CHAPTER 6
1455 Words
Aurelia's POV
I woke up tangled in sheets that didn't belong to me.
The scent hit first—musk, cedarwood, warm skin, masculine heat. My head throbbed, my thighs ached, and my entire body hummed with the memory of the night before.
The second thing I noticed?
Seven bodies. Seven. Alpha. Bodies.
I sat up fast, gasping.
My heart pounded as I looked around. The dim room was scattered with empty whiskey glasses, half-pulled blankets, and discarded clothes—my clothes. Caesar was beside me, an arm flung over my waist. Jaxon curled against my back. Drake lay at my feet, still shirtless.
And then it happened.
A voice.
Low. Feminine. Inside me.
"They're yours."
I froze.
"They're all yours. They're our mates."
My wolf. The one I thought would never come. She was awake—and she sounded... pleased?
"No," I whispered, clutching the sheet to my chest. "No, no, no. That can't be."
Seven mates? One night? And now this?
I had to get out.
As quietly as I could, I slid off the bed, tiptoeing past limbs and steady breaths. The ache between my legs was evidence enough that the night was real. But the thought that they'd known—possibly lured me into it—made my stomach twist.
I grabbed my torn top from the floor, slipped into it, and fled the apartment like it was on fire.
The elevator doors closed behind me, and I leaned against the mirrored wall, trying not to scream. What was I supposed to do? Face them and ask if last night had meant something? If they knew we were mates? If they used it against me?
My apartment was only five floors below theirs. Just five.
Wait.
Five floors below.
I pressed my back against the elevator wall as realization slammed into me like a physical blow. The button panel showed the penthouse level. I was coming from the penthouse. Of my building. My building.
"No way," I whispered, staring at the descending numbers. "No f*****g way."
I'd lived in this apartment complex for two years. How had I never realized that the Kane brothers—all seven of them—lived in the penthouse of my own building? Had they known? Had they been watching me this whole time?
The elevator pinged at my floor. I stumbled out, mind reeling with this new information. For two years, I'd been living five floors beneath seven alphas who were apparently my mates. I'd been riding in this elevator, checking mail in the same lobby, probably brushing past them without even realizing.
I was halfway down the corridor to my apartment when I saw him.
Ryker.
His figure leaned against my door like a shadow waiting to pounce. My ex. The alpha who once told me I was "barely even wolf." The one who’d broken my heart like it was glass beneath his boots.
When he saw me, his eyes flared. Not with concern.
With rage.
“So it’s true,” he said, voice low, dangerous. “You left the club last night with someone.”
I stopped. “Ryker, I’m not doing this—”
“Answer me,” he barked, stepping forward. “Was he rich? An alpha? Big c**k? Tell me, Aurelia, did you spread your f*cking legs for him the second he smiled at you?”
I flinched like he’d slapped me.
He kept coming, voice venom. “Is that what you are now? A little w***e in heat, giving it up to whoever looks your way?”
“Shut up,” I whispered. He grabbed my arm.
“You think you're better than me now?” he spat. “You think getting a wolf suddenly makes you f*ckable? You were nothing when I had you. And you’re still nothing.”
“Let me go!” I yelled, trying to break free.
But he shoved me hard. I stumbled against my own front door, breath gone, pain radiating down my side.
“You're going to answer every damn question I ask, you slut—”
“I SAID LET ME GO!”
He growled, the sound rumbling from his chest as his fingers wrapped tight around my wrist, dragging me toward the door like I was nothing more than a rag doll.
“I’m not done with you—”
“Touch her again, and I’ll rip your f*cking hands off.”
The voice thundered like a war drum down the corridor.
Caesar.
Then Jaxon. Then Drake. Then the rest of them—each one towering, eyes burning with fury.
The Kane brothers.
Seven storms cloaked in black wrath, moving as one—alphas in every sense of the word. Ryker barely had time to breathe before Maddox’s fist cracked across his jaw, snapping his head sideways with a sickening crunch. Galen’s boot slammed into his knee, making him crumple. Leon grabbed the back of his shirt, yanked him up like he was weightless, and slammed him into the wall.
“You come near her again,” Zane said, voice like frostbite, “and they’ll be scraping your bones off this f*cking carpet.”
Ryker crawled away bleeding—spitting curses, his nose broken, pride shattered. But I couldn’t move. My legs refused to hold me. My breath hitched in my throat. I stood frozen, trembling in the hallway like prey caught between hunters.
And then Caesar turned to me.
There was a moment—barely a heartbeat—when I thought he’d pull me into his arms, press his lips to my forehead and whisper that I was safe now. That nothing could touch me while they were here.
Instead, his lip curled.
Disgust.
“Well,” he drawled, voice venom-slick, “that was a performance.”
My stomach dropped.
“What…?” My voice was a breath of broken glass.
“You really fooled us last night, huh?” Jaxon sneered. “Sweet little omega playing innocent. Such a good act.”
I blinked, confused, chest rising and falling with short, panicked gasps. “What are you talking about?”
Drake stepped forward, eyes hollow. He pulled out his phone.
One swipe.
One video.
It played.
Me.
I was on my knees surrounded by 7 brothers, and with each touch, I was moaning.
Every second of last night—every kiss, every breath, every raw sound—I thought had been sacred, private, real.
And it was all captured.
“No,” I choked. “That’s not—That’s not what it was—”
“You seduced us,” Maddox said coldly, eyes blazing. “All seven of us.”
“You used your heat. Your scent. That desperate look in your eyes,” Galen added. “You played the part perfectly.”
“But I’m your mate,” I whispered, my voice splintering. “My wolf—she spoke to me—she knew—”
“Then silence her,” Caesar growled. “Because we’ll never acknowledge you as ours, mate.”
Something inside me cracked. It felt like a rejection.
The tears spilled, silent and warm, tracing down my cheeks like shame. I stepped back, my legs colliding with the wall behind me. “Why did… You recorded me?” I whispered.
Zane tilted his head. “We protect ourselves. We’ve been burned before. We don’t trust pretty little things that come out of nowhere and wrap a pack around their fingers in one heat moment.”
“I didn’t—” I tried to breathe, to speak, to exist.
“Then here’s your choice,” Leon interrupted, his voice steel. “You can stay. Become ours. But not as our Luna. Not as our mate. Just our secret. Our toy.”
Caesar stepped forward. “No name. No bond. No titles. Just legs spread behind closed doors.”
“Or we release the video,” Jaxon said, a cruel smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Let the world see who you really are.”
“You’ll be branded a w***e who begged seven alphas to rut her,” Drake added. “Even if we are your mates, no one will know. Because we’ll never say it.”
Maddox stepped closer, looming. “You wanted to play with fire, omega. Now you’re burning.”
My knees buckled. I hit the floor, shaking, hand to my mouth as sobs tore free.
“You were supposed to protect me,” I whispered through a throat raw with betrayal. “You were supposed to be mine.”
No one moved.
No one flinched.
And then Caesar leaned in, lips inches from my ear, voice like poison and smoke.
“Welcome to the nightmare, Madam.”
- Writer
