Owned by the Alpha Kings
“I need a wife in order to officially claim my position as leader of the Pack,
And you need a way to pay me back for stealing my property.”
When Daphne Bowen steals a necklace from a powerful mob boss, she is offered a marriage contract to forgive her debt.
But she soon finds out that he is the alpha king of a werewolf shifter pack…
Chapter 1
When I saw the opal diamond necklace on display inside the store, I was only thinking about how I was going to pay my overdue rent.
So I took it.
Now I’m face to face with the most powerful alpha in the city, begging for forgiveness.
“I-I’m sorry,” I say, trying to get my feet under me so that I’m not quite so small compared to him.
“I’ll give it back. I just- I just needed it-”
“The insult was made,” the man snarls, sounding a lot like a feral dog himself.
“You can’t just take it back. You have to pay.”
Pay?! Is he serious? The necklace stuffed in my hoodie has to be tens- no, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can’t even make rent, how can I pay for something like that?
“No, please,” I beg, finally pushing up on shaky legs. “I-I can’t afford it.”
“Then maybe you should have asked for a better paycheck from whoever hired you to steal it,” the man says.
“Who was it? Goddard? The Three Kings?”
“I-I have no idea who that is,” I say helplessly, my thoughts a whirling mess.
“Look, I took it because I’m broke, all right?! I’m about to be evicted from my place. I didn’t even plan it, I just… I just thought it would buy me some time.”
Then his words click, and I suck in a breath. The Three Kings. They were one of the two real life families that operate in our city, buying out politicians and running underground casinos and rigging sports games. It’s always sounded absurd to me, because I think of the mob as something that stopped existing decades before I was even born.
Looking up at this man, though, I realize how stupid that belief was.
“Regardless of your excuses,” he says,“you’ve stolen the property of the Pack. You might not know our laws, but that doesn’t mean they don’t apply to you. You owe me a favor.”
The Pack? Laws? Favors? A hysterical sound is bubbling up in my throat, but my body can’t decide if it’s a laugh or a scream, so it just dies off in a strangled croak.
I am in way over my head. The Pack, if I remember right, are the second of the mafia families.
“Please, sir,” I say, my throat so dry it almost hurts.
The man cocks his head, quiet for another long moment. It’s unnerving to feel the gaze of a person whose eyes I can barely see.
“I’ve decided what favor to collect,” he says
And steps back, allowing more of the orange light of the street lamps to gild the planes of his face.
Every angle of him is sharp enough to cut, and his eyes are perfectly black, though that could just be the darkness of the night. I was right, his jaw is broad and square, framed by wild pale hair.
He looks like the kind of creature you’d find lurking in the green depths of the woods, not standing in an alley in the middle of the night.
“I am Dimitri Vladislav,” he says. “What is your name?”
I realize that I’m gaping like a fish, and clamp my mouth shut so I can swallow. That name, Dimitri Vladislav.
The leader of the Pack. Oh god, how did this happen to me? How did I make the split second decision to steal a necklace and end up on the wrong side of a mafia don?!
Chapter 2
I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming.
My arms are already crossed tightly over my stomach, and I subtly pinch myself on the inside of my wrist. Then I do it again when I don’t immediately wake up.
The man- Dimitri Vladislav- is still standing before me.
My body has passed beyond trembling and now the tips of my fingers are starting to feel numb.
I haven’t had this much adrenaline course through me ever.
“I… I don’t know if I should tell you my name.” I say.
“It is a bit late for caution,” Dimitri Vladislav says wryly.
“Here is my favor, nameless thief. Or maybe I should call it a proposal.”
He steps closer to me again, falling back into shadow. “You join my Pack, and I’ll make sure you’re never in need of money again.”
I blink, trying to make sense of the individual words, because the lot of them strung together make no sense. “Join… your Pack? I… I don’t…” Oh my god. How do you turn down an invitation to join the pack?!
I don’t actually think I can say no to his offer. Not if he’s going to hold such a grudge over a stolen necklace.
Besides, at the end of the day, joining the pack still beats homelessness. Right?
“If you’re trying to recruit me as an official pickpocket, or whatever,” I say, hardly believing my own words, “I promise you, stealing your necklace was completely spur of the moment. I’ve never even shoplifted before.”
“How noble,” Dimitri says, sounding genuinely amused.
“But no, that is not my intention. I’m ‘recruiting’ you, as you put it, to be my wife.”
I splutter, unable to hide my incredulity.
“Your- what?!”
“I mean, I… Why me?”
“Why not you?”
This is too much. This is far too much after far too much already. I don’t even have a chance to stop it from happening- I start laughing. Not even laughing. Cackling. There is no way a mob boss just proposed to me in an alley after chasing me down with his dog because I stole some old necklace from him. No. No way.
“Why not me?!” I gasp, falling back against the brick wall.
“Me?!” Me, with my estranged family and my dead-end job at the gas station and my recent- failed- attempt at stealing. I’m not laughing so much as hyperventilating at the very idea.
“That’s not- the kind of logic people use when they pick a life partner!”
Like a flash of lightning, Dimitri is suddenly right in front of me. I suck in a breath so hard it becomes a shriek. When he speaks, his voice is so low I can feel it in my bones.
For a long time, the only sound between us is my shallow, panicked breathing. The hysteria is gone, my thoughts crystallized by a fresh wave of adrenaline. He’s so close that he fills all of my vision, forcing me to focus on him and his words.
“You think I’m joking,” he says. Not a question.
“No,” I whisper quickly. “No, I- I don’t.”
“But you have the gall to laugh in my face when I make you such a generous offer.”
His breath is hot on my face, real and alive and too close. My voice is almost too small to hear.
“I’m sorry. I’m just-” Well, I might as well admit it. “I’m scared.”
“Dimitri’s chin lifts a little at that. I still can’t read his eyes in the darkness.
“You think I’ll do something bad to you.”
He’s a furious mob boss who chased me with a dog until he had me cornered in an alley. Of course I think that. But I can’t get my mouth to work anymore, so I stay silent, which is answer enough.
“Why would I when you still have value to me?” he asks, which is maybe less reassuring than he means it to be.
“Because you want me… to be your wife?”
I croak out, just to confirm I heard him right. The words sound insane all lined up like that. Can’t he hear it?
“I need a wife in order to officially claim my position as leader of the Pack,” Dimitri says matter of factly.
“And you need a way to pay me back for daring to steal my property.”
He pauses, his head cocking a little. Studying me, as if he can see me clearly in this darkness.
“Again, why not you?”
My mind spins. I thought he was already the Pack’s leader. Then again, all I know about his world is what I’ve heard second hand. Does this severe, intimidating man actually have competition for the position of mafia boss?
Does he need a wife based on another one of the Pack’s obscure laws?
What year is this?! What is happening to me?!
I don’t dare ask him any of these questions, and I don’t dare give them more than a cursory glance myself in case I start laughing again.
Besides… It’s not like I have some guy waiting for me at home, not after- well. It’s not like I have grand dreams of romance. I’ve daydreamed before about how I might react if some man with a million dollars fell out of the sky and offered me a line of credit.
About how I’d say yes in a heartbeat, just so I’d never have to think about where my next meal came from.
But that was just a fantasy. Something to keep me going when I couldn’t pay my phone bill anymore or ramen was the only thing I could eat for two out of three meals in the day. Not something I ever actually dreamed would happen to me.
Again I want to ask him, why me?
We can keep answering our questions with questions until the sun rises. But maybe I shouldn’t be interrogating this gift horse so hard. Seriously, what are my other options? I am very literally up against a wall.
And he’s the most attractive man I’ve ever seen, offering me stability.
And if I turn him down, who knows what’ll happen.
“I’ll… I’ll do it,” I hear myself say.
Dimitri smiles.
And before I can even cry out, or even think to, his hot mouth is pressed into mine, capturing all sound. The pressure of him is intense, forcing my body to conform to every line of his. He feels like a furnace.
He pulls back just a little, and I take a much needed breath. “Wh-what are you doing?” I stammer, because his body is doing things to my body that I was not prepared for five minutes ago.
Dimitri’s head dips to my ear. His teeth, shockingly sharp, nip at my lobe. I feel a pang between my legs, and I gasp.
“Sealing the deal,” he says matter of factly, before closing his mouth over mine.
I squeak, and he swallows the sound. His tongue drags over my teeth, demanding that I open for him. His hands are rucking up my hoodie, his impossibly hot palms running over my stomach and sides like they’re memorizing my topography. I’m overwhelmed again, every sensation warring for attention, so for a moment I can’t even react. My brain is a mess.
What is happening?!
But even if I’m not sure what to do with my mouth or my hands, I know that I can’t pull away. This feels like losing control, and I’m more than used to that. I’ve been losing control of my life for a long time. But this- this also feels good, and honestly? I don’t care to think beyond that.
Like stripping the necklace off the display dummy, I make a spur of the moment decision and allow my body to completely relax.
Dimitri feels the shift in me, because he grinds his hips into mine. When I allow my mouth to open, he immediately claims it with his tongue. I still have no idea what to do with my hands, and so I don’t do anything. I press my palms back against the brick wall and arch my body up into his touch. I can tell that pleases him, because he growls, the sound coming from deep in his chest instead of the back of his mouth. The vibration moves through me like thunder.
His mouth leaves mine, and I breathe for the first time in eternity.
“Turn around.”
I start to obey, too dazed to do otherwise, but then I hesitate. No, I freeze, realization splashing like cold water over me.
His eyes narrow a little. “Something wrong?”
I lick my lips, not certain how to admit this without feeling ridiculous. “I- I don’t know if I’m… I’m not really sure if… I mean, is this really the best place…?”
Dimitri’s hands squeeze my hips just a little, and my voice dies away. “Could it be possible that you have never lain with anyone before?” he asks bluntly.
Lain with anyone. What an old fashioned way of putting it. I think of my ex, about how many times he tried to pressure me to have sex, and how every time he did, I wanted him less. By the time I got away from him, he despised me, and I was still a virgin.
I haven’t been with anyone since, not seriously, not even casually. I couldn’t even think about it.
“I just… never got around to it,” I say lamely.
“Then you’re right,” Dimitri says, head lowering so his words whisper along my jaw. “This is hardly the place.”
His hands tighten on my hips, and before I realize what’s happened he’s spun me around and pinned me belly first against the brick wall.
I suck in a sharp breath, but he presses his face into my hair, into my neck, stilling me. “Relax,” he murmurs. “I will claim you soon, but not now.” One of his hands slides up over my ribs, shoving my bra askew and cupping my breast. The other curves around me to press low and flat over my abdomen. The tips of his fingers slip under my jeans, and his thumb brushes, just once. It’s such an intimate gesture that a spark goes through my whole body, and my head spins. When his lips, his teeth, his tongue, begin to travel down the length of my neck and over my shoulder, I can’t help the strangled moan that tears out of me.
“I’m grateful I caught you, thief, before another man could sully you,” Dimitri is saying, though it’s hard to hear him now over my panting breaths. “And to show my gratitude, I intend to make you scream every second of our wedding night.”
This is too intense. I’m drowning in the heat of his body, his hands, his mouth. If he changed his mind now, if he fucked me right here in this alley, I don’t think I’d even complain.
But suddenly, he’s gone. His delicious warmth, the pressure of his body, the scrape of the calluses on his fingers- gone as he steps back from me.
I sag against the wall, my legs like jelly. My entire body fizzes like a spent firework, and I haven’t even orgasmed for this man yet.
Dimitri doesn’t speak, just gives me a moment to collect myself. When I’m finally able to turn and face him, heart and body still pounding painfully, breathing still shaky, he’s watching me with obvious satisfaction.
What is your name?” he asks, and it comes out more like an order than a question.
I don’t deny him this time.
“Daphne,” I whisper back, my voice ragged. “Daphne Bowen.”
“Daphne Bowen,” he repeats, “I claim you as my mate.”
Then he takes the necklace out of my hoodie’s pocket, and clasps it around my neck.
