Claimed

Ava's POV

Not this again.

I heard the words leave Sebastian's mouth and felt the room shift around me like the ground had tilted. My first instinct was almost a laugh — a short, hollow thing that I swallowed before it could escape.

Two mates in one week.

The moon goddess had a truly terrible sense of humour.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken, Your Majesty." Jackson's voice was smooth, diplomatic, but I could hear the tension underneath it. He smiled at Sebastian the way people smile when they're trying to control something they can't. "Ava cannot be your mate. It's simply not possible."

Sebastian didn't even glance at him.

His grey eyes stayed on mine, steady and unbothered, like Jackson hadn't spoken at all.

"I am certain," he said simply. Then — "Where are her parents? I'd like to speak with them."

Something moved across Jackson's face. Something I might have called jealousy if I believed he was capable of it.

He ruffled his hair, jaw tight, and left the room without another word.

*****

The silence he left behind was worse.

I became very aware that I was alone with the most powerful man in the world, and that he was looking at me like I was the only thing in the room worth looking at.

I stared at the floor.

"Sebastian." I forced myself to say his name, forced myself to speak before my nerves swallowed the words whole. "I have to agree with Alpha Jackson. You can't be mated to me."

A pause.

"Why do you say that, little wolf?"

I looked up despite myself. He had folded his arms across his chest, and there was something almost warm in his expression — patient, curious, entirely unruffled.

"Because I —" I stopped.

Because Alpha Jackson is still technically my mate and if I say that out loud he'll know about the rejection and then everyone will know and —

"Speak, Ava." His voice was quiet. No Alpha command behind it. No pressure. Just — an invitation.

That was the part that undid me. Not authority. Gentleness.

I was still searching for the right words when the door opened.

Jackson walked back in.

Behind him were my parents.

And Elsie.

My stomach dropped.

My father's eyes found me immediately, burning with the specific fury of a man who had decided, before walking through the door, that whatever was happening was my fault. Beside him, my mother wore that expression I could never quite read — somewhere between anger and something softer that she never let stay long enough for me to name.

Elsie, on the other hand, wasn't looking at me at all.

She was looking at Sebastian.

With an expression I recognised immediately. The same one she wore whenever she wanted something and had already decided she would have it.

“Unbelievable.”

"Greetings." Sebastian addressed my parents directly, gracious and unhurried. "Thank you for coming."

My father bowed. My mother followed. Even Elsie managed to compose herself into something resembling respect.

"I'll be direct," Sebastian said. "I want your daughter Ava. She is my mate."

My mother's sharp inhale filled the room.

My father's expression went rigid.

And Elsie — for just one second, before she controlled it — looked like she'd been slapped.

"My King." My father's voice was carefully measured, stripped of its usual authority in the presence of royalty. "With respect — that cannot be. Ava was already mated to Alpha Jackson. She was rejected just days ago. It is not done for someone to receive a second mate bond so quickly."

Sebastian turned to me.

He looked at me for a long moment — slowly, like he was reading something written just beneath the surface of my expression.

"That explains her sadness," he said quietly.

The words were barely above a murmur, but they landed in the silent room like stones dropped in still water.

I looked away.

I had expected that to be the end of it. My father's words were reasonable. The logic was sound. Even Sebastian — powerful as he was — would have to acknowledge that the situation was complicated. That I was complicated. That no sane man, king or otherwise, would want to inherit this particular mess.

"Good," Sebastian said instead.

I blinked.

"You said he rejected her. That means she is unclaimed." He turned back to me, and something in his expression had shifted — certain now, resolved. "Which means I can."

He crossed the room toward me.

I flinched.

I didn't mean to. It was pure reflex — the instinct of someone who had learned, over years, that people moving toward her rarely meant anything good.

He stopped.

The hurt that crossed his face was so brief I almost missed it. Then it was gone, replaced by that same patient calm.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly, before I could stop myself — already apologising, already making myself small. "I just — I can't, Sebastian. I'm not worthy of you. The bond between me and Alpha Jackson hasn't been properly severed. If you accept me as your mate it will cause pain for both of you and —"

"Reject him," Sebastian said.

Simple. Direct.

"He already rejected you. You don't need his permission to close the bond. All that remains is for you to accept what he did and release it." He reached for my arm — gently, carefully this time, like I was something he was afraid of startling.

"Accept Alpha Jackson's rejection, Ava." His eyes darkened slightly, his Lycan bleeding through at the edges. Not threatening. Urgent. Like every part of him was straining toward something it had waited too long for. "Let him go."

I opened my mouth.

Alpha Jackson's POV

Every muscle in my body had gone rigid.

I stood at the edge of the room watching Sebastian hold her arm and speak to her in that low, careful voice, and something ugly clawed through my chest that I didn't have a name for.

Didn't want a name for.

Her scent had been in my lungs since the moment she walked into the ballroom. That same warm, floral sweetness that had driven me half out of my mind the first day I found her — still there, still undeniable, still *mine* in every way my wolf understood the word.

And now she was standing in front of another man, and I could smell the way her body responded to him.

My wolf went feral.

She was *mine.* She had been mine first. Whatever Sebastian thought he was doing, whatever claim he believed fate had given him — it didn't erase the fact that she had been my mate before she was his. That I had held her hand. That I had looked into her eyes.

That I had —

Rejected her.

The thought hit me like cold water and I pushed it down immediately.

I didn't have time for regret. Not right now. Not with him standing that close to her.

Before I had fully decided to move, I was already moving.

I crossed the room and pulled her away from him, my arm locking around her waist before Sebastian could react, pulling her back against my side.

"No." The word came out raw. "You are not rejecting me, Ava."

Every head in the room turned.

Sebastian's eyes found mine, and the temperature in the room dropped three degrees.

"You belong to me," I said, looking at her — only at her. "You were mine first."

She shook against me. Not from the bond. From fear.

I hated that. I hated that my presence made her shake. But I couldn't let go.

A force hit me from the side — controlled, precise — and suddenly I was a step back, and Sebastian was between us.

"You rejected her." His voice was quiet and absolute, the way a wall is quiet. "She does not belong to you."

"She was my mate before she was yours."

"And you chose to throw her away." His eyes didn't waver. "You don't get to change your mind because someone else saw her value."

The room was completely still.

Across Sebastian's shoulder I could see Ava — wide-eyed, overwhelmed, looking between us both like she was waiting for one of us to turn on her.

And something about that look — that specific, practiced fear — cut straight through the jealousy and the pride and all the noise in my head.

She expected to be hurt.

By both of us.

I had done that to her.

How could Sebastian accept her so easily — knowing about the wolf, knowing about the rejection — when I, her own fated mate, had needed less than ten minutes to decide she wasn't worth the risk?

The thought sat in my chest like a coal.

I had made the wrong choice.

I knew it now with the kind of certainty that came too late and hurt too much.

But knowing it didn't mean I was ready to let her go.

“I can't lose her to him.”

“I won't.”