CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

DANTE

The moment the three of them were transported out—Rowan, the little girl, and the Omega—the signal was given.

A single, sharp whistle.

The chamber behind us exploded into fire.

It spread instantly, devouring curtains, igniting tables, swallowing the velvet-draped stage where the auctioneer had stood. Screams erupted before the smoke had time to rise. The guards we had planted along the walls threw off their disguises and moved with lethal precision, steel flashing as they cut down the masked handlers one by one.

Lucien’s laugh echoed somewhere to my left, sharp and delighted, the sound of a predator in his element.

I stepped forward through the smoke, my hands in my pockets, expression cool and unchanging as men burned around me.

“Kill everyone involved,” I said calmly. “No survivors.”

A dozen voices answered in unison, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Gunfire. Steel. Bodies hitting the floor.

It was efficient. Clean. Controlled chaos designed by me.

Kade appeared at my side, blood on his sleeves, his hair slightly disheveled from combat—meaning the fight had actually entertained him.

“I’ve secured the victims,” he reported, his voice flat. “They’re being loaded into buses now.”

Lucien sauntered toward us, dragging a handler by the collar before slitting the man’s throat without breaking stride. “Pathetic,” he drawled. “They didn’t even beg.”

“Bodies?” I said.

“Already being done,” Kade replied.

The flames spread faster. We had planned it that way—three days of blueprints, stolen keys, forged clearance codes, and shadow routes through the underground. I’d memorized every inch of the layout myself.

Because when I received the report that the academy—a structure under my family’s rule for six generations—had been breached, and that dozens of students had gone missing, something in me cracked.

Not anger.

No.

Rage. Pure, icy, suffocating rage.

I remembered the moment clearly: the trembling headmaster arriving at my war-room door, whispering that the East Wing had been infiltrated, that students had been taken in the night, that security had been overridden.

I had stood there silently.

Lucien had stopped mid-sentence.

Kade’s hand tightened on the table.

Then I spoke, voice calm enough to terrify the entire room.

“Find them.”

We searched for hours. Then decided to plan after finding out the trail led here—this underground den hiding behind an abandoned industrial zone.

Someone inside the academy had helped them. Someone with clearance.

But despite tearing through every corridor and cross-examining the entire administrative staff, we still hadn’t found the insider.

Yet.

My jaw tightened at the thought.

Lucien smirked. “We’ll find him, brother. They always talk eventually.”

“Make them talk faster,” I said.

He grinned. “Gladly.”

Outside the burning compound, rows of buses lined up, filled with unconscious or shaken students. Families were waiting at the kingdom’s emergency medical bay. We would return the students to their parents—quietly, without panic—while spreading the official story: a rogue raid intercepted by royal forces.

It didn’t matter what lie we used.

What mattered was control.

Order.

Dominance.

“Send the buses out,” I ordered.

Kade nodded to the transport officers. Engines rumbled to life.

Lucien leaned against the door of our car. “You know,” he purred, “not bad for a three-day plan.”

“Get in,” I said.

He laughed. “Cold as always.”

We rode in silence, the city lights passing in streaks outside the window as we headed toward the palace. My mind wasn’t on the fire, or the dead, or even the successful rescue.

It was on the file on my desk.

Rowan Hale.

Nineteen.

Registered Beta.

Minimal reported medical history.

And eyes too defiant for someone so easily broken.

I had memorized the picture already.

Not because I cared.

But because he had dared to collide with me. Because he had spilt water on me, insulted me, snapped at me.

Because he had begged.

I heard his voice again—

“Please buy us. I’ll do anything.”

A foolish offer.

One I fully intended to hold him to.

By the time we reached the palace, the moon was high. Guards bowed as we passed, keeping their gazes low. The halls were quiet, the marble polished to mirror shine. I walked toward the east wing, where the rescued students who required monitoring were temporarily housed.

“Where is he?” I asked the attendant.

“In the royal recovery suite, Your Majesty,” she said quickly. “We placed the little girl with him as requested.”

“Good.”

I dismissed her and pushed open the door.

The room was dimly lit, warm, comfortable. The little girl—Lila, I believed—was asleep in a nest of blankets on the bed, her tiny hand curled in the sheets.

Rowan was pacing the room like a caged animal, hair a mess, shirt too big for him, eyes darting between the windows and the door as if expecting someone to break in and drag him away.

The moment he saw me, he froze.

His face tightened.

And then he marched straight toward me.

“YOU—” he began angrily, finger raised, voice strained from exhaustion. “I need to talk to you right now because what the hell was that—?! You can’t just—”

I raised a hand.

“I strongly suggest,” I said calmly, “that you rethink your next words.”

He blinked, startled by the iciness in my tone.

I stepped inside fully, closing the door behind me.

“Because you belong to me now,” I continued coldly. “You agreed to that yourself. ‘I’ll do anything,’ remember?”

His mouth opened—then shut.

“And if you so much as insult me,” I added softly, “I will return the girl.”