Private Property of My Best Friend's Alpha Daddy

I shouldn’t be at this party.

The thought repeats itself like a quiet warning as I step through the wide double doors of the Blackwood estate. Soft golden light spills across polished marble. Music drifts from the main hall. low and expensive, the kind that makes people speak in careful tones. Laughter rises and falls in polished waves. Everything here smells like wealth, power and old pine.

I tug at the hem of my simple black dress. It fits well enough, but it is not the kind of dress the women here wear. Their gowns catch the light screaming their status while mine disappears into it. I don't mind of course. 

I am Emily’s best friend, nothing more. The quiet one who sits at the edge of pack gatherings and leaves early. The one most people forget the moment she steps out of the room. I shouldn't want to dress or be anyone else.

I look around. Emily, the star of the show  spots me almost immediately. She cuts through the crowd with that bright, easy smile that has always made me feel less invisible.

“You came,” she says, pulling me into a quick hug. Her perfume is light and familiar. “I was starting to think you’d invent another work emergency.”

“I considered it,” I admit. Of course I did. But I eventually though against it because today is her big day and I want to celebrate it with her.

Emily laughs and links her arm through mine. “Well, you’re here now. That’s all that matters. Come on. There’s champagne and terrible pack gossip.” she says wiggling her eyebrows. I laugh and allow her drag me along.

I let her lead me deeper into the room. For a few minutes it almost feels normal. Emily introduces me to a couple of law-school friends, then drifts away to greet an aunt. I stay near the wall, nursing a glass I barely taste.

She's as dazzling as she should be. This is her night. Her twenty-second birthday. The entire Blackwood Pack has turned out to celebrate the Alpha’s daughter. 

Lucky. That is the word I have always used for our friendship. Emily never treated me like the leftover girl from a lesser pack. She never asked why my wolf stayed quiet for so long or why I flinched at raised voices. She just kept showing up. And I kept letting her. This is one of the times the roles are reversed.

I am still standing there, half-hidden behind a tall floral arrangement, when the air changes.

It is not a sound or a scent at first. It is a pressure, a sudden drop in temperature that has nothing to do with the open windows. Conversations falter. A few heads turn toward the grand staircase. Of course only one person can command such presence 

Dominic Blackwood descends like he owns the night itself.

He is dressed in a black tailored shirt open at the throat with a jacket sharp enough to cut. Salt-and-pepper hair. Broad shoulders that make the space around him seem smaller. His expression is unreadable, the same cold control that has made grown Alphas lower their eyes. He does not smile. He does not need to.

Bam. The effect is immediate. Women straighten. Young ones, older ones, pack-born and visiting. A blonde in red licks her lips and steps forward as if pulled by a string. Another woman, closer to his age, smooths her dress and laughs too loudly at nothing. Someone near me whispers his name like a prayer. Another murmurs that he has not looked at a woman properly in fifteen years. They still try. They always try.

He is the most ruthless Alpha in the region. Everyone knows it. He ends territory disputes with a single sentence. He has broken alliances that lasted decades. People fear him more than they like him, and still they orbit him. Especially the females. They watch his mouth when he speaks. They track the way his hand rests in his pocket. They offer themselves with smiles and lowered lashes and soft voices.

He does not look at any of them instead he freezes for a moment and then, his gaze moves across the room once, assessing. and then it stops.

On me.

The world narrows to the space between us.

Something ancient and wordless locks into place behind my ribs. My pulse stutters. Heat blooms low in my stomach, slow and unwanted. My wolf, the quiet, half-asleep thing I have spent years ignoring, lifts her head for the first time in months. She does not speak. She simply recognizes.

Mate.

The knowledge is not gentle. It is a claim pressed against the inside of my skin. My fingers tighten around the champagne flute. I cannot look away. Neither can he.

Dominic Blackwood’s eyes are gray in the light, but for one heartbeat they flash amber. Just one. Then the color is gone, locked down again behind that ruthless calm. He continues down the stairs as if nothing has happened. People part for him without being asked. A young she-wolf tries to catch his attention with a soft greeting. He nods once, polite and empty, and keeps walking.

But his attention never fully leaves me. I feel it like a hand at the back of my neck. Unsure of how I feel at the moment.

What the f*ck? 

Emily returns to my side, still smiling. “There you are. I thought you’d vanished. My father just arrived. did you see him? He actually left the office early. Miracle.” she says giggling as she speaks already half drunk.

I make a sound that might pass for agreement. My throat is dry. The bond... whatever this is.. pulses once, low and insistent. It does not care that he is her father. It does not care that I am no one. It only knows that the most dangerous man in the room has just looked at me like he already owns the air I breathe.

I should leave.

I should invent an excuse, any excuse, and walk out the same doors I entered. Emily would understand. She always does.

Instead I stay rooted in place, watching Dominic Blackwood accept a drink he does not taste and listen to a Beta’s report he does not need. Women continue to drift closer. One brushes his sleeve. Another laughs at something he did not say. He remains untouched by all of it. Controlled and Untouchable, Except for the single thread of attention that still stretches between us, invisible and burning.

I feel like laughing hard at myself. Am I a Joke to the goddess. One rejection wasn't enough for her was it now? She had to create another and add some spice. A cold shiver runs down my spine.

I am not important here. I have never been important. I am the friend who sits in the corner and leaves before dessert. The girl whose old pack decided she was too weak to keep. The one who learned early how to make herself small.

Yet the Alpha of the Blackwood Pack cannot seem to look away for long.

When his eyes find me again across the crowded room, the pull tightens. My breath catches. Heat slides down my spine, slow and deliberate, as if his gaze has weight. As if he is already imagining what it would feel like to close the distance and take.

I should be terrified.

I am.

But beneath the fear is something worse.

Recognition.