My wolf presses forward, eager, possessive, triumphant.
Where the fuck have you been?I ask.
Mine, he snarls back.
Ours, I correct as a new form of possessiveness rages through me.
She tilts her head as she watches my transformation, like she can tell something has just changed, like she canfeelthe difference.
I stare back at her, wondering what to do. What to say.
All my life, I have commanded. My voice has moved armies. My will has dominated packs and crushed dissent. I was born an alpha. Dominance is as natural to me as breathing, a language my body speaks without thought.
But as I look down at this frail human female, standing there unafraid, eyes bright and fierce, I know instinctively that this is not a situation that can be handled the same way.
Domination and commands will not work with her.
Brute force will get me nowhere.
She is not prey.
She is not my subject.
She is not something to be ordered into place.
She is a part of me. An equal. My future queen.
If anything, there is something in the way she watches me—assessing, unyielding, unflinching—that suggests she might very well be the one to dominateme.
The thought sends a dangerous thrill through my wolf.
Her voice breaks the silence.
“What will happen to all of those girls?”
The question is sharp, immediate, utterly unconcerned with her own vulnerable position in this moment. I’m so distracted by her that it takes me a heartbeat to understand what she means.
“What girls?” I ask.
She stares at me like I have lost my mind.
“The girls yousummonedhere,” she says, disbelief threading her words. “The ones you just dismissed.”
The truth strikes me with embarrassing clarity.
I had forgotten all about them.
Since the moment I caught my mate’s aroused scent, nothing else existed. No other women mattered. All of it had vanished from my mind.
The sheer gravity of her presence erased my mind of anything that wasn’tmate.
“They will be returned to their homes,” I say, my voice steady despite the storm raging beneath my skin. “With apologies. And compensation.”
“Tonight,” she says, crossing her arms as she glares up at me.
Gods, she’s fierce. I’m in love.
“Tonight,” I say with a firm nod.
