CHAPTER TWO: The Alpha

AERIN

I couldn’t breathe.

The guard’s hand was still on my arm, his fingers no longer pretending to restrain. The council chamber felt too small, the stone walls pressing inward as bodies subtly closed ranks around me.

This was...selection.

My pulse hammered so hard my vision blurred. I tried to pull back, but the rope at my wrists bit deeper, cutting into skin.

Someone laughed quietly behind me.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said again, louder this time.

No one answered.

The guard’s thumb dragged slowly along the inside of my arm, deliberate and testing, before he leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. I felt cold down my spine.

Suddenly, something changed in the air.

I felt it, even though no one else did.

There was no sound.

No movement.

But suddenly, the space around me felt tighter, heavier, like the room itself was watching that hand on my arm.

Not sensing anything, the guard leaned closer to me and murmured, “You’ll be quiet...they always are.” Apparent lust appeared in his eyes.

Panic surged, sharp and sudden. My chest constricted.

I twisted hard. “Stop.”

The word came out broken, but the guard just chuckled.

That was...the doors opened…and the entire room changed.

The air changed all at once.

I felt a heavy force slam down on my shoulders, my spine, my head. My knees gave out before I could stop them.

I cried out as I was pushed down, the breath knocked hard from my chest.

My knees struck the stone so hard my teeth rattled. Something unseen held me there, pressing me into the floor, squeezing the air from my lungs. It felt like the room itself had decided I belonged on my knees.

No one touched me.

No one hit me.

I was forced down...by the mere pressure. Someone entered the room...and his pressure weight everyone down to their knees.

The guard swore and stumbled back, his hand tearing away from me as though he had touched fire.

Silence followed.

Not awkward silence.

But the absolute kind.

It swallowed the chamber whole.

Seconds passed like their were foreover...until finally, footsteps sounded.

Slow.

Measured.

Certain.

Each step tightened the pressure, compressing the space until the walls felt closer and the ceiling lower.

I lifted my head...and saw him.

He stood just inside the doors.

Tall.

Still.

Unhurried

Beautiful...like a glorious prey out to devour the world.

I did not know his name.

I did not know his title.

But my body did.

Something deep inside me went utterly still, then tight...like an animal freezing at the edge of a predator’s territory. Every instinct screamed not to run, not to breathe wrong, not to draw attention.

'This man...is the Alpha.'

And a very, very dangerous one.

“Lord Kael.”

Another voice followed, reverent and afraid.

“Alpha.”

The entire chamber bowed.

Everyone except me.

I couldn’t move.

And still, his eyes were not on them.

He did not look at the council.

He did not look at the guards.

He... looked at me.

The pressure shifted and focused, bearing down on my spine, my chest, my ribs until my body trembled under the weight of it. My fingers dug into the stone, my nails scraping uselessly as a sharp ache bloomed in my chest.

A sudden, unexplained ache. Like something inside me had been struck awake.

Alpha Kael moved towards me.

One step. Then Two.

The guard who had touched me stiffened, his breath catching audibly.

Another step.

The pressure sharpened. No longer crushing... it became cutting.

He stopped directly in front of him. His gaze flicked once, brief and involuntary, back to me.

The pressure suddenly grew stronger.

It lasted only a moment.

Then it pulled back, as if he had forced it under control.

“Move your hand,” he said.

The guard hesitated... but only for a heartbeat.

Alpha Kael lifted his hand.

For the briefest instant, his fingers shifted, as if he were about to reach for something else. Someone else.

Then something flickered in his eyes.

He closed his hand instead.

Chains snapped into existence around the guard’s wrist with a sharp metallic crack. Bone bent at an angle it should never take, and the scream tore through the chamber, raw and uncontrolled.

I flinched hard.

Alpha Kael tightened his grip.

The chains constricted.

The guard collapsed to his knees with a broken cry, breath coming in ragged gasps as pain tore through him. He clawed uselessly at the metal, panic spilling out in frantic pleas.

“I didn’t mean,” he sobbed. “My lord, I swear.”

“You reached for an unclaimed omega,” Alpha Kael said quietly.

“In my palace.”

The guard’s voice dissolved into apologies. Promises. Desperate, humiliating words thrown at stone.

Alpha Kael crouched in front of him.

The movement alone sent a ripple of fear through the chamber. Elders recoiled without realizing they had moved.

“Everything in this palace exists because I allow it,” Kael continued evenly.

“You forgot that.”

He twisted his wrist.

The scream ripped free again, raw and uncontrolled, tearing through the chamber and slamming back off the stone walls. The sound scraped along my nerves.

I shuddered, and turned pale. I looked away.

Suddenly, the screams stopped. Everything turned quiet. Even the pressure that was wearing me down disappeared, and I could suddenly breathe easy.

I blinked once, then twice, then turned towards him.

Our eyes met.

‘For someone so dangerous, his eyes are beautiful,’ I thought.

His grey eyes were fixed on me, steady and unblinking, as if he were looking straight into me instead of just at me.

A shiver ran through my body.

The way he looked at me was not like the others.

The others looked at me with hunger...and greed.

But Alpha Kael's gaze was different.

It was not soft... But it was not repulsive.

And that made it far more dangerous.

Because it felt like he did not just want to claim me.

It felt like he wanted to possess me.