Claimed By Desire

His Mate.

Lucien.

The moment she stepped into my office three days ago—shoulders squared, mask of professionalism perfectly in place—every instinct I'd buried for two centuries roared to life.

It wasn't her credentials that stopped my breath.

No.

It was her scent. Her scent gave her away before she even opened her mouth.

Honeysuckle and lightning. Wild roses blooming in a thunderstorm. Something no human perfume could replicate, something that spoke directly to the predator beneath my skin.

She was my mate.

After two hundred years of silence, the universe finally answered.

And it answered with her.

Amara Williams.

Love was never on the menu when I first invited her. She was never supposed to be more than a conquest—but the moment she walked in, the rules changed.

To be honest, she was more opinionated than I usually find acceptable in a woman—but that changed the moment she walked in.

I could tell she felt the bond the moment she stepped into my office.

She thinks she's in control. Thinks her noise-canceling headphones and professional armor can protect her from this thing building between us.

I've been watching her all day, drinking in every unconscious tell. The way she bites her lower lip when concentrating. How her pulse flutters in the hollow of her throat when she thinks I'm not looking. The delicate flush that creeps up her neck whenever our eyes meet through the glass.

She's been fighting it—this pull between us. She showed up this morning dressed like a nun, hair scraped back so tight it must give her headaches. Brought noise-canceling headphones, for Christ's sake.

As if she could shut me out.

As if the mate bond cared about her carefully constructed barriers.

The wolf in me finds her resistance... amusing.

I've crushed rebellions with less effort than it takes to ignore her smile.

I hadn't planned the voice messages. They were an impulse, a test of how far I could push before she broke. Watching her face when that first recording played—the way her eyes went wide, pupils dilating with shock and something darker—was worth every risk.

She thinks it's a game. Some twisted power play between boss and employee.

She has no idea she's playing with a creature that's been apex predator since before her great-grandmother was born.

When Celeste arrived for our weekly arrangement, I almost sent her away. The thought of another woman's hands on me while my mate sat twenty feet away felt like blasphemy.

But then I caught Amara watching through the glass, and opportunity crystallized.

Let her see. Let her feel the jealousy she doesn't understand. Let her wonder what it would be like to be the one kneeling before me.

Celeste dropped to her knees with practiced grace, but she might as well have been invisible. Every cell in my body was attuned to the woman beyond the glass—her racing heartbeat, the spike in her scent when arousal mingled with envy.

I engaged the smartglass before touching Celeste, watching Amara's reflection waver as the panel fogged. But I could still hear everything. Her sharp intake of breath. The scrape of her chair as she stood. The click of her heels as she paced to the window.

Perfect.

"You didn't finish," Celeste observed afterward, her voice carefully neutral as she straightened her dress.

I was already looking past her, through the clearing glass to where Amara sat rigid at her desk, pretending to work while her hands trembled.

"No," I agreed.

"It's her, isn't it?" Celeste's fingers traced my jaw, a familiar gesture that now felt foreign. "The new girl. She's different."

Different.

Such an inadequate word for the woman who'd walked into my world and turned it inside out.

"Yes," I said simply.

Celeste studied my face with the insight of someone who'd known me for years. "I've never seen you distracted before. Never seen you... hungry."

She was right. For two centuries, I'd existed on carefully controlled appetites. Took what I needed, when I needed it, with clinical precision. Hunger was weakness. Desire was dangerous.

But Amara made me ravenous.

"She doesn't know what you are, does she, Alpha?" Celeste's voice dropped to the reverent tone all our kind used when acknowledging rank.

"No," I murmured, still watching Amara through the glass.

"She is a feisty one. She won't kneel before you like I do. That's why you want her, isn't it?" she asked.

My eyes turned to her for a brief moment, as I thought of what she had just said.

"I don't need her to kneel. I just want her to know she belongs to me. That I own her."

After Celeste left, I stood at the glass watching my mate pretend to read emails. Her thighs pressed together beneath her prim black skirt. Her free hand worried the pendant at her throat—a nervous tell she probably didn't realize she had.

My phone buzzed. Greg, my beta, calling about the Tokyo merger.

"What is it?" I answered without looking away from Amara.

"The Yamamoto Group is pushing back on the third quarter projections. They want another meeting before—"

"Handle it."

Amara shifted in her chair, crossing her legs. The movement made her skirt ride up slightly, revealing a glimpse of pale thigh that sent heat straight to my groin.

"Alpha, they specifically requested your presence. This is a fifty-million-dollar—"

"Greg." My voice dropped to the tone that made even seasoned alphas submit. "Did I stutter?"

A pause. "No, Alpha. I'll handle it."

Through the glass, Amara glanced up, probably hearing the edge in my voice. Our eyes met for a heartbeat before she looked away, but not before I caught the way her breathing quickened.

"Anything else?" I asked Greg, though my attention was entirely on the woman whose pulse I could hear from where I sat.

"The board meeting has been moved to Thursday. And Alpha? Your three o'clock canceled."

"Good."

I hung up without goodbye, pocketing the phone as Amara stretched, arching her back in a way that made my hands itch to touch her. She'd thought of me last night. I could smell it on her skin, sweet and dark and guilty. Whatever her subconscious had conjured, it left her restless, aching.

Perfect.

Let her toss and turn in sheets that will never smell like pine forests and midnight hunts. Let her wake with my name on her lips and moisture between her thighs. Let her body teach her what her mind refuses to acknowledge.

That she belongs to me.

That she always has. Always will.

The mate bond isn't gentle. It doesn't knock politely or wait for invitation. It crashes through your carefully ordered life like a hurricane, leaving nothing unchanged.

I should warn her. Should tell her about the world she's stumbled into, the creature watching her through glass walls, the destiny written in her very DNA.

But I won’t—because I fear I’d push her away if I let her in on even my smallest secret

We are both worlds and decades apart. She's the opposite of everything I stand for—dominance, power, possessiveness. I have to find a way to bridge that gap before revealing to her who I truly am and who we are meant to be.

---

During closing hour, I watched as she gather her things, preparing to flee to the safety of her apartment where she can pretend this heat between us is just office politics.

Her movements are sharp with suppressed energy, like a bird sensing a storm. I watched her pick up her bag and start heading to my office.

I quickly shifted my attention back to the folder on my desk.

"Mr. Thorne?” Her voice cut through the tension like a blade. I looked up, and for a moment, we just stared. No words. Just her scent, and my restraint, fraying by the second. "Is there anything else you’d like me to do for you?” she asks, forcing her eyes away from mine.

There are a million things I want her to do. But instead, I say,

"No. Thank you for today," I said instead.

“Goodnight, Mr. Thorne,” she says, and walks out.

Her scent lingers in the room like sin.

She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already mine.

I’ll have her.

At her feet, or at her throat.