Omega:Claimed by the Alpha

Chapter Eight

Alaric’s POV

I didn’t sleep.

I couldn’t, with her scent still in my lungs. Jasmine. Herbs.

Hazel had been in my room. In Aurella’s room. In my head since she walked into the throne room and looked Vincent in the eye without flinching.

“No one touches what is mine.”

The words tasted like a vow and a curse. I’d said them to a five-year-old. To my wolf. To myself.

And now I had to live with them.

I was on my third glass of whisky when Dominic walked in without knocking. Perks of being Beta. Perks of being the only bastard I trusted.

“You told a child Hazel was yours,” he said, no greeting. He dropped into the chair across from me, scarred eyebrow raised. “Aurella announced it at breakfast. ‘Papa said Hazel is his now.’”

I went still. “She said that to who?”

“To the kitchen staff. To the guards. To Ella, who was bringing you the northern reports.” Dominic leaned forward. “So I’ll ask again: When were you planning to tell me you found your fated mate?”

The glass cracked in my grip. “She’s not”

“Lie to yourself, not me.” Dominic’s gray eyes were hard. “Your wolf’s been clawing to get out since she saved Aurella. You’ve posted guards outside the omega quarters. You tore Vincent’s title off for what he allowed to happen to her. That’s not protection, Alaric. That’s claiming.”

He was right. Gods damn him, he was right.

But Hazel’s mother put nightshade in my bottle when I was two. My father died before he could tell me why. And now the daughter smelled like the same herbs that nearly killed me.

“I can’t,” I said, voice scraped raw. “Her mother”

“Was exiled on Vincent’s word,” Dominic cut in. “And Vincent’s been lying since before you could walk. You know this.”

He did. He’d been digging into Vincent’s case for years. The male who’d been my father’s Beta, thrown in Vincent’s private cells for ‘treason’ the same week Hazel’s mother was exiled. Dominic thought it was connected. I told him to drop it.

I was wrong.

The office door flew open before I could answer.

Ella.

Blonde, green-eyed, dressed in Luna-blue that matched the banners in the great hall. She’d been training for this position since we were pups. Her father was one of my father’s oldest allies.

And she hated Hazel with a purity that could curdle blood.

“Alpha,” she said, sweet as arsenic. “The pack is talking.”

Dominic stood, a silent wall. “Lady Ella. This is not..”

“Not the time?” Ella laughed. She shut the door, trapping her scent in the room with my whisky and Hazel’s ghost. “Is it ever the time, Dominic? Or do we wait until he’s marked the slave girl in front of the council?”

Slave girl.

My vision went red.

Hazel hadn’t been a slave in four days. Not since I freed them all. Not since she knelt in my room and cleaned my blood like it was her right.

“Ella.” My voice was quiet. Dangerous. “Choose your next words carefully.”

She stepped closer, undeterred. She’d known me since I was ten. She thought that made her safe. “I heard her leaving your quarters at dawn, Alaric. I heard Aurella tell the cook that ‘Papa said Hazel is his.’ So I’m asking you, as the female who’s bled for this pack, who’s trained for years to be your Luna, what is she to you?”

Dominic shifted. Hand on his blade. Not for me. For her.

Because my claws had already slipped out.

“Hazel saved my niece’s life,” I said, each word ice. “She is under my protection. She will be treated with respect. By everyone. Including you.”

Ella’s face twisted. “Respect? She’s the daughter of a traitor! Her mother tried to murder you! And you’re.”

“She is MINE.”

The roar shook the walls. The whisky bottle shattered. Dominic didn’t even flinch.

Ella did. She stumbled back, face bleached white, hand to her throat like I’d struck her.

Mine.

The word echoed. Final. Irrevocable. Said in front of my Beta. In front of the woman the pack expected me to marry.

There was no taking it back.

Ella’s lips trembled. “You… you can’t mean that. Not her. Not an omega. Not the daughter of..”

“Say one more word about her lineage,” I snarled, stalking forward, “and you’ll be stripped of rank faster than Vincent was.”

She ran.

The door slammed. The silence afterward was deafening.

Dominic exhaled. “Well. That was subtle.”

I dragged a hand down my face. My heart was hammering. Not with rage. With fear. Because Ella would tell the council. Vincent would hear. And Vincent hated Hazel for ruining his slave trade.

And now he knew she was mine.

“I have to find her,” I said, already moving.

“Alaric.” Dominic caught my arm. His grip was steel. “If you go to her now, like this, feral and claiming, you’ll scare her. Or worse you’ll mark her before she’s ready. And if Vincent is behind Vincent’s imprisonment like I think… he’ll use her to get to you.”

He was right. Again.

But my wolf didn’t care about politics. It cared about the scent of herbs and the girl who didn’t flinch.

“I’m not asking,” I said.

Dominic searched my face. Then he nodded, once. “Then we do this smart. You don’t touch her. You don’t corner her. You talk. Like the Alpha you are, not the beast you’re becoming.”

I wrenched my arm free and left.

Because talk was the last thing I wanted to do to Hazel.

I wanted to lock her in my room and dare the whole damn pack to take her from me.

And that’s what terrified me.