As if three centuries of successful leadership meant nothing. As if building an empire that spanned continents and protected their kind from human discovery was somehow insufficient because he'd chosen solitude over the biological lottery of mate bonds.
"I'm not incomplete." The words came out with enough heat to make the air shimmer slightly around him. "I'm focused. I'm effective. I'm?—"
"Alone." Kade's quiet interjection cut through his building fury like a blade between ribs. "You're alone, Rune. And it's making you harder to reach every year."
Betrayal.
The thought blazed through him before he could stop it, though he knew Kade was right. His second-in-command had always been the one person willing to challenge him directly, but this felt different. This felt like abandonment.
"I don't need a mate to be an effective leader."
"No," Bram agreed, moving closer with the inexorable patience of geological time. "But you need one to be a complete dragon. An incomplete Alpha is a vulnerability that our enemies will eventually exploit."
Rune's hands clenched into fists on the desk surface. His dragon thrashed against the iron control he'd spentcenturies perfecting, demanding acknowledgment, demanding satisfaction, demanding the very thing Rune refused to give.
The loneliness was getting worse.
The admission scraped against his pride like sandpaper, but he couldn't deny it anymore. Centuries of meaningless encounters, of temporary connections that left him emptier than before, of waking alone in a bed that felt like a monument to his own isolation.
But the alternative was worse. The alternative was becoming his father—consumed, dependent, ultimately destroyed by a bond that promised completion and delivered annihilation.
"Find another way to secure the clan's future," he said finally, the words coming out flat and final. "Because I won't be anyone's fated anything."
Bram studied him with eyes that had watched empires rise and fall, his expression unreadable. "Fate rarely asks permission, Alpha. And the longer you fight it, the more catastrophic the eventual surrender becomes."
"Then I'll make sure there's no surrender to be had." Rune stood, the movement fluid and predatory, heat radiating from him in waves that made the office air shimmer. "This conversation is over."
Kade rose as well, his expression carefully neutral though his eyes held a weariness that spoke to decades of watching his Alpha tear himself apart from the inside. "The quarterly security briefing?—"
"Handle it." Rune moved toward the window again, dismissing them both with the casual authority of someone accustomed to absolute obedience. "I have other matters to attend to."
He didn't turn around as they left, though he felt their departure like a physical weight lifting from his shoulders. The door closed with a soft click, leaving him alone withhis reflection and the desert and the canyons that stretched endlessly beyond the glass.
Incomplete.
The word echoed in his mind like a curse, and his dragon roared its agreement with frustrated fury. Three centuries of suppression, of denial, of refusing the very thing that might make the constant ache of loneliness disappear.
But he'd seen what happened when dragons surrendered to that need. He'd lived through the aftermath of his father's destruction. And he'd be damned if he'd repeat those mistakes, no matter how loudly his dragon demanded otherwise.
His territory spread beneath him, and Rune Trigg stood guardian over it all—powerful, wealthy, effective, and utterly, completely alone.
Ten minutes later, the elevator descended with mechanical precision, but Rune's patience had already snapped somewhere between the fortieth floor and the parking garage. The confined space felt suffocating after Bram's lecture, the elder's words echoing in his skull like a persistent headache.
Incomplete.
His jaw clenched as the doors slid open, revealing the pristine concrete expanse of his private parking garage. The Lamborghini Huracán sat waiting like a caged predator, its matte black surface reflecting the harsh fluorescent lighting. He'd chosen the car for its speed, not its ostentation—though the 640-horsepower engine didn't hurt when he needed to outrun his own thoughts.
The engine soon roared to life with a sound that resonated in his chest, drowning out the memory of Bram's insufferable certainty. Rune peeled out of the garage with enough force to leave rubber on the concrete, the city streets blurring past as he pushed the car toward its limits.
Phoenix traffic parted before him like water, though whether from his aggressive driving or some unconscious recognition of predatory authority, he couldn't say. The urban sprawl gave way to desert highway, then to the winding canyon roads that led to his sanctuary—the one place on earth where he could drop the carefully constructed facade of civilized businessman and simply exist.
His mansion materialized from the red rock landscape like something carved from the canyon itself. Centuries of careful construction had created a fortress that appeared deceptively modest from the outside—a sprawling structure that seemed to grow organically from the desert floor. Only someone with dragon senses would detect the reinforced steel framework beneath the exterior or the sophisticated security systems that monitored every approach.
The garage door closed behind him with a whisper of hydraulics, sealing him away from the world of quarterly reports and clan politics. Rune abandoned the car without ceremony, his long strides carrying him through corridors lined with artifacts that predated human civilization—pieces of his hoard that served as both decoration and reminder of what he truly was beneath the expensive suits.
His private chambers occupied the eastern wing, where floor-to-ceiling windows offered an unobstructed view of the canyon that stretched toward the Grand Canyon proper. The space reflected his dual nature: sleek modern furniture positioned beside ancient dragon relics, cutting-edge technology integrated seamlessly with stone walls that had witnessed centuries of his kind's history.
But today, none of it mattered. Today, he needed to fly.
