Chapter#03

MAYA

“Who the hell was that?” Darius growled, glancing in the direction of the sound

Time stopped for a moment. And Darius gradually let go of my arm.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know who the wolf was, but his presence had awoken something inside me, a brief feeling of safety I hadn’t experienced in years. I looked across the room to where he had been standing, and he was gone.

My heart was pounding as I scanned the crowd, desperate to see him. He had been there just moments ago. But then a sinister cackling from Darius and his buddies snapped me back to my humiliating present.

One of the crueler boys burst into laughter, pointing at my legs as the room erupted with his jeers. There was a painful blush on my brow, my face burning with shame when the others caught on.

I looked down and froze. The wet cloth was pressed against my thighs. It was a giant reminder that none of this was something I could do anything about. My heat… my scent… my body’s betrayal was broadcast to them all.

Mortification pierced me, robbing me of breath. I closed my eyes tight, trying to make the faces disappear, to shut out their taunting smiles and the sound of their laughter that was now all around me.

But there were too many men in the room. They were so close, that my skin crawled and burned at the same time. And the scent of male wolves only exacerbated my condition, adding fuel to the fire that burned just beneath the surface of my skin.

I couldn’t stop it.

My body took over, much to my chagrin, craving something I didn’t desire.

“What’s the matter, Maya? Feeling… needy?” Darius taunted, stepping closer again. “I’m sure you’d do anything to make it stop, huh?”

The heat pooled in me, seething and overwhelming and intensifying every second. His voice coiled around me like smoke, impossible to ignore, and the heavy, masculine scents in the air only made the heat under my skin blaze higher.

I was burning up, my sensitive skin prickling, every inch of me throbbing with unbearable tension. My thoughts fell away like sand through my fingers until all that was left was nothing but a raw, aching need.

A moan escaped before I could choke it down. I’d clamped my thighs in a last-ditch effort to keep the pressure at a minimum, but the method was ineffective. So was the fragrance of my arousal hanging in the stagnant air… an impossible stink to keep roped up.

Nothing else existed in that second.

There was just the ceaseless storm brewing in me, demanding a release I could not access and yet could not prevent desiring.

“Let me go,” I spat at Darius, who was so close to me I could feel his breath.

“Why don’t you beg us, mutt? We might take pity on you.”

I was on the spot, and my heart was thumping under my ribs as though it would jump out. His insult hurt more than it had any right to, but what actually tore into me was the sick thrill that sparked to life within me when he said it.

I despised it.

I crippled myself over my reliance on my body and my loathing for it, how it had wanted any touch, any scrap of ease, however briefly, from those who met my gaze with nothing but disdain not so long ago.

My legs shook under me; they could scarcely sustain me. My breath was short; my words came thick and fast. The haze of my warmth pulsed tighter around my mind like a vice, dragging me down, muting everything else.

And that was not even the high point.

The worst was still to come.

Yet the heat was already unbearable, increasing my salacious need with every inhalation, every moment until all that was left was aching hunger and impotence ravaging my flesh.

Darius’s friends jeered. Their jeers mingled with the thunder in my head.

“Look at her,” one laughed. “She can barely stand. Pathetic.”

Another moved up and slid his finger over my lips. I gasped. A surge of need flooded through me, and I couldn’t help it. I opened my mouth as his finger slipped to my tongue, moaning. Tears stung my eyes. I tried to cease, to resist it, but my body would not obey.

And the boy laughed, looking at his friends. “I’ll bet she’d do anything to stop this. Isn’t that right, Maya? Do you want me to…”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

All that pressure, that heat, those smothering looks… it was just too much. I plowed through the people in front of me. The two of them spoke at once, jumbling on top of each other in a chorus of laughter and catty whispers. My shoulder brushed someone’s arm, and I stumbled and nearly fell, but I kept pushing. I didn’t care. I just needed to get away.

The ballroom spun around me then, a swirl of glinting gowns and derisive looks, and every eye seemed to glare into my back with searing intensity. Their laughter followed me, and their judgment clung to my skin the way smoke burns.

But I didn’t look back.

All I could think about was getting away. Somewhere I could breathe. Somewhere I could stop shaking long enough to remember my name.

And that’s when I ran into… 

I lost my breath as I stumbled back. I saved myself before I tripped. I lashed out instinctively to steady myself, and an apology flew to my lips, but never left the moment I looked up.

It was him.

The man with the amber eyes.

Up close, he was devastating.

Tall and broad-shouldered. There was no line in his body that did not speak of power. His black suit was tailored perfectly to his frame,  emphasizing the raw power barely restrained beneath it, and the stark lines of his jacket were a stark counterpoint to the simmering tension barely contained in his stiff posture.

But it was his eyes that captured me.

Amber, afire with something unreadable, and something dark that sent my pulse racing to the back of my throat.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

The quiet outside grew loud around us, like concentric ripples in a pond. The voices in the room faded, one by one, and I began to be hyper-aware of the number of people watching me.

Every eye turned toward us.

I could feel the hair in their stares closing in from all parts, but I couldn’t look away.

And then I saw it… the ring. A black signet ring on his left ring finger. Its intricately worked face bore the seal of the Obsidian Throne.

My stomach knotted, and my breath stopped half in.

He wasn’t just any Lycan.

The Lycan Leader. The king of the Obsidian Throne. The wolf is the most formidable beast in our world.

I’d just collided with him.

My heart began to race as the realization of what was potentially happening finally broke through the barrier. Here I was, in front of the world's most powerful man, and I could all but smell my pussy in a heady cloud around me. I steeled myself for a scolding… or worse. An unchecked heat cycle in the public eye was a disgrace, a breach that would draw the wrath of the Obsidian Throne counsel.

But there was no judgment in his piercing amber eyes. Instead, there was something different… something that sent prickles over my skin. Reaching down, he hoisted me off the floor with unexpected mildness.

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

His guttural voice undulated over my overly sensitive skin. When his brush touched my arm, his hand was steady and so warm that it was like I was unable to breathe. My breath came and went in waves, aching for more of it.

“I… I’m fine,” I gasped, but my body betrayed me once again. 

The heat washed over me harder than before, and I fell to my knees. I sagged against him. Everything went fuzzy and I was overwhelmed with desire.

He had me in an instant, and now we were pressed up close together. I could feel the hard planes of his chest pressed to mine, and his smell filled my nostrils. I raised my head, blushing, to see him looking at me with such heat that I felt my heart trip a beat.

Time seemed to slow. The ballroom, the whispers, the judgment… all went silent. There was only us, and this bizarre, electric moment we were caught in. His eyes clouded, and his face emoted a flicker of something unsophisticated and primal. I couldn’t look away.

I was attracted to him in a way I couldn't understand, such a powerful pull that it eclipsed everything else.

His head lowered still, and the space between his lips and mine was mere inches. I sucked in a breath and pressed closer to him, wanting him to make it happen. My body was yearning for the touch he alone could give.

Is the Lycan Leader going to kiss me?

But then a voice pierced the haze.

“Maya?”

I blinked out of the spell. Finn, my childhood friend, watched us from the periphery, at the back of the crowd.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, stepping closer.

Finn’s eyes darted back to the leader of the Lycans, and his brows climbed beneath his hairline with familiarity. His face changed, turned deferential, and he bowed low.

“My apologies, Alpha Kael. I didn’t realize…”

I barely heard Finn’s apology. All I could focus on was Kael’s arms holding me. Heat shot through me with his touch, burning away the fabric of my dress. I couldn’t look away from his face, nor could I help but notice the way his fingers still rested on my waist, as if reluctant to release me.

But then Alpha Kael’s gaze turned to stone and unreadable. In one fluid movement, he let go of me, and I lurched backward, just managing to stay upright.

He said nothing but turned and made his way through the swimmers. His presence sucked the air from the room. No one dared step in his path, not even Finn, who stood frozen as he passed.

My legs trembled as I watched Alpha Kael vanish into the crowd. And just like that, he was gone, and I was left undone. I still ached everywhere. My desires were left unanswered, clawing inside me. I’d never experienced anything like this… this magnetic force toward a man who was just as lethal as he was alluring.

My head swirled under the weight of all that had just happened. The Lycan Leader of the Obsidian Throne, Alpha Kael, held me in his arms, and he stared at me as if he wanted me as bad as I wanted him.