CHAPTER 1: UNKNOWN MESSAGE

ELI'S POV

The air smelled like rosewater and nervous sweat... a familiar blend for an Omega on the eve of his mating. I inhaled deeply, fingers tightening around the silk tie of my ceremonial robes. My own scent was almost imperceptible, a whisper in a world that demanded storms. Weak, they’d called it once. Now, it was the only thing keeping me alive.

“Stop fidgeting, chéri,” my mother’s voice cut through my thoughts, soft but edged with steel. She adjusted the sash on my robe, her omega pheromones washing over me like a tidal wave. “Tomorrow, you’ll be bound to Elric. You’ll never have to worry about being smelled again.”

I forced a smile. “I know, Mama.”

Elric and I had spent years together, since the day his family saved mine. Ten years ago, when Elion died, Dad’s pack crumbled. My brother’s body had been found half-mooned in the woods, a rogue’s doing. They never caught the bastard. After that, my father hollowed out, his health fraying until he could no longer lead.

Elric had stepped in, of course. He always did. Son of Beta Marcus, my father’s right-hand, with a smile sharp enough to draw blood and a body that screamed Alpha in every line. He’d saved my father’s life when the illness came, offering their clinic, their resources. And when the council voted to crown him Alpha a month before my wedding, I didn’t argue. How could I? Elric had been my chosen for years.

“How do I look?” I asked, twirling for her. The ceremonial robe clung to my frame, its gold embroidery glinting under the ballroom chandeliers.

“You look like a fool,” my older sister, Elena, muttered from the doorway. Her arms were crossed, she was a beta. “You think he’s going to love you? Choose you? He’s an Alpha. He’ll take what he wants, and you’ll let him.”

“Elena—” Mother hissed, but I waved her off.

She wasn’t wrong. My scent was a ghost, a fact Ryan had never complained about. Most Alphas hunted for strong scents... something they could mark, something that would cling to them like a second skin. Mine was the opposite: a vacuum. Maybe that was why Elric had chosen me. Or maybe he’d thought it made me easier to control.

I shook the thoughts away. Tomorrow, I’d be his. Tomorrow, the pack would be mine again.

The message came at midnight.

“Room 301. Don’t come alone.”

It had no signature, but the location was clear: The Velvet Den, a nightclub where the pack’s Alphas liked to pretend they were still wolves. I stared at the text, my heartbeat a frantic drum in my ears. Elric had been at a council meeting hours ago, and I’d been too preoccupied with Elena’s words to ask where he’d gone afterward.

“Eli?” My beta friend, Thomas, appeared in my doorway, his fur coat slung over one arm. His scent was old and sour, like burnt coffee. “Can’t sleep?”

I hesitated. “Did… did Ryan leave the pack hall early?”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I just—” My throat tightened. “I think someone sent me a message. From him. He's in Velvet Den.”

Thomas’s face went blank. Then, in a blink, he vanished. I waited twenty minutes before the knock came.

It was one of Elric’s enforcers, a bulked-up beta named Derek who’d once called me “princess” and laughed when I cried. Now, he looked like he’d swallowed a cactus.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, glancing over my shoulder like he expected wolves to materialize.

“I need to see Elric.”

Derek’s nostrils flared. “He’s… not here.”

I stepped forward, the scent of his lie thick on the air. “Liar.”

He paled. “Eli, don’t—”

I shoved past him, my heart a sledgehammer. The club was a maze of velvet drapes and low light, but Room 301 was at the back, behind a row of VIP lounges. When I reached the door, two of Elric’s friends... Jason and Cole, both Alphas, were slumped on the couch, passing a bottle of whiskey between them.

Their heads snapped up when they saw me.

“Shit,” Jason muttered, sloshing whiskey over the table.

Cole stood abruptly, knocking his chair over. “Eli, you shouldn’t be—”

“I’m here for Elric,” I said, my voice steady. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it cracked like glass. “Where is he?”

They exchanged a glance. Jason’s hand twitched toward the door beside us. I snatched the key off the table.

“No!” Cole lunged for me, but I wrenched free.

“Don’t let him in!” Jason hissed, his words sharp with panic.

I didn’t wait. The handle of Room 302 was warm in my grip. The key slid into the door of Room 302. The lock clicked.

The air inside was hot, the scent thick... sex, sweat, and a cloying floral musk I knew too well.

My stomach dropped.