Chapter 1. Her Alpha Fantasy

Lia

You know that feeling when the world feels way loud, and all you want to do is disappear? Not for real, because then you’d miss class or get kicked out of your apartment or whatever, but just… mentally check out?  That’s me, almost every single day.

Most people get lost in their phones or scroll through social handles, but me? I escape into books. Not just any book, I’m talking about werewolves, soul mates, blood bonds, the kind of stories that make your heart race and your cheeks flush and your brain go please be real please be real.

It’s a Monday morning at campus, and the cafeteria smells like burnt coffee and stale fries. Everyone’s talking about midterms or who’s hooking up with who or complaining about the crappy WI-FI. But I’m sitting in my usual corner, nose buried in Cursed Alpa’s Mate again. For like the fourth time this semester. The page where I’m on? The one where the Alpha just claimed his mate when he comes back home from a ball drunk. He’s all fierce and furious and somehow totally tender even though he’s a walking storm. Honestly. It’s the kind of romance that will make even the coldest heart melt.

“Do you ever read anything without fangs in it?” Katie asked, dropping down across from me with a grin that says she’s been waiting to ask this forever.

Katie is my best friend and the perfect reality check. Psychology major, glasses sliding down her nose, all grounded and practical. She’s the voice in my head when it gets too loud, but right now, I’m way into the fantasy world to care.

I looked up, grinned and said, “normal boys are boring, really mean growls.”

She groaned like I’m the biggest dork on the planet. “You seriously need a social life. Or a therapist. Maybe both.”

I laughed, but the truth is, I’m kind of okay with my weird little world. “ I don’t want a social life. I want a mate,” I said, flipping the page like I’m flipping fate itself.

Katie raises an eyebrow but doesn’t argue. She’s heard this speech before. Honestly, I don’t  expect anyone to get it.

While everyone else is swiping right or freaking out about midterms or whatever, I’m dreaming of something different. Something raw. Something wild.

Back in my dorm later that night, my room looked like the aftermath of a fantasy convention. Posters of moonlit forest, Alpha wolves with eyes that seem to glow, girls standing fierce beside them like queens of some wild kingdom. My desk is a disaster zone, notebook filled with scribbles, half-finished sketches of wolves, and quotes I’m totally obsessed with.

My phone buzzed. Jace. Yeah, that guy from creative writing class who’s been orbiting me like a lost satellite since forever.

“Party Friday. You’re coming?”

I stared at the screen. Nope. Not my scene. “Nope, not my scene,” I texted back and tossed the phone on the bed.

I picked up marks from the moon again, tracing the worn cover with my finders. If only life was that simple. If only I could be the girl who got swept away by destiny and moonlight and a mate who’d never let go.

Reality check: I’m just Lia. College student, book nerd, hopeless dreamer.

But hey a girl has got to dream.

Growing up in the tiny town where everybody's business is everybody’s business only made my obsession worse. I wanted out. I wanted to go wild. I wanted something fierce and real, not the same old routine of coffee runs and lectures.

So I clung to my books, they were my lifelines

In class I’m the girl who zones out while the professor drones out while the professor drones about Shakespeare whatever. Instead of imagining Hamlet’s tragic fate, I’m imagining a fierce alpha finding me in the middle of the forest, marking me like I’m the only thing that matters.

Sometimes I whisper the lines I memorized when no one is watching.

“Alpha’s claim, never be alone.”

Yeah, I’m that girl.

Last week, during creative writing, I finally shared one of my stories about a girl chosen by a dangerous Alpha wolf, dangerous but loyal, stubborn but fierce. The room was silent when I finished reading. The professor smiled warmly and said “You have a vivid imagination Lia, keep nurturing it.”

I wanted to cry. For the first time someone outside my little fantasy world understood and took me seriously.

After class Jace caught up with me . His eyebrows were raised like he was trying to figure me out. “You really believe all that Alpha mate stuff?”

I shrugged, not sure how to explain. “It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. It’s the idea. The promise of something bigger.”

He shook his head, but I caught a flicker of something, respect? Maybe.

Later that night, I curled up in my bed and it’s my favorite blanket. I wrote in my journal poems, stories, and dreams I’m too scared to say out loud.

“One day my Alpha will find me, I just have to wait.”

Sometimes, when the wind rustles through the trees outside my window, I swear, I hear a distant howl.

And I smile.

Maybe, just maybe my fairytale is waiting out there somewhere.

The next morning, my alarm jolted me awake at 7:15 a.m. too early for a Monday but just enough time to get ready before the chaos of college life swallows me whole. I hit snooze twice then finally dragged myself out of bed, hair a tangled mess, pajamas clinging to me like a second skin.

My small apartment smells faintly of last night's ramen noodles and burnt toast. I stumbled into the kitchen, making a pit stop at the tiny coffer maker that barely works. The first sip of bitter liquid jolted me fully awake or at least as awake as I get before my 9:00 a.m lecture.

I saw Emily on top of a desk, skirt pushed up, her fingers deep inside herself. Her eyes snap open in shock.

“What the fuck are you doing this early morning?”

She jumped off the desk “none of your business.”

“I got caught…  so why the fuck am I dripping even more now? God I’m so fucked up.” She mumbled as he moved to the bathroom.