CHAPTER THREE: ENGULFED IN HIM

Seraphina

“You will not wander into the main pack quarters. You will not speak to the guards unless spoken to. And above all, you do not touch me again.” Asheron continued.

“Understood” I nodded slowly as he went back to his ledger as if I had already ceased to exist.

The first week inside Asheron’s estate felt like walking through a minefield in silence. The room he gave me was grander than anything I had ever slept in at Rowan’s house, and my pregnancy was still a secret

If Asheron found out I was carrying a child, he would throw me back to the border. I had to hide it. But my body was betrayed by its own nature.

The pregnancy altered my core scent. The quiet Omega status was shifting. Day by day, it bled into something far more potent.

I tried to scrub my skin raw with harsh lavender soap, but it did nothing. My blood was really changing.

On the eighth day, I made the mistake of stepping down into the lower courtyard to gather fresh linen from the washhouse. I thought the guards were on patrol elsewhere, but as I rounded the archway, three Beta warriors from Asheron’s lower guard were standing by the well.

The moment the breeze shifted, carrying my scent toward them, all three turned instantly.

Their eyes widened, their pupils dilating as they inhaled. The sweet, heavy cloud of a pregnancy-altered Omega heat cycle hit them like an unrefined potion.

“What in the moon’s name is that?” one of the Betas growled, his jaw locking as he took an involuntary step forward. “She’s not in standard heat...”

“She smells like sugar and fire...caramel, is it?” another muttered, his shoulders rising as his inner wolf surfaced. “The Alpha said she was unranked, but that...” He licked his lips, stepping into my path. “That’s high-blood nectar.”

“Please...” I said, backing away until my heel caught on the uneven stone. “I’m just going back to my room.”

“You shouldn’t be walking around looking like that if you want to be left alone” the first Beta sneered as he reached out a clawed hand toward my arm. His eyes flared with a sudden, competitive hunger. “If the Alpha isn’t claiming that scent, it’s fair game for the lower ranks—”

He never finished the sentence.

A sudden, crushing darkness swept over the courtyard. The air got filled with the pressure of an Alpha’s pure, violent aura.

Before I could blink, Asheron was there.

He simply grabbed the front of the Beta’s leather collar and hurled him sideways into the stone pillar. The man crumpled to the ground, coughing blood.

The other two guards dropped to their knees immediately, baring their necks in terrifying submission, trembling under the weight of Asheron’s presence.

“Alpha—” one gasped, his forehead pressed to the dirt. “We didn’t...her scent...it...”

“Silence!” Asheron rumbled. His voice was an ancestral command that vibrated straight through my bones, forcing me to clutch at the archway for support.

He stalked toward me like a predator stalking a cornered game. Every step was deliberate, terrifying, and utterly dominant. When he reached me, he leaned down, his face buried in the side of my neck, and took a deep, harsh breath.

I gasped, my hands flying to his shoulders to push him away, but my fingers froze against the hard muscle of his back. The moment he inhaled my altered scent, a low, guttural growl vibrated deep inside his chest—a sound so primal and possessive it made my knees instantly weak.

“What are you doing to your blood?” Asheron snarled against my skin, his teeth brushing the pulse point on my jaw. His breath was scalding hot. “What is this?”

“I... I don’t know” I lied even though my voice shook uncontrollably. “It’s just... my body...”

“It’s driving my men mad” he growled, pulling back just enough to glare down at me. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscle looked ready to snap. His own restraint was fraying right before my eyes. I could see the battle warring behind his dark gaze—the intense disgust he felt for wanting to touch a weak, rejected Omega, fighting against an overwhelming, feral urge to rip my clothes off and cover me in his mark.

“I can’t... I can’t control it” I whimpered, tears pricking my eyes. “I’m sorry...”

Asheron let out a sharp, frustrated breath through his teeth. “You are a plague” he hissed.

Without another word, he gave me his jacket. It smelled so intensely of him that it made me swim with a strangely terrifying comfort.

Then, before I could ask what he was doing, Asheron stepped even closer and scent-marked me.

“Now no one on this land will come near you” Asheron growled into my ear as he finished marking me. “They will smell me on you before they see you.”

I stood there, panting, completely wrapped in his clothes and his scent. Deep inside my belly, a quiet warmth settled, as if the secret life within me recognized the Alpha’s mark and calmed instantly.

Asheron stepped back, looking at me with stormy eyes.

“Go to your room,” he spat, turning his back on me. “And do not take that jacket off.”

His dualism was foreign to me, but who was I to complain when my own boyfriend had just dumped me and now I was living with his very rival for survival.

He marked me.

My inner Omega, starved for protection for so many years, practically purred at the heavy Alpha scent clinging to my collarbone.

He obviously hated me just like everyone else. He hated that despite his disgust, his own wolf had reached out and claimed my scent to keep me safe.

Who really was Asheron? And why was he so invested in my matter?