His Forbidden Scarlett

The alpha's claim

Christian's POV

A FEW HOURS BEFORE

Daring men called me beautiful before they called me anything else. Women too, though most learned fast enough not to say it twice. There was a word for what I was when I stood still and let them look—Adonis, someone whispered once, drunk on champagne and too stupid to notice what was beneath the face. They saw the jaw, the height, the eyes the color of a storm with a deadly glare. They never saw the rest of it until it was too late to run.

But I was not beautiful tonight.

Tonight I was what my father made me—cold, deadly, and without mercy.

The smell of blood and concrete filled the air. My wolf sat just beneath my skin, calm for now, waiting. Upstairs, the whole pack was quiet, holding its breath, waiting to see if their Alpha was still a man tonight, or something worse.

I rolled my sleeves to the elbow on my way down the stairs. I didn't rush.

I never rushed.

My eyes locked onto Enzo.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin the moment I saw him, low and hungry.

He was tied to the chair the way I liked them tied—wrists pulled behind the spindles, ankles bound so tightly the rope had already cut through his socks. His face was already a mess, one eye swollen shut, and still he lifted his chin when I crouched in front of him. Still he tried to look at me like a man, and not like the half-dead thing he already was.

I tilted my head, deciding what I wanted to do to him first. A slow smile pulled at one side of my mouth as I walked closer and crouched down in front of him.

"You worked for Salvatore for six years," I said gently, watching him swallow. Scared. "You were one of the men who tortured me back then, Enzo. Remember?"

"Christian..." His voice broke around my name, begging for a mercy I was never going to give him. "It wasn't—I didn't have a choice. Sal... Salvatore would've killed me."

I leaned in closer, resting my forearms on my knees, my face level with his. My eyes narrowed.

"So you chose to postpone your death instead. I hope you enjoyed every day of it, Enzo."

"Please, Christian... my family... my son," he begged, pulling hard against the ropes, crying now.

"You enjoyed every second of it."

I stood up straight, rolled my shoulders, and felt the low growl building in my chest—my wolf, close to the surface now, ready.

My knuckles cracked, one hand and then the other, loud in the quiet room.

"That's what I can't forgive. So I'm going to enjoy this too."

My smile didn't fall while I worked on him. Not once. It only grew wider every time his breathing broke into something ragged.

I took my time.

Enzo screamed for a while.

Then he begged, his head hanging, blood and spit dripping from his chin.

Near the end, he just cried, his shoulders shaking, and there was something almost peaceful about watching the man run out of everything but the truth.

I crouched down again to hear his last words, tilting my ear toward his broken mouth like a priest listening to a dying man's confession.

"Salvatore is coming to Chicago tonight. He'll be at his estate," he finally whispered.

By the time I picked up the gun, he was already dead in every way that mattered.

I wiped my hands on the towel Sergio handed me without my asking. His eyes stayed somewhere over my shoulder, never on me.

I rolled my sleeves back down, buttoned each cuff, and was reaching for my jacket when he cleared his throat behind me—the way he did when he had something to say and didn't want to be the one to interrupt.

"Boss," Sergio started. "We found her."

My hands stopped on the second button of my jacket, and I looked up.

"At an auction," he said. "Aurelian House. Tonight, in a few hours. She's listed under a fake name, but it's her. I had the photograph confirmed twice."

Something moved in my chest before my mind even caught up.

My wolf reacted first.

A low growl rolled up my throat on its own, and my nails bit into my palms as my hands curled on instinct.

My eyes felt hot, my whole body hotter.

My wolf had known her scent for years. He knew her name too, and hearing it—even just the word her—was enough to wake him completely.

She was mine.

No matter how twisted it was, my stepsister was mine.

And I had spent four years running from it.

I didn't answer right away.

I finished the button.

Slowly.

My jaw worked, a muscle ticking beneath my ear, and my breathing turned rough.

Four years.

Four years of silence because it was the only punishment I could bring myself to give her.

And now some stranger had put a price on my mate and was about to sell her as though she were nothing.

"Get the car," I told Sergio, my voice low. "And Sergio... buy the whole lot if you have to. I don't care what it costs."

He nodded once, didn't ask a single question, and disappeared up the stairs almost at a run, leaving me alone with Enzo's body and a deafening silence.

"Scarlett."

I said the name once, under my breath, testing how it felt in my mouth after years of refusing to say it.

My wolf pushed against my chest at the sound of it, restless now, as though he wanted out.

My hand curled into a fist at my side, then slowly relaxed.

Four years.

I'd told myself I'd made peace with never seeing that name attached to a real face again.

Four years of lying to myself, to my wolf, and to the bond I never asked for but could never erase.

I straightened my jacket, rolled my neck until it cracked, and started up the stairs two at a time.

Tonight, Princess.

Tonight I claim what's mine.

---

THE AUCTION

Aurelian House was loud with quiet money—soft voices, clinking glasses, men in tailored suits who liked to pretend they were better than what they'd come here to do.

I didn't care about any of them.

I moved through the crowd, my eyes scanning the stage, my wolf pacing restlessly behind my ribs.

Then I saw her.

She stood beneath the lights in a thin slip dress, her wrists bound in front of her, her chin held high even though I could see her whole body shaking.

Four years.

And she was still the only thing that had ever made my chest feel tight like this.

My wolf went still inside me.

The man on the stage started the bidding at fifty thousand dollars.

Someone in the front row raised a paddle.

Another man laughed and raised his own. I didn't raise a paddle, didn't need to.

"One million."

I spoke loudly enough for the whole room to hear.

The room went quiet.

A few heads turned to find who had spoken, then quickly looked away, because everyone in that room knew my face.

And knowing my face meant knowing better than to challenge me.

The auctioneer's mouth opened and closed once before he found his voice again.

"One... one million?" he stammered. "The bid stands at one million dollars. Do I hear one point?"

Nobody moved.

My wolf pushed hard against my chest, hungry and impatient, wanting me to walk up there that very second and take what was already mine, mate bond or not.

"Sold! To the gentleman in the back."

Scarlett's eyes finally found mine across the room.

For one second, I watched something inside her break—shock, maybe. Hate, maybe. Perhaps both.

Good, let her hate me.

Hate was easier for both of us than the truth. I started walking toward the stage, and my wolf walked with me, closer to the surface than he'd been in four long years.