Chapter 17
Ethan
The transition from the war room to the ballroom was the slow tightening of a noose. Every step toward the celebration brought me closer to suffocation.
I stood at the threshold of the overlook, the spiked iron of my mask drawing attention as Odis intended.
Below me, the Hall was a roiling sea of silk, muscle, and heavy male intent poking and prodding.
To anyone else, it was a festival. To me, it was a room full of hidden daggers and visiting Alphas who would cut my throat for an inch of my territory.
Tonight, I’d release every unmated male in this room.
They would shift and run. Many would find their mates tonight.
I battled against the hope of finding mine.
I took one step onto the grand staircase, my hand gripping the smooth onyx railing. Then, the air thinned.
A scent hit me. It wasn’t the greed from the ranked men, lust from those vying for their mate or the rancid perfume of females ready to be claimed. It was pure, sun-drenched honey and the untamed scent of crushed wildflowers—cutting through the room.
I went perfectly still. My heart, usually steady, staggered against my ribs.
The moment I felt her, the voices were deafening. The constant background static of Erebus and the hunger that lived in my bones suddenly had a target. The noise was overwhelming—the demand to claim, to possess, to burn the world if necessary to keep her.
MATE. Erebus roared, a sound so violent I thought my skull would crack. My body vibrated with pure, primal need.
We didn’t descend; we hunted. There was no friction between man and wolf, no battle for the leash. We were one, moving on instinct toward our North Star. We were looking for the source of the oxygen in our lungs.
“Alpha?” Odis murmured behind me, sensing the sudden change in my posture and pace. He reached out telepathically. Is there danger?
“Quiet,” we rumbled. The voices in our head—an ancient hunger—screamed. All thoughts of following protocol and the plan we’d devised—gone.
We scanned the edges of the room, past the Half Moon delegation, past the bars.
And then we saw her. At the far end of the Hall, standing by the dark stone of a table.
Even from this height, she pulled the air out of my chest. She was a vision of dark red silk, a beautiful wound against the midnight backdrop.
We moved with the unhurried certainty of a hunter who had already won. The crowd sensed it. Conversations died mid-sentence. Heads dipped in an instinctive, terrified wave as we carved a path through the center of the floor, a destiny already written.
For years, I had believed only power could keep the darkness at bay. I had built a kingdom on the blood of those I slaughtered. I had proved I was the strongest, but as I drew closer, that power turned to sand, slipping through fingers that could no longer hold it.
The crown, the borders, the soldiers—they were suddenly nothing. The plan to massacre thousands was no more. My world, once a sprawling map of strategy and conquest, had narrowed down to a single point of light standing by a pastry table.
We didn’t just want her; we were being pulled toward her by a gravitational force we couldn’t fight. She was the sun, and we were a cold planet finally finding our orbit.
We hadn’t even met her yet or seen her face, but we knew she could be a black hole, and we’d dive in headfirst.
She turned, lifting something to her lips. Even the way she moved was a taunt to my self-control.
We stopped inches from her back. My shadow swallowed her, dousing the bright flaming fire and starlight of the festival in my darkness.
She went rigid. The air between us screamed. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood up, her skin soft and unmarked. In that moment, we realized we would burn every inch of the territory we had fought for just to keep her standing right there. In front of us.
A growl tore from our throat and then the word we never thought we’d say, “Mate.”
It wasn’t a command. It was a surrender.
She turned slowly, her chocolate-brown eyes wide with a shock that fed the shift in my soul. Up close, the honey was intoxicating. It was a thick sweetness that told me her body was already responding to the pull, even if her mind was terrified.
We watched her eyes travel up my chest. They traced the broad set of my shoulders, the line of my jaw, and snagged on the mask’s spikes. For a heartbeat, raw unadulterated lust flashed in her gaze.
We reached out, my fingers trembling, need running through me like a fever. We wiped a smudge of dark chocolate from the corner of her mouth. The contact was electric—a thousand volts of ancient magic searing my fingertips and racing through every vein in my body.
I had spent my life demanding the world bow to me. Now, I only wanted to kneel at her feet.
“Do you know who I am?” we asked, our voice a low vibration. We didn’t care if she knew we were the Alpha. We wanted to know if she could feel the way the world shifted off its axis—how things could never be the same after this moment.
“Other than the fact that I am yours…” she whispered, a flush of pink creeping up her neck. “I don’t know who you are.”
A dark, possessive heat flared in our gut. Erebus and I were in perfect, terrifying agreement. The kingdom could fall. The Alphas could riot. None of it mattered as long as she stayed within our reach.
“I am Ethan,” we said, taking a step closer until the scent of honey was all I could breathe. She craned her neck, her eyes locking on mine.
“Adea,” she rasped. Her lips begged for my attention.
Her name was a haunting melody on her lips, a sound I hadn’t realized I was desperate to hear.
We held out a hand, a silent command wrapped in an invitation. “Dance with me.”
She hesitated, her gaze flicking to the crowd—the sea of predators watching the Mad King—then back to me. She placed her hand in mine, and the world didn’t just tilt; it reset.
The music started as we led her to the center of the floor. We pulled her flush against me, my arm wrapping around the nonexistent back of her dress. Her skin was silk and fire under our palm, a living heat that turned the rest of the Hall cold by comparison.
Every other person in the room vanished. The music was a distant echo. There was only the rhythm of her heart and the terrifying realization that my power didn’t belong to me anymore.
It belonged to her.
We leaned down, stopping before the spikes of my mask could brush against her temple. “You’re shaking, Wildflower.”
“You’re wearing a mask,” she breathed, her hands resting tentatively on my shoulders, careful. “It’s hard to trust a man when I can’t see his eyes.”
My hand moved instinctively to the latch at the side of my head. I wanted to show her. We wanted her to be the first person in years to see the man behind the monster—to look into the eyes of the wolf she had tamed without even trying.
“No,” she whispered, her fingers catching my wrist and stopping the motion.
We froze. “No?”
“Wait,” she murmured, her eyes searching the iron slits. “Not here. Not in front of them. I want to see you when it’s just us. When I don’t have to share the sight of you with a room full of strangers.”
The request hit hard. She wasn’t just asking for a face; she wanted the version of me the outsiders didn’t have access to. My chest tightened.
We dipped our chin then pulled her closer until there wasn’t a breath of air between us. For those few minutes, there was only the honey on her skin and the crushing heat of our bond.
The song faded into a haunting silence, but I didn’t let her go. I couldn’t.
“Alpha.”
Odis’s voice was a sharp intrusion. One not worth turning away from her for.
“Not now,” I snapped.
“Alpha, it’s Olivia. We have a situation,” Odis said, his voice dropping to a low, urgent frequency. “Enforcers at the South Gate. They’re pushing the boundary.”
We closed our eyes, a low growl vibrating in our throat. Interlopers. Of course they would try to bleed into our territory the moment we found the cure to our insanity.
Normally, the prospect of a border skirmish was a welcome distraction. I thrived on the prospect of war, but tonight, for the first time in my life, I’d found something that made me fear the necessity of war.
I looked back at Adea. I could see the confusion and the lingering heat in her eyes—the way she looked at me, holding on with both hands.
“I have to step away,” I said, my voice tight with a rage I was struggling to contain. “I promise it will be brief. Stay with your pack. Do not leave the Hall.”
“Ethan?” she asked, her voice small, her fingers grasping at my arms.
We couldn’t bring ourselves to walk away from her. “You are mine, Adea. I’ll be back for you.”
We forced ourselves to let go of her hand. Something in us tore doing it. We snapped toward Odis.
“Lead the way. I’m going to paint the ridge in their blood for interrupting.”