Chapter 4 MY SIDE OF LUCK

Adam’s Pov

Warmth.

It was the first sensation I experienced. Not the biting burn of the cold drafts that streamed through my bedroom window, not the friction of thin blankets, but warmth. It wrapped around me like a shell, soothing me I had not felt for years. My battered body, normally grumbling about too many nights on a bed that hardly even counted as one, felt light, almost… pleasant.

For a moment, I thought I was dreaming.

My eyelids snapped open. Light streamed in through open, high windows, spilling golden stripes across walls that were not mine—too neat, too clean, too. expensive. This was not home. Hell, this was not even my world.

Panic flooded in, fast and smothering.

I sat up, beating heart against my chest. The sheets were cool under my palms, silken to the touch and scented with cedar and something acrid, earthy. Not mine. Not mine.

And then I felt it—the mattress sagging slightly beside me.

Movement.

I turned around, racing pulse.

The air stuck in my throat.

He was there. The same guy who'd attacked me in the dark. The same freak who'd kissed me without permission. The same guy who became something out of a bad dream.

Kael.

He lounged indolently across the bed as if he had the right to be there, as if I had the right to be there with him. He was bare-chested, his blankets bunched low around his hips, and each inch of him seemed to emanate power. Muscles carved and defined as if they'd been carved out of stone. Dirty blond hair that fell across his blue eyes. His jaw sharp as a razor.

For one spine-tingling moment, I forgot how to breathe.

And then reality came crashing back.

"What the fuck?" I sprang out of bed, nearly collapsing over my own feet. "You—you—you kidnapped me!"

Kael's lids gradually parted, slowly, lazily, as a lion stirs from sleep. But as soon as he saw me standing there, his eyes cleared. He pulled himself to a sitting position, still bare-chested, but not the body that disturbed me most—it was the steady, calm look he gave me, as if I wasn't shouting at all.

"Adam," he said softly, my name a soft pleasure that twisted my belly. "Calm down, please.".

"Calm down? Calm down?" My voice dissolved into hysteria. "You broke into my house, you dragged me here—wherever the hell this is—and now you're sleeping in bed like we're. what? Lovers? Are you insane?"

He glared, standing now, towering over me. Six-foot-four of raw intimidation. And I hated myself for noticing how the sunlight stuck to his skin, how his muscles flexed as he moved.

“You’re not safe there,” he said simply, as if that excused everything.

My chest heaved. “Not safe? That’s my home!”

His voice hardened. “A home doesn’t raise a hand against you.”

I froze. The slap from last night replayed in my mind, the sting, the humiliation. Heat crept up my neck—not from shame this time, but from the fact that this stranger had seen it.

"That doesn't give you the right to—" I choked. "To kidnap me."

He stepped closer. Automatically, I backed away until the back of my calves hit against the seat of a chair. His eyes grew softer again, desolately tender, and he reached for me.

"I couldn't bear for them to hurt you anymore," he whispered. "I had to rescue you. Because you're my mate."

I jerked my hand away as though burned. "Your what?"

My friend. The Moon Goddess herself chose you for me. You are mine, Adam. We are bound."

I looked at him. And then I laughed. I couldn't help it, the absurdity bursting out of me in sharp, bitter waves. "Bound? Moon Goddess? Are you listening to yourself? You sound like some wacko cult leader."

His expression did not falter. If anything, he looked. patient. Focused.

"You felt it too," he whispered. "The pull. The thud of your heart when we touched. That wasn't chance. That was fate."

I shook my head wildly. "What I felt was fear. You're insane. And you—" My words stuck in my throat at the memory, vivid and raw. His body exploding, splintering open, fur erupting, the impossible transformation before my eyes.

"You turned into a monster," I breathed.

His face hardened, anguish crossing his features, but he disguised it in a flash. "Not a monster. A wolf. I'm a werewolf. And you're my mate."

I laughed again, but even to myself, the sound was forced. "This is nuts. Werewolves don't exist. You don't exist. Any of this doesn't exist."

But the memory persisted—the vision of his enormous wolf shape, the rumble of his thunderous voice vibrating my bones. My stomach churned.

"Take me back," I demanded. My voice trembled, but I forced the words out. "Take me back home. Now."

"No."

The word was so flippant, so definitive, that it broke something in me.

Please," I whispered. My throat closed up. "Please, just release me. I'll not tell anyone. I'll forget all of this. Just… please."

He took another step forward, his jaw locked. "I cannot. You are in my care. You do not belong there. You belong here—with me."

Tears scalded my eyes, unwanted, searing with anger. Why was I a slave to this life? Why did I always find myself caught, helpless, in the hands of others?

A knock shattered the quiet.

"Alpha," someone said outside the door.

My gaze did not waver from him as he answered, "Come in."

A man entered—a doctor, judging by the white coat, glasses resting on the curve of his nose. He looked human enough, but the faint obeisance he showed Kael warned me otherwise. He was carrying a small leather medical bag and flashed me a professional smile.

Good morning, Adam," he murmured, as if speaking to a frightened animal. "I came to check on you. See that you're okay."

"I'm not okay," I snapped back. "I was abducted!"

The doctor glanced at Kael but said nothing. He just reached into his bag and produced a stethoscope instead. "If you'll allow me," he whispered.

Too drained to protest, I stiffly sat in the chair as he examined me—assessing my pulse, shining a light into my eyes, asking me if I hurt.

"You're fine," he concluded after a few minutes. "Just bruising and scrapes and some fatigue. Nothing nasty. A bit of rest and good food will have you right as rain."

He smiled sympathetically, but it had no effect on me. Nothing would.

"See?" Kael whispered, stooping in front of me now, eye-level. "You're safe here."

Safe.

The word sliced like a knife through my chest. Safe meant trapped. Safe meant stolen from everything I'd ever known, even if "everything I'd ever known" wasn't much.

I balled fists. "I don't want your idea of safe."

Kael's eyes went soft, but his tone was unyielding. "You'll see, Adam. Wait and see. The Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes."

I rolled over, unwilling to look his way. Unwilling to admit how the sound of his voice frightened me and tugged at some deep-seated place inside me I didn't want to recognize.

Because the thing was, terrible things always happened to me. And being kidnapped by a werewolf who informed me I was his mate? Yeah, that seemed around my luck.