006

_Vuk Kael Lasković

The war room was carved from the bones of the mountain itself.

Black glass walls, veins of living hellfire crawling behind them like slow lightning.

Holographic screens hovered above the obsidian table: dominion borders, troop movements, satellite feeds of every pack house from here to the southern ice.

All of it flickered crimson and gold, breathing in time with my pulse.

I sat at the head, shirtless, the bite on my shoulder still raw and shining.

Every breath tasted of her.

Every heartbeat dragged me back to the memory of her thighs locked around my hips, her broken little sob when the knot finally seated.

Three hours and nineteen minutes.

Too long.

Elder Darius stood to my left, silver beard brushing the tablet in his gnarled hands, pretending to read decrees he already knew by heart.

He had not looked directly at me since I walked in.

The doors opened.

Eryx stepped through first.

“My lord,” he said, voice low. “Cassian Voss requests an audience. Claims it is… urgent pack business.”

A faint smirk pulled at my mouth.

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

The holo-screens stuttered; golden veins spider-webbed across them like cracks in glass.

I inclined my head once.

Eryx moved aside.

Cassian Voss strode in as though the floor belonged to him.

Black suit cut sharp enough to bleed, bloodstone cufflinks catching the hellfire light.

He stopped the regulation six feet away and bowed, perfectly angled, perfectly late by half a heartbeat.

“Alpha Devil,” he said, smooth and loud enough for the walls to hear. “An honor, as always, to stand in your presence.”

His pulse was a war drum against my eardrums.

Fast.

Terrified.

Delicious.

I said nothing.

Cassian straightened.

The smile stayed plastered on, but the scent of his fear thickened, sour and wet.

“I come on a matter of… misappropriated assets,” he began, voice still polished. “Ten million, paid in full at last night’s auction. A rare acquisition from the southern packs: untouched, lunar-veined. A significant investment.”

He let the pause hang, expectant.

“And this morning that asset appears to have been… relocated. Without discussion. Without compensation.”

Silence.

The shadows in the corners of the room stretched longer, crawling across the floor like living oil.

Elder Darius’s knuckles went white around his tablet.

Eryx did not breathe.

Cassian’s fingers tightened on the data-pad he carried.

I watched the tremor travel up his wrists.

“Such disputes,” he pressed on, “could unsettle the council. A simple acknowledgment of the original transaction, perhaps a reimbursement, or return of the item in question—”

I traced one claw along the edge of the obsidian table.

The stone hissed.

A smoking black groove followed my touch, curling like a burn scar.

Cassian’s voice faltered.

He means my mate.

My moon.

The only thing in three and a half centuries that has ever made the void inside me quiet.

And he dares speak of her as though she were cattle.

Elder Darius finally spoke, barely a whisper. “Lord Cassian. Choose your next word with care.”

Cassian ignored him.

Sweat beaded at his hairline.

“I only seek what is mine by right of purchase,” he said, louder now, reckless. “The girl is my property—”

The room went perfectly still.

I rose.

The holograms winked out one by one, as though someone had pulled their plugs.

The hellfire behind the glass walls flared white-hot, then sank to a sullen ember.

I walked forward until the tips of my boots touched his.

Until he had to crane his neck to hold my gaze.

“Property,” I repeated, soft as a confession.

Cassian tried to step back.

He couldn’t.

The air had thickened into something solid around him.

I lifted one hand and closed it around his jaw.

My thumb pressed the hinge until bone creaked.

“Open your mouth.”

A whimper escaped him.

I waited.

His lips parted on a sob.

I slid two claws inside, hooked the wet muscle of his tongue, and drew it forward until his eyes bulged and tears ran red.

“Pack decree seven,” I said, conversational, almost gentle. “No wolf speaks of the Luna as chattel. The penalty is loss of the offending organ.”

Cassian thrashed.

Muffled, wet pleas vibrated against my fingers.

I looked into his eyes the entire time.

One clean, deliberate slice.

The tongue came away in my hand, warm and heavy.

Blood sheeted down his chin, soaked the white of his shirt, spattered the dead holo-map in thick crimson drops.

He collapsed to his knees, hands clawing at his ruined mouth, gargled screams filling the room.

I let the tongue fall.

It hit the floor with a soft, wet sound.

“Compensation rendered,” I said to no one in particular.

I wiped my hand on the breast of his ruined jacket, slow, thorough, as though cleaning a blade.

Then I turned my back on him.

“Burn the carpet,” I told Eryx without looking. “And send what’s left of him to the southern border. Let them see what happens when they sell what belongs to me.”

The doors opened before I reached them.

I was already moving.

Three hours and twenty-four minutes.

I was done waiting.

My mate was somewhere above me, breathing, bleeding, carrying my mark and my seed.

And I was coming for her.

Everything else could rot.

I find her exactly where Livia was told to put her.

The grand balcony doors stand open to the night.

Wind howls off the mountain, carrying snow and starlight, whipping her white-gold hair like a battle standard.

She is on her knees in the center of the vast obsidian floor, naked, palms open on her thighs, spine straight, head bowed.

Moonlight pours over her like liquid silver.

The bite on her shoulder glows faintly.

The crescent scar at the base of her neck catches the light and throws it back, brighter, purer, holy.

She is waiting for me the way the oldest stories say a Luna waits for her Alpha.

The way no female has ever waited for me in three and a half centuries.

The sight punches the air from my lungs.

I stop in the doorway.

For one heartbeat I cannot move.

Cassian’s blood is still drying under my claws.

I can still taste his fear.

And none of it matters.

She hears me.

Her shoulders jerk, but she does not lift her head.

I cross the balcony in silence.

The wind dies the moment I step into the moonlight, as though the night itself is holding its breath.

I drop to my knees in front of her.

The stone is freezing, unforgiving, exactly the way it should be.

My hands (still flecked with another male’s blood) rise slowly and cup her face.

She is trembling.

I tilt her chin until those silver eyes meet mine.

There are tears on her lashes, but she is not crying now.

She is offering.

I brush my thumbs across her cheekbones, smearing faint red streaks that are not hers.

Then I lean forward and press my lips to the bite I left on her shoulder, gentle, reverent, the way a pilgrim kisses sacred ground.

The growl that leaves me is not rage, not lust, but something older, something that has no name.

“Never again,” I whisper against her skin. “No one will ever put a price on you again.”

Her breath hitches.

I pull back just far enough to look at her.

The wind picks up once more, but it moves around us now, as though afraid to touch.

I rise, pulling her up with me.

She comes willingly, but her legs shake so hard they almost can’t lock them around my waist.

A soft, broken whimper spills from her lips when her slick folds drag over the ridge of my cock through the leathers.

She buries her face in my neck, hiding, trembling, little fingers clutching my shoulders like I’m the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

I carry her the ten steps to the balustrade.

Every stride makes her cunt grind against me; every grind tears another helpless sound from her throat, quiet, frightened, wet.

At the railing I lower her slowly.

The stone is ice against her bare thighs.

A thousand-foot drop yawns behind her back.

She gasps, arms flying around my neck, nails digging in.

Not from lust, from terror of the drop, from the cold, from the size of me, from everything that has happened in the last day.

Her whole body is shaking, tears already slipping free, silver tracks on her cheeks that freeze almost instantly in the wind.

I cage her there with my body, one forearm braced beside her head, the other hand sliding between us.

I don’t ask.

I don’t speak.

I simply open my leathers and fist my cock once, slow, letting her feel the heat and weight of it against her belly.

She whimpers again, higher, tries to close her thighs on instinct.

I wedge my hips between them and spread her wider.

The head nudges her entrance, already drenched, swollen, fluttering.

She’s so small against me I have to fight the urge to split her in half.

I push in.

One long, merciless thrust and I’m seated to the hilt.

Her cry is thin and shattered, carried away on the wind.

Her walls clamp down in panic and pleasure at once, spasming around the invasion, trying to push me out and pull me deeper in the same breath.

Tears pour faster; her mouth opens on silent sobs, lips trembling against my throat.

I stay buried, letting her feel every burning inch, letting the knot press threateningly at her entrance.

My hand cups the back of her skull, forcing her to stay pressed to me.

“Breathe, little moon,” I rasp against her ear, voice rough but steady. “Breathe. I have you.”

She tries.

A broken inhale, another whimper, her body slowly softening, yielding even while it shakes.

Only when the tears slow do I move.

Slow, deep strokes at first, dragging out, slamming back in, each one punching a new sob from her lungs.

Her nails rake my back, not urging, just clinging for life.

Snowflakes catch on her lashes; moonlight turns the tears on her cheeks to diamonds.

I angle my hips, find that spot inside her that makes her jerk and cry out louder, and stay there, grinding until her sobs fracture into something else, something helpless and needy that isn’t quite begging yet.

The knot begins to swell.

I feel it catch on every withdrawal, stretching her rim, forcing her to take more, more, more.

She starts shaking her head against my shoulder, overwhelmed, frightened of the size, of the burn, of how full she already is.

I don’t stop.

One arm locks under her ass, lifting her slightly so the angle is brutal, the other hand collars her throat, gentle but immovable, keeping her exactly where I want her.

“Look at me,” I order, low.

Her eyes flutter open, glassy, terrified, luminous.

I drive forward again and the knot finally breaches.

Her mouth opens in a silent scream, back bowing off the stone, tears streaming sideways into her hair.

Her cunt locks down in violent pulses, milking me before I’ve even started to come.

I roar into the night, hips jerking, pumping her full in thick, endless ropes until it spills out around the knot and drips down the ancient stone of the balcony, steaming in the snow.

She’s sobbing openly now, soft, overwhelmed, clinging to me with everything she has, face hidden against my throat while her body still fluttering around the knot in helpless aftershocks.

I stay buried deep, arms wrapped around her so tightly she can barely breathe, letting the wind howl and the dominion watch.

Let them see.

Let them all see what happens to anyone who ever thought they could own her.

I press my lips to her temple, tasting salt and snow and her.

“Mine,” I whisper into her hair, voice ragged. “Only mine.”