“You. Raise your head.”
My stomach drops into the floor. The words aren’t loud to me, but they crack like a whip across the ceremonial grounds.
For a second, my body refuses to obey. My neck locks, my lungs forget how to work, and my fingers claw at the edge of the cloth I’m pretending to fix just to keep them from trembling.
I can feel his gaze searing straight through me–Alpha King. Alaric Hayes. Fucking nightmare in flesh.
If I don’t lift my head, I’m dead. If I do, I’m still dead.
Great choices, Sorin. Fantastic.
Slowly, painfully, I force my chin up. The mask stays where it is, shadowing half my face, but my eyes–fuck–my eyes meet his.
Amber–gold. Burning. Unyielding. He doesn’t just look. He dissects.
Every nerve in my body flares, the bond screaming though it’s been gagged too long and finally ripped free. It claws up my chest, begs me to run to him, throw myself into him, anything but this cold, careful lie.
His stare doesn’t falter. Doesn’t blink. He studies me the way a predator studies prey–deciding if the chase is worth it.
“What’s your name?” His voice is low, carved in stone. It shouldn’t shake me, but it does.
I swallow hard, tasting smoke from the torches, tasting fucking doom.
“An Omega,” I murmur, keeping my tone flat, servile. The same used in the bathroom “I help with the preparation, Your Majesty.”
A half–truth. Enough to pass. Hopefully.
He takes a step closer. The ground might as well cave in beneath it. Every Omega around me bows deeper, heads practically pressed into dirt, but I stay frozen.
The air shifts when he moves. His scent pushes through the smoke, rich and sharp, familiar enough to gut me. My knees want to buckle. My wolf–traitorous bitch–thrashes inside me, begging to bare her throat, to fucking whine for him.
His eyes narrow, and for one heart–wrecking second, I swear hemells it. Smells me.
I force my gaze down, force my body into another bow, voice steady even though I’m dying inside. “My King.”
A silence stretches. Too long.
Then-
A crash.
One of the tall torches topples, slamming into a stack of embroidered cloths. Flame roars to life though it’s been waiting for this exact moment, devouring the fabric, licking up ribbons, crackling louder than the gasps that follow.
Screams break out. Omegas scatter. Buckets of water are snatched up, feet pound against the stone, someone yells to move the rest of the cloths.
The fire spreads fast, smoke curling up in thick, choking waves.he heat claws at my skin.
Alaric’s voice cuts through the chaos like a blade. “Form a line. Water. Now.”
The command slams into the Omegas, and they scramble, obeying instantly, some nearly tripping over each other to keep up. His dominance is suffocating, pressing down until even the fire seems to hesitate.
I stumble back, shielding my mouth from the smoke, trying to melt into the bodies rushing past. If there’s ever a chance to slip away, it’s now.
But then–through the smoke–his eyes find mine again.
Through fire and chaos, his gaze locks. Piercing. Searching. My bond howls, he knows, he knows, he knows.
The world shrinks to those burning eyes, to the suffocating knowledge that instinct is screaming at him–there you are. Did he really see me?
“Your Majesty!” a Beta barks, pulling his attention.
The tether snaps. He tears his gaze away, barking orders, moving toward the flames with lethal precision.
My chest seizes. My legs don’t think—they just move. I grab a bucket, join the line, keep my head down, keep moving, anything to disappear into the chaos.
Water splashes, fire hisses, smoke thickens. My heart won’t stop fucking pounding.
He’s too close. Too damn close.
And I can’t keep dodging him forever.
The Omegas‘ hall is loud in the way I wish my head wasn’t. Laughter bounces off stone walls, mugs clinking against the long wooden table, the scent of roasted meat and bread thick in the air. Smoke curls lazily up toward the rafters, caught by torches that spit orange light. Everyone’s loud, warm, alive–and I feel like a corpse in the middle of it.
“Sorin,” Tully waves me over. “Finally! I thought the King swallowed you whole back there.”
The others cackle, one nudging me in the ribs when I sit. The bench is hard, but their chatter fills the space like cushions, softening the blow.
“Don’t be stupid,” says Marg, her dark hair falling into her soup. If the King had his hands on her, she wouldn’t be walking straight.”

Night claws at the packhouse, the stone corridors lit by torches that flicker shadows across the walls. My steps echo too loud. My door closes with a thud behind me, and I sink into the narrow bed, fingers shaking.
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