Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

DENISE

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The restroom on the second floor was the one I’d always used when I visited the Blackwood estate, back in the early days when Dante would bring me here quietly, through the side entrance, in the hours when the house was mostly empty. It was a guest bathroom, small and well-appointed, with black marble countertops and a mirror framed in brushed gold. Someone had placed a small vase of white freesias on the shelf above the towel rack. They smelled expensive.

I ran cold water over my wrists the way I always did when I’d been performing for too long—it grounded me, brought my temperature down, reminded me that I had a body that existed separately from whatever face I was wearing at any given moment. The morning had taken more out of me than I’d let show. Not because it was hard, exactly, but because sustained pleasantness in a room full of people who had collectively made portions of my life very difficult required a specific kind of energy, the kind that burned clean and left nothing behind.

I dried my hands on the guest towel, checked my reflection once, and reached for my bag.

The door opened before I touched it.

Lyra came in first. Then two others behind her-I recognized them both, though I hadn’t acknowledged it downstairs. Priya and Cass, who had been part of Lyra’s circle at the academy the same way satellites were part of a planet’s circle: present, orbiting, deriving their relevance entirely from proximity to the center. They were older now, of course. Better dressed. The cruelty had been refined into something that looked more like disdain, which was what cruelty became when it had money and time to work with.

Cass closed the door behind them.

The bathroom was not large. With four people in it, the air changed.

My wolf stirred-not in fear, not anymore, but in the particular way she stirred when she was paying close attention to something. I stayed where I was by the counter and set my bag down.

“Lyra,” I said. Same tone I’d used all morning. Level, unbothered, the conversational equivalent of a closed door.

“I’ve been watching you today.” She stopped a few feet from me, her arms folded, her head tilted at the angle she’d always used when she wanted to remind you of the difference in your positions. “Very impressive performance.”

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10:37 Wed, Sep 16

Chapter 10

“I wasn’t performing. I was helping.”

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“You were overreaching.” Her voice dropped, the pleasant social register gone now that the audience was gone with it. “You sat in that room like you belonged there. Like you were one of them. Like you were-”

“Useful?” I offered.

Her jaw tightened. “Like you were something.”

There it was.

I looked at her-really looked at her, the way I hadn’t allowed myself to downstairs, where maintaining the mask was more important than seeing clearly. Lyra Blackwood was beautiful in the way that people with resources and grievances often were: polished to a point, with something hard underneath the gloss. She was three years younger than Dante and had spent most of her life in his shadow, which had curdled into something in her that needed to assert itself at the expense of anyone who couldn’t push back.

I had been the safest target for years.

I was not that anymore.

“Who do you think you are?” she said, stepping closer. Priya and Cass shifted behind her, filling the space. “Seriously. I want you to tell me. Because from where I’m standing, you’re an omega with no bloodline, no family, no standing, nothing. You have nothing, Denise. You came from nothing and you are nothing, and the sooner you accept—”

“This nothing,” I said, “can end your brother’s engagement.”

She stopped.

The bathroom was very quiet. The freesias smelled sweet and irrelevant.

“One conversation,” I continued, my voice the same as it had been when I was talking about centerpieces and ring settings and florist timelines. Calm. Practical. Organized. “One conversation with Elena, with timestamps, with four years of documentation that I have kept very carefully, because I am an omega who came from nothing and when you come from nothing you learn very early that the only protection you have is information.” I held her gaze. “Would you like to know what four years of evidence looks like? Hotel receipts. Transfer records. Messages. I have all of it, organized by date, backed up in three locations, because I am thorough. It’s one of my professional strengths.”

Lyra’s expression had shifted. The contempt was still there, underneath, but something else had moved over it. Something more careful.

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10:37 Wed, Sep 16

Chapter 10

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