Ruined by the Sovereign

Chapter Seven

The fever didn’t announce itself with a spike in temperature. It started as a heavy, dragging wetness deep in the marrow of her bones.

Jane stood in the center of the glass-walled penthouse archives, a manila folder gripped so tightly in her hands that the paper was slicing into her palm. She didn't care. The sharp, localized sting of the papercut was the only thing keeping her tethered to the floor.

Her blood felt thick. Wrong. It pulsed heavily behind her kneecaps and throbbed at the base of her throat, right over the bruised, hidden puncture wounds. The feral venom Michael had pumped into her in that subterranean cell wasn't just sitting in her veins. It was actively rewriting her biology.

She needed a glass of water. She needed to alphabetize the financial records of the western border territories.

A slick, agonizing wave of heat rolled through her pelvis. Her breath hitched, bouncing off the silent glass walls. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the dissociation back into place. *Compartmentalize.* She was Jane Sterling. She was a political asset. She did not drop to her knees like a desperate animal.

The heavy reinforced door to the archives hissed open.

Jane didn't turn around. The scent hit her first, and her biology violently rejected it. It wasn’t the dark, suffocating weight of bergamot, pine, and copper. It was thin. Weak. Overripe vanilla, expensive cologne, and the sharp, sour tang of nervous sweat.

Ryan.

"What the hell did you do?"

His voice cracked like a teenager’s. Jane slowly turned around, placing the manila folder on the polished mahogany table. She smoothed the front of her high-collared silk blouse.

Ryan looked unhinged. His boyish, catalog-model face was flushed, his athletic frame vibrating with a frantic, messy energy. He had slipped past the penthouse security. He was breathing hard, staring at her as if she were a ghost holding a loaded gun.

"Good afternoon, Ryan," Jane said. Her voice was entirely flat. "If you are looking for the quarterly reports, they are on the second shelf."

"Don't play games with me," Ryan snarled, crossing the room in three heavy strides. "Elena came to my office sobbing. She said you smell like him. She said you smell like a claiming."

"Elena cries when the caterers run out of caviar," Jane replied, picking up a pen. "You will need to be more specific."

Ryan slammed his hands down on the table, knocking a stack of files to the floor. "You went down there! You gave yourself to a rabid dog just to spite me! You ruined yourself so I couldn't have you!"

"I am currently organizing the Sovereign’s files," Jane said, her tone as clinical as a receptionist denying a walk-in appointment. "I would prefer it if you didn't throw them."

The sheer, freezing apathy in her voice snapped something in Ryan’s arrogant mind. He didn't see the tactical genius of her survival. He only saw his property, sitting in his older brother's glass cage, looking down at him.

Ryan lunged. He grabbed Jane by the upper arm, his fingers digging bruisingly into her bicep.

Jane didn't flinch. She didn't scream. She looked down at his hand, analyzing the pressure of his grip. It was painful, yes. But compared to the massive, scarred hand that had wrapped around her throat in the dark, Ryan's grip felt like a child throwing a tantrum.

"You're still mine," Ryan hissed, his face inches from hers, his weak pine scent making her stomach churn. "You're my leftovers. I rejected you. You don't get to climb into my brother's bed and pretend you hold the leash. I am the Alpha."

The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees.

It didn't happen gradually. The air simply died. The oxygen was sucked out of the archives, replaced by a sheer, crushing atmospheric pressure that made Jane’s ears pop.

Ryan froze. The hairs on his arms stood up.

Jane looked past Ryan's shoulder.

Michael stood in the doorway. He was wearing a slate-gray bespoke suit, the jacket unbuttoned, his hands casually resting in his pockets. He didn't growl. His eyes weren't glowing with feral rage.

Jealousy didn't look like rage on Michael; it looked like an autopsy.

He stepped into the room. His Italian leather shoes made absolutely no sound on the hardwood floor. He moved with the terrifying, fluid silence of an apex predator that had already calculated the exact trajectory of a kill.

"Ryan," Michael whispered.

The sound was soft, a gravelly drawl that barely disturbed the air, yet it rattled the glass panes of the archives.

Ryan dropped Jane’s arm like it was on fire. He stumbled backward, his chest puffing out in a desperate, pathetic display of dominance. "This is pack business, Michael. She was my fated mate first. I was just—"

"I did not ask for a summary of your delusions," Michael interrupted, his voice dropping a fraction of a decibel.

He stopped exactly three feet from Ryan. Michael didn't look at his brother's face. He looked at Ryan’s right hand. The hand that had just touched Jane.

"I am going to explain the physics of your survival to you, little brother," Michael said calmly, tilting his head. "If you ever cross my threshold uninvited again, I will not call the Council. If you ever speak my mate's name without my permission, I will not demand an apology."

Michael pulled his hands out of his pockets. He adjusted his silver cufflink.

"I will peel the skin from your right arm," Michael whispered, his golden eyes finally lifting to meet Ryan's terrified gaze, "and I will use it to tie your jaw shut while I dismantle your entire faction piece by piece. Do you understand the mathematics of what I am telling you?"

Ryan’s jaw worked silently. The arrogant, posturing Alpha was gone. In his place was a terrified boy realizing that the horror stories about the feral Sovereign were entirely true, they were just wearing Tom Ford.

"Yes," Ryan choked out.

"Get out of my house."

Ryan didn't walk. He scrambled. He backed out of the room, nearly tripping over the doorframe before sprinting down the hall. The heavy doors clicked shut behind him, sealing the archives.

Silence rushed back into the room, thick and suffocating.

Jane stood perfectly still. Her dissociation was failing. The adrenaline from the confrontation was acting like gasoline on the feral venom in her blood. Her skin flushed hot. Her breathing turned shallow, ragged. A slick, heavy ache pooled between her thighs, so intense it made her knees tremble.

Michael didn't move. He stood with his back to the door, staring at the spot where Ryan had been.

"I didn't need you to intervene," Jane said. Her voice wavered. It was a fatal flaw.

Michael turned his head slowly. The surgical, detached mask he had worn for Ryan was completely gone. The golden hue of the beast was bleeding into his irises.

He didn't look at her like a political asset. He looked at her like a starving man staring at a feast.

He took a step toward her. The scent of bergamot and copper hit her like a physical blow, and Jane’s body violently reacted. A small, involuntary whimper tore its way out of her throat.

Michael stopped. His chest rose and fell in a heavy, jagged rhythm. He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of her biologically induced heat. The venom had taken hold.

He reached behind him and locked the reinforced glass door with a heavy, metallic *clack*.

Michael shrugged off his suit jacket, letting it drop to the floor. He unbuttoned his cuffs, his golden eyes burning into hers as he closed the distance between them.

"The surgeon hours are over, little wolf," he whispered, his voice vibrating with pure, feral ruin. "Now, you deal with the beast."