The Alpha's Scentless Assistant

Chapter 4: The Weight of the Alpha's Shield

The roaring darkness slowly broke apart into a mix of groaning metal and shifting concrete. Evadne gasped, her lungs burning as she took a breath filled with dust and the metallic smell of blood.

She could not move her body, the iron chair was still pinned beneath a huge weight, but she was not crushed.

Above her, a solid unyielding layer of muscle and bone shielded her from the wreckage.

Cassian was braced over her like a living fortress.

His hands were slammed into the floor on either side of her head, his arms locked, his broad back bearing the weight of a collapsed steel girder that had fallen from the warehouse ceiling.

Black silver-poisoned blood dripped steadily from his wounds splattering onto the front of Evadne's shirt.

"Cassian" she whispered, her voice cracking as her silver eyes searched his face in the dim dust-filled gloom.

His eyes were no longer white-hot. The golden glow in his irises was fading, flickering like a dying ember. His jaw was clenched tightly, a tremor running through his sharp features, his fangs catching his lower lip. The silver mesh from the ceiling was pressing directly into the wounds on his back hissing and sizzling as it burned through his flesh.

"Are you...unbroken?" Cassian's voice was a ragged vibration, stripped of all arrogance leaving only raw desperation.

"I'm fine but you're suffocating " Evadne said, her heart pounding against her ribs. The proximity was overwhelming; the scent of cedar and rain was mixed with the metallic tang of his blood. "Cassian, you have to drop the beam and save yourself. Your wolf can't survive this."

"No" he growled, a stubborn sound that ended in a choked cough. "If I drop it... It crushes you. I told you Evadne. Never again." The emotional weight of his words hit her harder than the concrete.

For three years she had viewed him as a predator who used people like chess pieces. Here he was, willingly letting liquid silver burn through his spine just to keep her breathing. The fated mate bond was not an instinct; it was a terrifying devotion.

"You're an i***t " she choked out tears of frustration stinging her eyes as she twisted her wrists against the titanium cuffs behind her back. "I don't even know you! You know Soren, the assistant who organized your meetings! You don't know the monster hiding inside me!"

"I know your scent " Cassian whispered, his golden eyes locking onto hers with a ferocity. "I know your pulse. I know you kept this pack running while I looked through you. My wolf...chose you."

Suddenly a heavy scraping sound echoed from the side of the debris pile.

"Sterling!" Malakai Vane's voice cut through the dust coughing but dripping with malice. "I know you're alive under there! No Alpha dies from a mere collapse."

Through a gap in the shattered concrete, Evadne saw Malakai crawling out from the wreckage of the tech console. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, broken and b****y. His right hand was wrapped around a heavy silver-tipped tactical shotgun. He was limping heavily, his face twisted into a mask of psychopathic rage.

"You ruined the merger Cassian " Malakai hissed, dragging his leg as he approached the pile of rubble shielding them. "You destroyed my enforcers. I can still take your crown. A dead Alpha and a stolen royal Omega will buy me all the territory I need in Europe."

Cassian let out a snarl attempting to shift his weight to look toward the threat but the massive steel girder on his back shifted, driving the silver mesh deeper into his shoulder blades. He groaned, a sound of agony tearing from his throat.

"Don't move " Evadne panicked, her hands frantically working the titanium cuffs. "Cassian if you drop an inch, the beam will snap your spine."

"Malakai " Cassian roared, his voice vibrating through the floor. "Step into my sight. Fight me like an Alpha, you coward!"

"I'm a businessman, Sterling. I don't fight dying men, " Malakai mocked. He reached the edge of the rubble pile ten feet away and leveled the shotgun directly through the gap in the concrete, aiming straight at Cassian's exposed side.

Evadne felt a violent shift inside her chest. The paralyzing weight of the patch was violently obliterated by a massive surge of pure adrenaline and ancient fury.

Seeing Cassian pinned, helpless and seconds away from execution, triggered a switch within her royal bloodline.

No one takes what is mine.

Her inner wolf did not just wake up; it shattered the cage. With a guttural scream, Evadne channeled the raw power of her silver-eyed lineage. The titanium cuffs around her wrists glowed with an ethereal silver light as she pulled with impossible strength. The reinforced metal links groaned, twisted and snapped.

She tore her hands free, ignoring the lacerations on her wrists and slammed her palms against the iron bar securing her torso to the chair.

The metal bent like plastic under her touch.

Before Malakai could pull the trigger, Evadne slid out from beneath Cassian's shielding form and lunged through the gap in the debris.

Malakai did not even have time to blink. Evadne hit him like a missile. Her glasses were gone, her hair was wild. Her eyes were two blazing incandescent moons of pure silver light. She grabbed the barrel of the shotgun with her hand twisting the steel tube into a useless spiral before ripping the weapon from his grip and smashing the butt of it into his jaw.

Malakai flew backward crashing heavily into a rusted shipping container. He looked up, his face covered in blood, his golden eyes wide with terror. The absolute psychological weight of her Sovereign Omega voice crashed over him.

"Kneel," Evadne commanded.

The single word was not a request; it was a law of nature. Malakai let out a whimper, his knees buckling as he collapsed into the dirt.

"You're a monster, " Malakai gasped.

"I am the Sovereign " Evadne said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "And you are trespassing in my mate's territory."

Behind her, a massive metallic groan echoed through the warehouse. With a burst of rage, Cassian violently threw the steel girder off his back. The massive beam crashed to the side scattering dust into the air as he stood up fully shifted into his towering Lycan form. He blurred across the distance, between them his claws locking around Malakai's throat.

"Cassian, wait!" Evadne called out, her silver eyes fading back to gray as the adrenaline surge receded. "We need him alive to find out who gave him the silver gas."

A sudden clicking sound cut her off. It came from the shadows of the exit doors. The red emergency lights died, plunging the facility into darkness.

"Evadne!" Cassian roared in the dark, the sound of a scuffle erupting.

Before Evadne could draw a breath, a cold metallic mask was clapped over her face. A concentrated blast of sleeping gas flooded her lungs. Through the shadows, a calm modulated electronic voice whispered in her ear.

"The Valerius Pack has played its part, royal one. The High Council demands your return."

Evadne's vision fractured into blackness. The last thing she heard was Cassian's claws tearing through the metal walls screaming her name into the void.