Claimed by the Tyrant Alpha

1. The Worst Dream Ever

The last thing I remembered before passing out was scrolling through Blood Moon Requiem at three in the morning, half-buried under my blanket burrito, eyelids doing that thing where they flicker like a dying flashlight. You know the one—where you’re basically speed-blinking Morse code for “help, I should be asleep but this drama is juicier than my entire life.”

So imagine my confusion when I woke up standing upright.

In a forest.

And not even the friendly kind of forest either. No chirping birds, no squirrels gathering nuts, no deer stepping out to ask if I’d like my hair braided. Nope. This was the kind of forest that screamed: you’re either about to get murdered, or recruited into a cult that sacrifices virgins under the full moon.

The trees were monstrous—tall, skeletal, their branches clawing at the fog like bony fingers. The ground squished beneath my slippers (yes, slippers, we’ll get to that horror in a second), damp with dew and something that smelled suspiciously like wet pennies. The air carried the unmistakable tang of blood. Fantastic. Definitely blood. Ten points to my overactive imagination.

I glanced down at myself, bracing for leather armor, chainmail, maybe a medieval gown. Nope. Oversized hoodie, plaid pajama pants, and my fluffy pink bunny slippers. My battle gear. Somewhere out there, Katniss Everdeen was laughing at me.

“Okay, Kiera, let’s do a vibe check,” I muttered, hugging myself. “Either this is the most realistic dream I’ve ever had, or I’m dead, or Netflix upgraded their horror package.”

But my stomach twisted as I looked closer. This wasn’t generic horror forest. This was specific. Familiar, even. The fog curled and rolled like spilled milk across the underbrush. A chorus of howls echoed in the distance, vibrating through my ribs. And the silence between them—the heavy, unnatural silence—felt like the forest itself was holding its breath.

I knew this setting. Word for word.

Because I had read it.

“Oh, no.” I pressed a hand to my mouth. “No, no, no.”

This was Blood Moon Requiem.

That melodramatic, angsty werewolf novel I’d devoured last night—the one with a villain so hot he could probably set a forest fire just by glaring at it, and a heroine so catastrophically stupid I wanted to throw my Kindle at her. I’d rolled my eyes, sworn I wouldn’t finish it, and then binge-read seven chapters anyway because self-control? Never met her.

Which meant—if my brain wasn’t glitching—I was inside the story.

As the heroine.

The heroine who dies before the plot even gets good.

“Moon Goddess, why?” I groaned, tugging at my hair. “I didn’t even like her! Couldn’t you at least have made me the sassy side character who lives to the sequel? Or, I don’t know, the random villager with two lines of dialogue and no chance of being mauled?”

The forest did not answer. The forest just… growled.

No, really. A low, guttural growl ripped through the trees, vibrating through my slippers into my bones.

I froze. Every horror movie PSA I’d ever ignored suddenly made sense. My bunny slippers squeaked against the wet moss as I pivoted slowly, carefully—

CRACK.

A branch snapped behind me. The growl deepened, closer.

My pulse stuttered like a dying Wi-Fi connection. I ducked behind a tree and whispered to myself like a lunatic. “Stay calm, Kiera. It’s just a dream. You’re probably drooling on your pillow right now. Totally fine. Totally—”

“Come out.”

The voice sliced through the fog. Low. Commanding. Like velvet stretched over steel.

Oh crap.

I peered around the trunk, and my jaw nearly fell off my face.