The Lost Alpha’s Daughter’s Return

Bloom Tillbury paced around her lavish bedroom. She tugged on the hem of her silk robe. Her mind was replaying the events of that night in Yosemite. No matter how hard she tried to forget, the fragments would return—waking up naked in the woods, the confusion, the stranger with the piercing blue eyes.

But that was a year ago. She had sworn to herself that night to leave it behind. The park rangers had been helpful and professional. And after a thorough search of the area, they assured her and her friends that nothing sinister had occurred. Whatever had happened in those woods, it wasn’t because of them. They hadn’t done anything to her. And for Bloom, it was easier to believe that it was just a strange, unexplainable event.

Still, that didn’t stop the nightmares.

And it didn’t stop the incidents.

Bloom pulled open her wardrobe. She stared at the rows of designer clothes neatly hung. Her life was picture-perfect on the outside—always dressed to impress, always the center of attention. But inside, her world had been slowly crumbling since that night.

The first time it happened again, she had woken up in her garden. She’d convinced herself that she had sleepwalked—an embarrassing but not impossible explanation. But then it happened again, and again. Each time, she’d wake up disoriented, in strange places, sometimes far from her home. And her clothes were nowhere to be found.

The last straw had been the park near the city. Bloom cringed at the memory of that night—barefoot, wearing nothing but a stranger’s stolen shirt and pants. She had grabbed them from a clothesline in a desperate attempt to cover herself. The humiliation had been unbearable. Bloom Tillbury, the girl who wouldn’t be caught dead in anything without a high-end label, wearing some random person’s laundry. It was enough to make her want to scream.

She couldn’t ignore it any longer. Something was wrong with her. Something deeper than just sleepwalking or a wild night of partying gone awry. Bloom had tried everything to get answers, digging through old family records, asking discreet questions about her parents' past, but every door she knocked on remained closed. Her lineage, once a source of pride, now felt like an enigma. She started to wonder—was she some kind of freak?

Her friends noticed the change in her, too. They had begun to ask questions, especially after she locked herself in her bedroom for days at a time. She’d given her staff strict instructions to bolt the door from the outside, allowing no one to enter until she called for them the next morning. It was safer that way. She didn’t want anyone to see the aftermath—the torn sheets, the shredded pillows, and the destroyed furniture. It was as if something wild took over her during the night.

And maybe, it was true.

One morning, after another restless night, Bloom stood in her room, surveying the mess. The curtains were ripped from their rods. Her once-pristine bed sheets were in tatters, and her skin prickled with the aftermath of whatever chaos she had wrought while she was asleep.

She cleaned it up, like always. She had gotten good at hiding the evidence. No one could know, especially not her friends. If they found out, they would push her to get help. And the last thing Bloom needed was someone digging into her life, into her secrets.

She stared at herself in the mirror. She looked exhausted and pale. She rested her hands on the sink.

“What am I?” She couldn’t shake the feeling that something about her was different.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Red stood at the edge of a cliff, staring out at the sprawling forest below. It had been a year since he had seen her. He had spent countless nights replaying it in his mind.

Red couldn’t forget her.

He had tried to move on, to find his mate, but nothing ever felt right. No woman had stirred that connection in him, the bond he had been searching for his entire life. It was as if she had left a mark on him, an imprint he couldn’t shake. His pack had noticed his restlessness, but he brushed off their concerns, burying himself in his duties and the constant pull of the hunt.

But the truth was, his thoughts kept circling back to that night. To her.

Who was she?

Red hadn’t seen her again since. And no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t part of his pack. And none of the nearby clans knew anything about a rogue wolf in the area. But there was something about her. He knew, deep down, that she wasn’t just any wolf.

His instincts told him that she was the reason he hadn’t found his mate.