Page 31 of The Forbidden Alpha

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.