Page 1 of My Unhinged Alphas
Prologue: Lena
I wake up cold.
Not chilly. Not underdressed-for-the-weather cold. This is concrete-seeping-through-skin cold. The kind that feels permanent.
My head feels stuffed with cotton. Thick. Pressurized. Like I’m trying to think through water. When I try to lift my chin, the room tilts behind some kind of blindfold and nausea rolls through me.
My hands are behind my back. I try to move, just a little, and rough fibers scrape against my skin. Rope. Thick rope. It bites when I flex.
Okay.
So, I’m cold. Bound. And concussed.
I stop moving.
Fabric covers my eyes. It presses against my lashes and smells faintly of dust and sweat. Underneath that is another scent, heavier and unmistakable. Metal. Copper.
Blood.
I swallow carefully, trying not to breathe too deeply through my nose. The metallic tang coats the back of my throat, as if I’ve been chewing on pennies.
Okay, so this is happening.
My ankles are bound as well. The chair beneath me is solid, probably wood or metal. My shoulders already ache from being forced back.
Do not panic.
Panic will not help.
I take a slow breath and try to think. Where am I?
The air feels damp. Heavy. It smells like old stone and something coppery and wrong. A basement maybe. Or a storage space. Somewhere no one decorates.
How did I get here? What do I remember?
Dinner. A restaurant that was a little too polished, a little too expensive for someone like me. Soft lighting. A glass placed in front of me by a man with a smile that felt practiced.
“You can trust me.”
That’s usually the sentence that should send you running.
After that, everything becomes blurred. The memory feels smeared, like someone dragged their thumb across wet paint. I remember warmth in my limbs. I remember laughter that might have been mine. Then nothing.
Voices cut through the darkness. Male. Close.
“You weren’t supposed to kill him.”
“I didn’t.”
There’s a pause.
“He stopped breathing. That’s not the same thing.”
A wet dragging sound follows, something heavy scraping across concrete. My stomach flips hard enough that I almost gag.
That was not a mop.
Another voice speaks. Calm. Precise. Controlled. “Focus. There’s another body downstairs.”
