what happened next. But they couldn’t have anticipated my bond with Cade, or the fact that my omega nature would only make him stronger, not weaker. But their science was right. Willow’s research shows how close they really are to turning out genetics against us. They’re dangerously close to perfecting this…”

The room goes silent. I feel the weight of every eye as they turn to me. Because, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m the first alpha to feel a version of all this. I can only imagine what will happen if they refine the medication and really amp it up.

I clear my throat; the words are thick. “So, what do we do?”