CHAPTER 5: OBSESSED

LUCEN'S POV

The grey light of dawn filtered through the heavy curtains, casting long shadows across my bedroom. My eyes were fixed on the figure tangled in my sheets.

Eli.

He was still sound asleep, his chest rising and falling in a deep, even rhythm that seemed to calm the very air in the room. The silk sheet was pooled around his waist, leaving his lean, bare torso exposed to the chill.

”He sleeps, you help him last night”, a voice rumbled in my mind, a low, primal vibration that was both a part of me and entirely separate. ”And for the first time in a long time, I sleeps soundly. Good.”

Vulk. My wolf. He was usually a restless, snarling presence, a constant thrum of rage and discontent just beneath my skin. But now, he was preening, satisfied. I could feel his pleasure wafting through my consciousness like a warm current.

”His scent… it pleases me”, Vulk continued, his mental voice a low growl of possession. ”It’s different. Not entirely the same as the one from the woods. But it’s better. It’s his.”

“Of course it’s different,” I murmured, my voice a bare whisper in the quiet room. I ran a hand through my hair, my gaze still locked on Eli. “That was seven years ago. And that was his twin brother, Elion.”

”I don’t fucking care”, Vulk snarled, the sudden shift in his tone making me flinch. ”He was used. That other one was used. They are two separate scents, two separate claims. This one… this one is ours. He is here. Now. I want him. I want to smell him again.”

The possessive force of his words hit me like a physical blow. I stared down at Eli’s sleeping face, truly seeing it for the first time in the clear morning light. The jawline, the shape of his eyes, the soft sweep of his dark hair across his forehead. Vulk was right to be confused. The resemblance to his brother, Elion, was uncanny. It was like looking at a ghost, a softer, more vulnerable version of the boy who had shattered my world a seven years ago. A sharp, bitter pang of loss and anger surged through me, and I shoved it down, forcefully.

I couldn’t stay here. I pushed myself off the edge of the bed, my movements silent. I needed space. I needed the cold. Striding into the adjoining bathroom, I turned the shower on, twisting the knob to its coldest setting. The water hissed, and I stepped under the spray, the icy needles a shocking punishment against my heated skin.

But the cold did little to quell the fire inside. As the water slicked my hair back and streamed down my chest, a memory surfaced from the night before. Eli, writhing beneath me, his face a mask of desperate pleasure. His voice, broken and breathless, begging me. Not for release, but for something else entirely. “Help me,” he’d pleaded, his hands clutching at my shoulders. “Please, Mr. Lucen… help me.”

My body responded instantly, a traitorous heat blooming in my groin. My cock, which had been semi-soft, thickened and throbbed, a demanding ache against my thigh.

”See?” Vulk rumbled, a smug satisfaction in his tone. ”We both want him. Fuck him now. Fill him until he can only smell us, until he forgets his own name.”

“He’s still sleeping,” I hissed aloud, my hand bracing against the tiled wall. But the image was burned into my mind: Eli’s scent, a mix of roses and maybe jasmine or gardenia, filling my lungs as he moved under me. And beneath it, that other scent. The one from the woods. The one that had haunted me for a decade. It was fainter now, matured, but there was no mistaking it. A whisper of old roses, tangled with the storm of his pheromones. ”Take him."

My own control frayed. I gave in, my hand wrapping around my erection. I closed my eyes, letting the water cascade over me as I began to stroke myself. I remembered the silken heat of Eli’s body, the way he’d gasped my name, the scent of those phantom roses as I claimed him.

My movements grew faster, more frantic, a desperate attempt to exorcise the ghost of the past and the overwhelming reality of the present. With a choked gasp, my release hit me, painting the white tiles in messy stripes. I leaned my forehead against the cool wall, my breath ragged, the cold water finally doing its job and washing me clean.

I finished my shower in a daze, my mind a chaotic mess. When I stepped back into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around my waist, Eli was awake. He was sitting up in bed, the sheet clutched to his chest, his eyes wide and glassy as he stared around the opulent room. He looked lost, a small, confused boy in a giant’s world. He saw me, and a faint blush colored his cheeks, but his expression remained dazed, innocent.

He had no idea what he was doing here, not really. Not the full scope of it.

My heart hardened. I couldn’t afford this weakness. “Get up,” I said, my voice cold and flat, a stark contrast to the intimate chaos of my thoughts. “Get dressed. The head butler will assist you. Meet me in the living room in an hour. We need to talk.”

Eli just nodded, his silent compliance making something twist in my gut. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t argue. He just accepted my command, and that, more than anything, terrified me.

I turned and walked out, not looking back. In the hallway, I flagged down the head butler, an old, impassive wolf named Jarvis. “See to him,” I ordered. “Get him clothes, food, whatever he needs. Bring him to the living room in an hour.”

Jarvis bowed his head. “Of course, Alpha.”

Descending the grand staircase, the familiar weight of my pack settled back on my shoulders. One of the packs beta, Drew, was waiting for me at the bottom, his expression a little too eager.

“Alpha,” he greeted me with a slight bow. “A word, if you please.”

“Spit it out, Drew.”

“It’s Friday,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “About tonight’s… arrangement. Do you wish me to proceed? I have a new one for you. She’s exquisite, Alpha Lucen. Truly. And untouched. You’d be her first.”

I froze on the bottom step, the forgotten details of my life crowding in. Every Friday for years. A new omega sent to my bed. It was Drew’s brilliant idea to try and soothe Vulk, to trick the beast into accepting a substitute for the mate he craved. It never worked. The moment Vulk caught their scent, he’d rear up in a furious tide of rejection, and I’d lose control. The nights always ended with a terrified, bruised omega and a hefty check to ensure their silence. It was a sordid, bloody cycle, and I had let it happen.

Before Vulk’s full emergence, before that scent in the woods had ruined me for anyone else, I had been every bit the playboy my reputation suggested. I’d taken omegas and sometimes betas with a careless arrogance, a wolf in his prime. But that night, everything had changed. The scent of faint roses and something faint had imprinted on my soul, and Vulk had become a monogamist, a creature of a single, devastating obsession.

“Lucen?” Drew prompted, mistaking my silence for consideration. “She’s special, I promise.”

“No,” I said, my voice a low growl. “From now on, the arrangement is cancelled. Permanently.”

Drew’s face fell, then paled. The panic was immediate and palpable. “But… Alpha, the arrangement, the funds… I—”

“I will not repeat myself,” I snarled, letting a hint of Vulk’s rage bleed into my voice. My eyes flared amber, and Drew stumbled back a step, his throat working. “My decision is final.”

He scurried away like a cockroach in the light, and I took a deep, steadying breath, trying to rein in the wolf. It was then that I heard it. A soft thud from the library alcove just off the main hall. I turned my head slowly.

Standing by a bookshelf, a leather-bound tome lying open at his feet, was Eli. He was dressed in a simple but expensive shirt and trousers Jarvis had no doubt provided. His face was ashen, his eyes wide with a horrified understanding.

He had heard everything. The arrangements, the untouched omegas, the whole sordid business. He’d heard me, his supposed savior, being described as a monstrous client.

For a split second, raw panic flared in my chest. Vulnerability. Exposure. I crushed it instantly, slamming the door on the emotion and replacing it with a thick wall of icy indifference. This was my armor. This was what I knew.

I straightened my shoulders, my face a perfect mask of cold authority. I met his shell-shocked gaze without flinching.

“Sit here,” I said, my voice devoid of any warmth. I gestured to a large armchair. “We need to talk.”