I Survived Midnight With The Alpha King—Now His Board Wants Me Dead

The blizzard hit the high peaks of the Olympic range like a tidal wave of white ice.

At four thousand feet, the mountain road ceased to exist. Our modified heavy-duty transport truck spun out on a sheet of black ice, crashing violently into a snowbank beside a sheer drop into the glacier valley below.

Gideon kicked his door open into the howling gale, snow instantly caking his tactical coat. "The transmission is cracked! We can't go any higher on wheels!"

I climbed out of the passenger side, pulling my thermal hood tight around my face. The temperature was ten below zero. The wind screamed through the ancient pines, carrying needles of ice that bit into exposed skin.

Kane stepped down from the truck bed.

He was breathing hard, a trail of steam pouring from his lips. He had stripped off his heavy coat; the silver fever burning through his veins made the sub-zero wind feel like a summer breeze. The dark veins along his chest and throat were glowing with a violent, toxic purple hue, visible through the thin fabric of his black compression shirt.

He looked up toward the jagged black tooth of rock that pierced the storm two miles above us: the Devil’s Throat, where the geothermal Blood Spring bubbled from the mountain’s volcanic core.

"Gideon," Kane shouted over the roar of the wind. "Take the perimeter rifles and establish a holding base at the treeline. If anyone follows us from Seattle, hold them."

"Kane, you can't make the ridge on foot in this state," Gideon yelled back, his face grim with despair. "Your heart will seize before you clear the first mile!"

"He won't be on foot," I said, stepping beside Kane, my boots crunching deep into the drift.

Kane looked down at me, understanding flashing in his eyes.

"Harper, the shift will be unstable," he warned, his voice shaking with the effort of holding the beast at bay. "The cold and the poison are pulling the wolf forward. Once I change, I may not turn back."

"Then run fast," I said, locking my arms around his neck. "Because I'm not letting go."

Kane didn't hesitate. With a low, guttural roar that tore through the howling storm, he let the barrier break.

The transformation was violent, agonizing. Kane fell to his knees in the snow as his spine arched, muscles tearing and rebuilding, his bones expanding with the sickening crackle of shifting stone. The midnight-black war wolf emerged from the drift, massive, terrifying, steam rising from his fur in thick clouds.

He dropped his shoulder low into the snow, nudging my hip.

I scrambled onto his back, burying my gloved hands deep into the thick, coarse fur along his mane, locking my legs tightly around his massive ribcage.

The wolf rose. He threw his head back and loosed a long, mournful howl that echoed across the frozen canyons, a challenge hurled straight into the teeth of the blizzard.

Then he ran.

The power beneath me was terrifying. Every leap covered twenty feet of snow-choked ridge, his massive paws finding purchase on slick granite where a human would have slipped to their death. Wind tore at my clothes, freezing my eyelashes, stealing the breath from my lungs, but I buried my face into his neck, holding on with pure, desperate tenacity.

Beneath my thighs, I could feel the unnatural, erratic thrumming of his heart. It wasn't beating in a steady rhythm; it was hammering in chaotic, violent bursts, the silver rot constricting the muscle, slowly suffocating the organ from the inside out.

Halfway up the ridge, near a narrow ledge overlooking an eight-hundred-foot abyss, the wolf stumbled.

He hit the ice hard, sliding on his side toward the precipice. I was thrown clear, rolling violently through a snowbank, coming to a stop three feet from the edge.

"Kane!" I screamed, spitting snow from my mouth, scrambling to my feet.

The massive wolf lay on the slick rock, gasping for air, thick black foam dripping from his jaws. His limbs were convulsing violently. The purple light under his skin had spread to his face, mapping out every capillary across his skull.

A sharp, metallic click echoed from the rocks above us.

Through the curtain of driving white snow, six figures emerged, clad in white winter camouflage, their assault rifles equipped with thermal scopes and heavy drum magazines.

Standing in the center was Marcus Mercer’s younger brother, Julian—the exiled black-ops commander of Mercer Defense who had gone off-grid two years ago.

"Look at the mighty King," Julian sneered through his tactical mask, his voice amplified by a throat mic. "Reduced to dying like a poisoned dog on a frozen rock."

He leveled his rifle straight at Kane’s heaving flank.

"Vivian sent the distress ping before your people seized the servers, Harper," Julian said, his finger resting on the trigger. "The Mercer family may have lost the boardroom, but this mountain belongs to the dead."

I didn't have a weapon. My carbine had been lost when the truck crashed.

I looked at Kane. His golden eyes were rolling back into his head, clouded by white agony, his claws scraping uselessly against the ice.

"Kane," I whispered, stepping between the rifle barrel and the dying wolf, spreading my arms wide. "Get up."

"Move aside, girl," Julian barked. "Or I blow your chest open first."

"You want the King?" I yelled into the storm, my voice ringing off the jagged peaks like a war horn. "You have to go through the Luna!"