Gage.
“The Northern Lords look particularly grim tonight,” Sienna murmured, her warm hand resting on my arm. Her voice was a low melody only I could hear over the swell of the orchestra.
I glanced at the cluster of stone-faced Alphas near the hearth. “They always look grim. It is their natural state. Perhaps they are unhappy with the vintage of the wine.”
Sienna squeezed my arm, a subtle gesture of affection that spoke volumes. “Or perhaps they are unhappy you secured the trade route through the Silvermoon territory without them. You have made them irrelevant, my love.”
“I have a formidable Queen who is very good at negotiations,” I said, turning my head to smile at her. Her fiery hair was woven with solstice diamonds, catching the light like captured stars. She was magnificent. My partner in all things. My Queen.
She smiled back, a flash of pride in her sharp, intelligent eyes. “We are a good team.”
“The best,” I agreed. Our union had begun as a political treaty, a merging of her Ironwood Pack and my Ironclaw Kingdom. But over the years, it had forged into something real. Something strong. A bond of respect, loyalty, and deep, quiet love.
We were untouchable. A fortress of power and partnership.
Then, the scent hit me.
It was not a perfume. It was not the food or wine. It was elemental. Primal. It was the smell of rain just before it breaks a drought, the scent of ozone after a lightning strike. It was the impossible fragrance of a wild moonpetal, a flower said to only bloom once a century in the deepest parts of the forest.
It bypassed my mind, my control, my very sense of self, and struck the wolf that lived coiled at the base of my soul.
And my wolf, the beast I had commanded for three decades, went utterly, violently insane.
*Mine.*
The word was not a thought. It was a roar that shook my bones, a possessive, feral snarl that echoed in the cage of my skull. It wanted out. It wanted to hunt.
“Gage?” Sienna’s voice sounded distant, as if from across a great chasm. “What is it? Your eyes…”
I could not answer her. My senses were overwhelmed. The scent was a beacon, pulling every part of my being toward its source. My head turned, a mechanical, unwilling motion. I scanned the room, my Alpha senses flaring, pushing past the dozens of lesser scents.
My gaze swept over nobles, over guards, over… her.
A servant girl. Small. Patched. Insignificant.
She looked up, and her wide, terrified eyes met mine across the grand hall.
The world shattered.
It was her. The source of the scent. The source of the madness clawing its way up my throat.
*Mate.*
The wolf screamed the word this time. It threw itself against the bars of my control, demanding I cross the floor, demanding I seize her, demanding I mark her and claim her in front of the entire court.
Then came the crash.
The sound of shattering glass was like a physical blow, breaking the silent, invisible cord that had stretched between us. It ripped me back to reality, to the hundred pairs of eyes in the room, to the Queen whose hand was now gripping my arm like a vise.
“Who is that girl?” Sienna’s voice was cold iron. “What is she to you?”
“Nothing,” I gritted out, the word tasting like a lie. My heart was a war drum against my ribs. I had to get her out of my sight. Now. Before I did something unforgivable.
Before I lost control completely.
The girl was on the floor, surrounded by broken glass, her body trembling. A pathetic sight. A disaster.
My wolf did not care. *Ours. Protect. Keep.*
“Guards!” My voice was a thunderclap in the sudden silence. It was not my kingly voice of command. It was the guttural bark of an Alpha pushed to his limit.
Two of my Royal Guard, clad in black and silver, moved instantly, their hands on the hilts of their swords.
“Seize her,” I ordered, my eyes locked on the girl. She flinched, her gaze darting toward the exits. She was going to run.
The thought of her running sent a wave of pure, animal panic through me. If she ran, I would hunt. My wolf would tear this palace apart to find her.
“Your Majesty?” General Lycan, my oldest friend and commander of my guard, was suddenly at my side. His steady presence was a small anchor in the storm raging inside me. “What are her crimes?”
Sienna answered before I could. “Her crime is existing. Look at him, Lycan. Look at your King.”
Lycan’s gaze flickered to me, and I saw the dawning understanding in his eyes. He had known me since we were pups. He knew what this meant.
“What are your orders, Your Majesty?” he asked again, his voice carefully neutral, hiding the shock I knew he felt.
I could not look at my wife. I could not look at my friend. I could only look at the girl, this impossible omega who smelled of destiny and ruin.
“She is not to be harmed,” I said, forcing the words through a tight jaw. “But she is not to escape. Under any circumstances.”
“Where shall we take her?”
“The West Tower,” I said, the first secure place that came to mind. “To the Solarium Suite. Lock it down. No one in or out without my direct command.”
Lycan nodded once, his expression grim. He gestured to his men. They moved toward the girl, their large forms eclipsing her small one.
She scrambled backward, a little cry of terror escaping her lips as they reached for her. The sound was a knife in my gut. My wolf strained, wanting to rip them apart for frightening her.
I stood rigid, a statue of a king, while my world burned down around me.
The guards lifted her to her feet. She did not struggle, just stared at me, her eyes wide with a terror that mirrored my own.
They began to lead her away, a ghost being escorted from the feast.
“Gage, you will explain this to me,” Sienna hissed, her voice dangerously low. “You will tell me what is happening right now.”
“Later,” I managed to say, my throat raw.
“No. Now.”
I finally tore my eyes away from the retreating form of the girl and looked at my wife. I saw the fury in her face, the betrayal. The beautiful, strong partnership we had built was cracking right before my eyes.
And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that the simple, insignificant omega girl being dragged from the room was not just a servant who had dropped a tray.
She was a match. And she had just been thrown into the perfectly constructed world of my life, my kingdom, and my marriage.
