Free The Alpha's Captive by Loki Renard

her eyes, shocked out of her senses. The battle going on before her was brutal, snarling and growling filling her ears and making her muscles weak with fear. She was nothing but prey, her life hanging in the balance between two predators.
    The two wolves rolled over and over, teeth flashing, lips pulled back in furious snarls. Though she acquitted herself well, it soon became obvious that Sacha had no chance at all. She was no match for her brother, but she could not admit that. Fur flew, blood began to flow, and still she would not submit, not until Lorcan’s jaws fastened upon her throat and he pinned her there on the earth, his canines poised atop her jugular.
    For a moment it seemed as though he would kill her, but he stilled his jaws and instead held her there until it was obvious to all that she had been utterly bested. Sacha let out a whine of defeat and it was over.
    Lorcan flowed back to human form and looked down at his fallen sister with a furious glare. “I am stripping you of your rank,” he said. “You are the lowest of our number now. You have shamed our father’s legacy and you have disobeyed me for the last time. You will be punished severely for this. Richard! Derrick! Take her away and give her aid! She will need it.”
    While the rest of the pack helped Sacha at Lorcan’s bidding, he focused his attention on Hannah. He lifted her gently from the ground, his face twisted with sorrow and anger. “I told you to stay where you were,” he murmured. “Why could you not obey me?”
    As he took her in his arms, she began to quake from head to toe, recoiling from Lorcan’s gentle touch with a squeal of panic, which only caused her broken body to send arcs of pain shooting through her nervous system.
    “You’re not… you’re not a…”
    “Shhh,” Lorcan murmured. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
    “It’s a lot to worry about!” She would have hurled herself from his arms, but the pain in her chest and side made movement an impossibility. She was wounded, vulnerable, and absolutely petrified.
    “I’m still the man you knew,” he soothed her. “Just a little more. And I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
    He repeated the words in a deep baritone, looking her dead in the eye until she felt some part of her mind accept what he was telling her.
    “You’re a werewolf,” she rasped through bloodied lips. “You’re a monster.”
    “A misunderstood monster, I assure you,” he said with a soft smile that was clearly supposed to put her at ease. She was in far too much pain and still far too terrified to find his comment in any way comforting. She was weak, she was wounded, and all her instincts told her that she was in grave danger.
    “I suppose we both have some explaining to do,” he said wryly as he carried her toward the relative safety of the manor.
    Trembling with fear and pain, Hannah could feel herself going into a deep shock. Surely what she had seen was not possible. Men were not wolves. Wolves were not men. But maybe these men were wolves. Were-wolves.
    An inane giggle rose to her lips at the inner word play, which seemed so out of place as she was carried in limbs that felt human, but that she had seen be something else entirely.
    Lorcan took her into the manor and carried her up the stairs, past the portrait of Honoraria. The image of her ancestor there on the wall momentarily anchored her back in the reality she’d thought she’d known.
    “That’s her…” she said in shaky tones. “Honoraria. It is her, isn’t it?”
    “It is,” Lorcan admitted. “I will explain everything soon. Right now, I need to ensure your safety.” He carried her into a bedroom and laid her down with tender care on a large bed. “Lie still,” he said when she tried to sit up. “You’ve been wounded, possibly you have broken bones. The doctor will be here soon. I’m going to clean the minor cuts, hopefully we can ward off any infection. Sacha didn’t bite