“That’s very kind.” The words cut off as every hair on my body stood on end. I didn’t need to turn around to know Damon had returned to the ballroom. His presence hit like a physical force, making my skin prickle with awareness.
Chen was still talking, something about the new trade agreements, providing normal conversations while my body waged war with itself. He guided me toward a quieter corner, his hand barely touching my back in a gesture meant to steady rather than claim.
It was the touch that did it.
Even from across the room, I felt Damon’s attention snap to us like a searchlight. The careful control he’d maintained in the hallway evaporated as he took in the scene, me, clearly indistress, being touched by another alpha. It didn’t matter that Chen was mated, that his touch meant nothing beyond courtesy.
Damon’s wolf didn’t care about logic.
I watched him start pushing through the crowd, not bothering with politeness. Alphas twice his age stepped aside rather than challenge the thundercloud bearing down on us. Chen kept talking, oblivious to the incoming storm.
Damon’s coming. Run. RUN NOW.
But there was nowhere to run. Not anymore.
He reached us just as Chen’s hand shifted on my back, an innocent adjustment that looked like something else entirely from Damon’s perspective.
The growl that emerged from the Lycan King made every wolf in vicinity freeze in primitive fear.
3
— • —
Rhea
The sound that ripped from Damon’s throat killed every conversation within fifty feet. It wasn’t human. Not even close. Pure alpha wolf, all possession and threat wrapped in a frequency that made my bones vibrate. The kind of sound that reminded everyone in this glittering ballroom that underneath the designer suits and polite smiles, we were still animals.
Chen had survived as Lycan King of the Southern Territory for fifteen years. He knew danger when he heard it. His hands came up immediately, palms out, stepping back from me like I’d suddenly caught fire. The movement was smooth, practiced, the kind of submission that kept alphas alive when stronger ones decided to stake claims.
“Kildare,” he said, voice steady but careful. The same tone you’d use with a rabid dog. “I was just trying to help. She looked like she might pass out.”
Damon didn’t even glance at him. His entire focus locked on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. Those dark eyes had gone wild, rings of gold bleeding through the black as his wolf shoved to the surface. I’d seen alphas lose control before, but never like this. Never with this much raw power crackling in the air around them.
“Mine.”
One word. That’s all it took to make every omega in earshot whimper. The alpha command in his voice hit like a physical force, and my traitorous body responded instantly. My knees went weak. Heat flooded between my thighs. Every instinct screamed to bare my throat, to submit, to let him claim what my omega recognized as his.
The rational part of my brain was screaming entirely different things. This was a disaster. Complete, public disaster. The new Lycan King losing control at his own recognition ceremony. Claiming an omega in front of the entire territory’s elite. My father’s career flashing before my eyes in flames.
Around us, the ballroom had gone eerily quiet. Even the string quartet had stopped playing, their instruments hanging silent as everyone watched the drama unfold. I could see phones lifting, cameras focusing. By morning, this would be everywhere. Every territory would know that Damon Kildare had lost his mind over an omega in heat.
“She’s in distress, perhaps we should…” Chen tried again, brave or stupid, I couldn’t decide which.
“MINE.”
Damon cut him off with enough force to make the Southern Lycan King stumble back another step. The windows actually rattled with the power behind that single word. Around us, guests scrambled to create space. Even the other alphas, the ones who’d been eyeing me since I walked in, suddenly found the floor fascinating. Nobody wanted to challenge an Lycan King in full claiming mode.
My mother stood frozen by the champagne fountain, her face a mask of horror. My father had gone pale where he stood with the other omega advisors. Twenty years of careful political maneuvering, destroyed in thirty seconds.
He moved so fast I didn’t have time to run. One second he was ten feet away, the next his hand wrapped around my upper arm, yanking me against his chest. The contact sent electricity shooting through my system. Every nerve ending lit up like Christmas, my heat recognizing exactly what it wanted.
No. What it needed.
“Stop.” The word came out breathy, nothing like the firm rejection I’d aimed for. “You’re making a scene.”
“You think I give a fuck about scenes?” His breath fanned across my face, coffee and mint and something darker.
The crowd blurred as he pulled me along. I caught glimpses of familiar faces, all wearing the same shocked expression. Therewent the Hendricks family, who ran the eastern ports. The Chavez pack, who controlled the southern farming districts. All of them watching Damon Kildare drag me through his own ceremony like a caveman with a prize.
