Chapter 6 The Approved Claimant #2
The man the Registry had taught my biology to expect.
I hated him.
My body opened another door.
Wetness gathered between my thighs. My gland throbbed. A sound nearly escaped me, something small and yielding that would have become evidence in Oren’s mouth.
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
“Stop scenting,” I said.
“I can’t control my response to you.”
“Then you are medically unfit to approach me.”
“This is compatibility.”
“This is a refusal. Spoken clearly. In front of witnesses.”
I turned toward Tomas.
“Are you willing to witness?”
His expression sharpened.
“Yes.”
“State your name and designation.”
“Tomas Vukic. Alpha.”
Sabine raised one hand. An officer behind her began writing.
Good.
Let them record it.
I looked at Zephan.
“Zephan Okafor. Alpha. I witness.”
His voice carried across the grounds.
Ivo spoke before I asked.
“Ivo Markovic. Alpha and Huntmaster. I witness Mireya Sanz refusing Oren Belsky’s claim, presence, scent, touch, guardianship, and retrieval.”
Oren’s face changed.
The pleasant official vanished.
“You have no right to interfere with an assigned bond.”
Ivo’s hand settled on his sword. “She has refused you.”
“An omega in heat cannot revoke an approved assignment.”
“I refused him before heat,” I said.
“You were unstable then too.”
“At nineteen?”
The officers shifted.
Sabine’s gaze cut toward Oren.
He had not wanted that history spoken aloud.
I continued.
“I refused him in treatment room six at the western designation center. I refused while Dr. Voss prepared a bite site. I refused when Oren held my shoulders down.”
The scar burned beneath my collar.
I pulled the fabric aside.
Cold air touched the jagged tissue.
“And when none of you listened, I opened my own gland before he could.”
The lawn went silent.
Oren stared at the scar as if it belonged to him.
His scent turned violent.
The riders answered.
Ivo’s sword cleared its sheath.
Zephan’s authority slammed through the ground, sending blackthorn over the gate.
Tomas spoke one word, and blood-red symbols opened beneath Oren’s boots.
The hounds lunged.
“Stay!”
My command struck all of them.
The spectral beasts froze against the gate, teeth inches from Oren’s face.
Ivo stopped with his sword extended.
Zephan’s thorns halted around Oren’s wrists.
Tomas’s sigils burned without closing.
Three alphas and seven hounds held at the edge of violence because I had said one word.
Oren looked at me differently then.
Not as a sick omega.
As a threat.
“What have they done to you?” he whispered.
“Listened.”
I descended the steps.
Ivo moved with me, still one pace behind.
At the gate, Zephan stood rigid beside the latch. Black veins marked his hands where the territory punished him for denying the Hunt its rival.
“Open it,” I said.
His head turned sharply. “He is not entering.”
“No.”
I held up my key.
“I am expelling him.”
The iron warmed in my palm.
The gate recognized a threshold holder.
Zephan stared at the key.
Then understanding moved over his face.
He withdrew the thorns from the latch.
“Your path,” he said.
Not an apology.
Closer.
He opened the gate.
Oren stepped forward.
I raised the key between us.
“Oren Belsky enters neither this lodge nor its grounds. His assignment carries no authority over my body, my room, my heat, or my movement. I refuse his claim.”
The covenant woke.
Wind tore through the gate. The open circle at the bow of my key blazed white.
Oren’s assignment order ripped itself from Sabine’s hand.
Paper spun into the air and struck the invisible threshold. Fire raced across the Registry seal. The document burned without consuming, every line of legal authority turning black.
Oren grabbed for me.
He never crossed the gate.
The threshold hurled him backward.
He struck the road hard enough to lose his breath.
The officers raised their rifles.
Every hound stepped through the gate.
Sabine went pale.
The creatures should have dissolved beyond the boundary. Instead, Mireya’s threshold authority carried them three paces onto the road, smoke streaming from their bodies as they formed a wall between us.
My threshold authority.
The thought nearly weakened my knees more than the heat.
I pointed the key at Oren.
“Leave.”
The hounds advanced.
Oren pushed himself upright, hatred stripping the last civility from his face.
“When your heat peaks, you’ll beg for the bond you rejected.”
“If I ever beg you for anything, check the room for poison.”
Zephan laughed again, loud this time.
Sabine raised two fingers.
The officers lowered their rifles.
“This is not finished,” she said.
“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”
Her gaze held mine.
Then she ordered the patrol to withdraw.
Oren mounted badly, favoring one shoulder. He looked back twice as they rode east. The first time at my scar.
The second at the three alphas behind me.
Only when the bells faded did I lower the key.
The hounds returned inside the boundary and collapsed into smoke.
My legs folded.
Ivo caught himself before he caught me.
His hands stopped in the air.
“Permission,” he said.
The ground tilted.
“Arm only.”
His hand closed around my forearm. Firm. Nothing near my waist or throat.
Zephan stepped forward.
“Stay back,” I said.
He stopped immediately.
Tomas crouched several feet away. “May I assess you without touching?”
“Yes.”
“Your heat has accelerated into the rising phase. Oren’s scent acted as a trigger, but distance should reduce the acute response.”
“Should?”
“Your body enjoys making me qualify statements.”
“Your honesty needs the practice.”
He accepted that with a slight inclination of his head.
I looked toward the gate.
It stood open.
Zephan had not closed it again.
“You broke your promise,” I told him.
His expression hardened, but he did not argue.
“I closed the gate without telling you.”
“You decided sleep mattered more than my authority.”
“Yes.”
“You lose control of my routes.”
Pain flickered through his scent.
“For how long?”
“Until I decide you understand the difference between protection and possession.”
His jaw worked.
“Agreed.”
The territory accepted the consequence. The bitter-orange pressure threaded through the grounds withdrew from him and settled around my key.
Zephan swayed.
I had taken something real.