The sound of a knife against porcelain echoes softly through the grand hall rhythmic, steady, and strangely hollow.
Alpha Adrian eats in silence, each movement controlled and deliberate, though his appetite has vanished. The flavors of the food lie dull on his tongue, and his mind drifts far from the table.
He doesn’t know why her image lingers the pale, trembling girl who had barely managed to stand, the one who had defied his aura not with strength, but with sheer fragility. Her wide, frightened eyes still flicker in his mind like candlelight in a storm.
She’s an omega, he tells himself. A servant. Nothing more.
But his wolf disagrees.
The creature inside him paces restlessly, its claws scraping against the edges of his restraint. It does not speak in words this time only a low, i
