Chapter 3 — Contract Teeth

Daire didn’t wait for her answer.

He moved—fast, decisive, and a shield and storm in one.

The first Tribunal tracker cleared the top stair, eyes sweeping the room, mouth already opening to ask who had clearance to be in the back.

Daire’s grip on the omega’s wrist tightened—not cruel, but decisive—and he hauled her off the stool and toward the staff door with a speed that would look, to anyone watching, like a pissed-off man dragging out a troublesome girl.

To anyone who knew better, it was a shield.

“Back exit,” he snapped, more to himself than to her.

She stumbled once, then caught her footing. She didn’t scream. Didn’t even gasp loud enough to draw attention.

Smart.

The door banged open ahead of them. Wet night slammed into his face. Rain came down hard enough to turn neon into smeared streaks of color on the slick pavement.

Perfect. Miserable. Useful.

Rain blurred scent.

He shoved the door shut behind them with his shoulder, listening for the shout that would mean they’d been marked.

“Move,” he said, legs already stretching into a run.

Her shoes—cheap, thin-soled things—slipped once on the wet concrete, but she stayed with him, breath sharp next to his shoulder. The alley behind the bar was a narrow vein between buildings, trash bins hulking in the dark.

Boots hit the metal stairs on the other side of the door. The trackers had clocked something.

Daire pulled her around the corner before the back exit swung open again. The second alley was wider, cutting between the pawnshop and a shuttered warehouse, open at one end to the main strip, and closed at the other by a chained gate.

Better.

He took the closed end.

Rain hammered his hood and ran cold into the collar of his jacket. Suppressants and city stench dulled everything, but even through it, he could feel the tug of her body beside him—omega warmth, pulse fast.

He reached the dead-end gate and pivoted, putting his back to the cold metal, eyes on the alley’s mouth. No immediate silhouettes. There are no flashlights yet.

They had seconds. Maybe.

He turned his head. She was staring at him, eyes wide and dark in the shadow, damp hair stuck to her cheek.

Up close, she looked nothing like the ghosts he’d been running from. Or everything like one.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

She planted her feet. “No.”

He almost smiled at the flat defiance in that one syllable. Fear in her scent, yes. But not the kind that made omegas fold.

The adrenaline edged into something else. Something hotter. He shut it down and stepped in.

He braced one forearm against the wall beside her shoulder, not on her, caging her in without pressing. His other hand stayed loose at his side, ready. His body formed a shield between her and the alley.

“Who are you really?” he demanded.

Rain drummed on metal and stone.

She tilted her chin up. “Mara.”

He let his gaze drag over her face. Hood shadow, cheap uniform shirt, skin smelling of soap, and tab-bitter suppressant. No visible mark. No pack crest.

There was no recognition in her eyes when she looked at him. No flicker of *Daire, Alpha, Frostveil*.

Lie.

His wolf paced under his skin, teeth bared against the chemical muffling the bar had left in his lungs.

“Try again,” he said softly. “No one that careful is just a bar omega.”

Something in her flared at that—offense, anger, pride. He didn’t have time to untangle it.

“Who were you before Vesperridge, Mara?” he pushed. “What is the Tribunal looking for when they scent you?”

Her lips pressed together. She turned her face slightly away as if to offer him less to read.

“I’m not your problem,” she said. “I’m leaving. You can go back to—whatever you are doing. Drowning.”

His jaw tightened at the barb. She’d laughed at the footage. At his fall.

If he’d had time, he might’ve answered that.

Boots splashed on wet street at the far end of the alley. Voices—muted, professional—cut through the rain. The trackers had come around the block.

His nostrils flared, catching the metallic tang of their gear, the clean antiseptic that clung to *evaluation* uniforms.

He shifted his stance subtly, angling his body to hide hers from line of sight.

“Funny thing about problems,” he said. “Once Crowe tags you, you’re everyone’s.”

She flinched at the name. Tiny, but there.

And under it—

He froze.

There, under the suppressant and fear-sweat and cheap detergent, under the city’s rot and the cold rain, something else threaded through her scent. Warm. New. A second, smaller rhythm wrapped in her own.

His wolf stopped pacing. Stared.

The world outside the alley—the boots, the rain, the Tribunal—went distant for one long, vertiginous heartbeat as realization slammed into his gut.

“Are you…” His voice came out rough. Wrong. He cleared his throat and tried again, lower. “Are you… carrying?”

Her gaze snapped back to him, eyes wide.

For an instant, the suppressants faltered. Her scent stuttered, fear spiking through the chemical flattening. Her hand twitched as if she wanted to grab her own stomach and thought better of it.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

His wolf froze. Warmth threaded through her scent. No right to ask, yet he did. He knew anyway.

Daire’s stomach dropped. The blood drained from his face; he could feel it, that awful hollowing out.

Fuck.

The Tribunal’s rules weren’t bedtime stories to him. They were case files and threats and late-night negotiations.

Bloodline plus pregnancy meant override.

They could cut through almost any contract, any defense, or any pack law to “secure” a vessel. Call it *protective custody* and not even bother to hide the sold-off pieces.

He had no right to know. No right to care.

He knew anyway.

Boots splashed closer. A flashlight beam cut briefly across the end of the alley, sweeping past their shadowed corner.

“Crowe’s dogs are getting closer,” a voice said in Nightmoor cant.

Daire’s brain snapped back into place. Later. Rage and questions and the spike of something ugly in his chest—later.

Now, survival.

“Stay behind me,” he said, more growl than words.

“Don’t tell me—”

Footsteps approached from the other end of the cutoff lane. The alley wasn’t as empty as he’d hoped.

“Whole city’s crawling,” a new voice drawled. Male. Calm. It's closer than the Tribunal boots. “You pick the worst nights to go drinking, Vhaloren.”

Daire spun, shoving the omega more fully behind his arm as another figure stepped into the thin spill of light.

Dark coat. Hands visible. Eyes are already mapping the alley.

Kieran Sable.

Daire’s hackles rose automatically.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Daire snapped.

Kieran lifted a brow. “Saving you from yourself, apparently.”

He flicked a look at the omega—quick, assessing, nothing lingering—and then back to the alley mouth, where flashlight beams were starting to bounce off wet brick.

Heat flared under Daire’s ribs, sharp and stupid. He didn’t like another man factoring her into his calculations.

“I don’t rescue strangers,” Kieran said, eyes on the rain-slick entrance. “But I hate Crowe more than I hate you right now.”

“Lovely,” the omega muttered.

The name *Mara* tugged at something half asleep in his memory. Vowels, cadence, the shape of her mouth around the syllables.

No time.

“What do you know?” Daire demanded. “What’s the play?”

Kieran’s jaw tightened. “Tribunal’s not just sweeping. They’ve got a list.”

“A list of what?” she asked.

“Of *who*,” Kieran corrected. “Unprotected omegas flagged as ‘potential assets.’ Once they order *evaluation*,” he added, tone flattening, “it’s detention with paperwork. They don’t call it a cell—they call it a facility.”

Her shoulders went rigid against the wall.

Daire could feel her breathing pick up, the small shifts in her scent the suppressant couldn’t completely hide.

“Evaluation.” She spat the word like it tasted foul. “Cute.”

Tracker voices floated in, too close now.

“…reading a fluctuation up this way—”

“—check the side alleys—”

They were out of time.

“Can you move?” Daire asked her, not taking his eyes off the alley mouth.

“Yes,” she said, clipped. “Can you?”

The retort almost dragged a smile out of him. Almost.

“Back wall’s rigged,” Kieran said. “No clean climb with her condition.”

Daire didn’t let himself look at her stomach. At the slight swell hidden by the damp shirt.

“Then we don’t run,” he said. “We make her harder to touch.”

She stiffened. “Excuse me?”

He finally turned to face her fully, rain dripping off the brim of his hood.

“Status is the only language Crowe respects,” he said, every word a hard, cold fact. “Let me give you that.”

She stared at him like he’d spoken another language.

“You want to—what?” Her mouth twisted. “Stamp me with a different label? Property of Daire instead of property of the Tribunal?”

“That’s not—”

“This protects you too,” she cut in, voice sharp enough to slice. “Don’t dress it up as charity. You’re on that chopping block as much as I am.”

He swallowed the instinctive denial. She was right. The Tribunal had been circling him since before Frostveil fell. They’d love a clean way to fold his empire into their *reallocation* numbers.

“Think past the insult,” Kieran said quietly. “Contract marriage, filed right, witnessed right, with Lunaris backing? It buys you both breathing room.”

At least on paper.

Paper had owned her for too long already.

“What do you want, then?” Daire asked her, keeping his voice level. “Name it.”

Her eyes flashed. Rain slicked her hair to her cheeks. She looked like every version of stubborn he’d ever admired and every version of trouble he’d tried—and failed—to keep out of his bed.

“My own bank account,” she said. “No shared funds you can yank if you change your mind.”

He nodded. “Done.”

“The right to walk away if you lie to me again.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “No fights. No bargains. I go. You let me.”

His throat worked. His wolf snarled at the idea and then, under it, accepted the punishment.

“Agreed,” he said hoarsely.

“Control over my body and my child,” she continued. “No forced marks. No ‘for your own good’ bullshit. You don’t make medical decisions for me.”

“Fine.”

Her brows lifted, as if she’d expected more resistance.

“And,” she said, voice cooling, “full access to any Tribunal correspondence that mentions my name. If they breathe my name on paper, I see it. No secrets. Not from them, not from you.”

He blinked.

Lightning cracked somewhere over the city, turning the alley white for a heartbeat.

He wasn’t looking at a scared omega anymore.

He was looking at someone who understood how power moved on ink and letterhead—and meant to sink her teeth into the hand that held the pen.

“Yes,” he said. “You’ll have it.”

The trackers’ footsteps were almost at the alley mouth now. Flashlights licked across wet brick.

“Then we do it now,” Kieran said. “Or not at all.”

She hesitated for half a breath. Long enough that he could see the war in her eyes.

Once, she’d given him her heart for free.

Now she was bargaining with her life.

“Fine,” she said at last. “We do it my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

“Your way,” he agreed.

Thunder rolled overhead. The air tasted like lightning and fear.

He stepped closer, close enough that the heat of her reached him through the cold and the suppressant haze, closing them both in the narrow slice of shadow.

“Last chance to tell me to fuck off,” he said quietly.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth for one treacherous second, then cut away.

“Shut up and make it count,” she whispered.

Her hand fisted in his jacket. She closed the distance.

Teeth, memory, rain, and restraint tangled them. One kiss could cost everything—but neither of them stopped.

It was nothing like the first one.

That had been heat with no history—reckless, greedy, the kind of mistake you made because the night was too long and his hands were too sure and you thought you’d pay for it with a hangover and a sore throat.

This one was years of unsaid apologies and old bruises under the skin. She tasted like rain and cheap bar lime and the faintest trace of suppressants, bitter on her tongue. Under it, the same sweetness that had undone him before.

He kept his hands where they were—one braced on the wall near her shoulder, the other curled into a fist at his side—fighting the urge to drag her closer, to anchor himself in her until the rest of the world blurred out.

She was the one who rose onto her toes. She was the one who let the sound slip out—half anger, half need—into his mouth.

Kissing him again was a bad idea. He knew it. She knew it. Back then, it had only cost her her heart.

Now it could cost her everything.

Neither of them stopped.

A sharp electronic chirp cut through the rain.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, the insistent buzz of a secured line override. Wrong tone for a packmate. Wrong timing for anything but—

He broke the kiss with a curse, chest heaving, every cell in his body screaming at the interruption.

“Don’t—” she started, breathless.

He was already dragging the phone out, thumb sliding over the wet screen. The Tribunal crest bloomed there in stark black and silver, bright even through the drizzle.

A live directive alert scrolled across the top. Audio auto-engaged.

“Inquisitor Vaelen Crowe,” the clipped voice announced over the tiny speaker, amplified by the echo of the alley walls. “By authority of the High Howl Tribunal, effective immediately: recover the Lunaris vessel. Alive.”

The word hung in the air like a dropped blade.

Vessel.

Kieran went still at his side. The omega’s bracelet seared against her skin, heat radiating through the damp fabric of her sleeve. That same glass-singing vibration he’d heard faintly in the bar thrummed in the bones of his hand where it still hovered near her shoulder.

Lunaris.

Daire lifted his gaze to her face.

Silver flickered under her skin, faint but real, like something old and furious answering to its name.

He finally saw her.

Not just the woman in front of him. Not just the omega whose scent his body recognized even through suppressant fog and rain.

The bloodline the Tribunal would cull packs for. The vessel they would call theirs and never let go.

He saw what they’d do to her in a facility built for *evaluation* and *appraisal* and *birth-claim protocols*.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket with a hand that didn’t feel entirely steady.

“They’re not taking you,” he said.

Not a promise.

A declaration of war.