Worshiping Her Curves, Claimed by the Black Ice Alpha.

Chapter Two - The Alpha's Claim

Nadia's POV

I'm still on my knees on the concrete steps, the wire in my chest still screaming from where it snapped, and I can't even lift my head to see him coming. I don't need to. Every hair on my arms is standing up and pointing toward the ice like a compass needle.

Kai Thorne, the Captain of Black Ice team skates to the base of the stands and doesn't stop for the boards. He skates toward me , then crouches in front of me. This close, heat comes off him, bleeding silver at the edges like mercury poured into ink. He doesn't touch me yet. He just breathes in, slow and deliberate, his face tipped toward my throat, and I understand with a lurch that he's scenting me.

"Mine," he says. The word hit the dead silence like a stone dropped down a well, and I feel it hit the bottom of my heart. "She's mine."

The stadium erupts, and gasps. Shouts courses through the air. Somewhere, a Red Fang player screams, "This is theft."

Ethan is there suddenly, skating hard off the ice, toward us, gold eyes gone wide and furious.

"You don't get to do that. She's not...this isn't yours to take, Thorne, this is a rejection, there are rules..."

His eyes hold mine. "There aren't rules about the things you clearly don't care about." Now he turns his head, slow, and whatever is in his face makes Ethan actually take a step back. "You'll get bored of your new toys in a season. You always do. But you don't get a say in what happens to what you threw away."

"She'll bore you too," Ethan says, and there's something ugly and desperate underneath the sneer now. "She's not built for pack life, Kai. You'll see. Give it a month."

Kai's growl doesn't come from his throat. It comes from somewhere lower, somewhere structural, and I feel it in the concrete under my knees. "Speak about what's mine like that again and I will forget there are humans watching."

The two packs quickly drifted toward each other without. Red Fang and Black Ice form a loose, bristling wall along the boards, the rival packs ready for war.

And then it hits me. Not a thought. A vision, slamming into me sideways and hard enough that I gasp. Both packs, all of them, eyes gone fully black from lid to lid, no white left, no color left, mouths open on sounds that aren't words anymore, tearing into each other in a room I don't recognize yet.

It's gone as fast as it came, leaving me shaking, my vision swimming back into the ordinary stadium lights.

Kai's hand closes gently around my jaw. "What did you see?"

"I don't..." My voice comes out wrecked. "I don't know. I don't know if it's real."

He studies my face for one more second like he's deciding something.

He doesn't ask. He gets one arm under my knees and one across my back and lifts me straight off the concrete like I weigh nothing at all, like the two hundred and some pounds Ethan just told a stadium was too much is a rumor Kai's arms have decided not to believe.

I brace for the stumble, the grunt, the jesus, you're heavy I've heard from other boys my whole life. It doesn't come. He carries me toward the tunnel like I'm something precious he's rescuing from a fire, past a wall of Red Fang wolves. They don't dare move, and I am too stunned to do anything but stare up at his jaw and hold on.

He doesn't set me down once we clear the tunnel. He just stops, in the dim orange light of the corridor, and looks at me like the stadium and the packs and the whole spinning night have gone quiet somewhere outside the two of us.

"Why are you doing this?" I finally manage.

"Because you're mine now. And nobody humiliates what's mine. Not him. Not anyone." His eyes drop to me, and they go fierce and soft at once. "I'm going to worship this body every single day, Nadia. Every part of it he called too much. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

I think I must be dreaming. Nobody has ever talked about my body like this, much less worship it.

He hasn't set me down. I'm still cradled against him, and he lowers me slowly, achingly slowly, until my feet touch the ground but his arms don't leave my waist. His face is so close I can feel the heat coming off him, feel his breath against my mouth, and mine goes shallow and quick in a way that has nothing to do with the vision or the bond wire that snapped an hour ago.

"Tell me to stop," he murmurs, and it isn't a warning. It's an offer.

I don't tell him anything.

His mouth finds mine like he's been waiting his whole life for permission, and the kiss isn't gentle- it's deep and hot and hungry. The concrete corridor, the roaring stadium and the whole impossible night fall away. His hand slides up into my hair, mine fisting in the front of his jersey like I might fall if I let go. I taste ice and salt, and every nerve I own lights up at once. For three full seconds I forget my own name.

"Nadia!" Maya's voice cracks down the tunnel like a whip, and I break the kiss with a gasp, my forehead still resting against his, both of us breathing hard.

She skids around the corner, amber eyes huge, hair coming loose from its clip, and stops dead at the sight of us.

"Oh...I...okay, that's happening, we'll deal with that later," she says, already grabbing for my sleeve, "but Nadia, something is wrong. I was heading to the locker room and I heard..."

The scream that cuts her off comes from down the hall.

The tunnel becomes a battle ground. Bodies slam into steel, snarls tangled with shredded jerseys. Red Fang and Black Ice have torn from any semblance of pack. They're just teeth and claws now. I freeze in the doorway.

One of them turns toward me.

His eyes are black, pupil swallowing iris, and thin silver lines fork across his face like lightning frozen mid-strike. It's pulsing with each breath he drags in.

Kia moves s the Pack Alpha to stop the chaos. One, a red fang Pack member approaches me and grips my arm hard. His claws spring out, aiming at my eyes.