Chapter 3  

Benjamin Reed's POV

I picked up a scent of cheap jasmine perfume mixed with desperation and the sharp tang of wolfsbane-laced wine.

I didn’t even bother turning around. 

The desperate whore….selene… stood nearby. She was some redhead from one of the lesser allied packs, she was the kind who thought cleavage and a sultry purr could buy her a crown.

She slid up behind me in the shadowed corridor leading from the alpha’s private study. The Gathering was still raging downstairs: music, laughter filled the air, the clink of glasses, unmated females posturing like they had a shot at impressing me. I’d come up here to escape the stench of hopeful females and their scheming fathers.

She didn’t take the hint.

“Alpha Reed,” she purred, voice dripping honey and venom in equal measure. Her fingers brushed the back of my neck. I felt so disgusted. “You’ve been hiding all night. Don’t you want company?”

I stayed perfectly still, staring out the tall arched window at the moon-drenched forest below. My reflection stared back: black eyes, harder than obsidian, jaw clenched with annoyance. 

The scar that ran from my left temple down to my jaw…Elara’s last gift before she bled out in my arms…caught the moonlight and gleamed silver.

“I don’t hide,” I said quietly. “What the fuck do you want? Are the rogues done fucking you yet? Shit.”

She laughed, low and throaty, pressing closer until her breasts grazed my back.

 I felt the tiny glass vial tucked against her thigh, it was wolfsbane sedative, weak enough not to kill an alpha, strong enough to fog the mind long enough for her to sink her teeth in and force a mark. Amateur hour.

“You’re lonely, Benjamin,” she whispered, lips brushing my ear. “Everyone knows it. Six years without a Luna. Six years without a warm body in your bed. Let me fix that. I’ll be whatever you need. Gentle. Wild. Submissive.” Her hand slid down my chest, nails dragging over leather. “I’ll even let you pretend I’m her.”

The mention of Elara snapped something inside me.

My wolf surged forward, fur rippling under my skin, a snarl building in my throat that vibrated the air itself.

I moved faster than she could scream.

One hand clamped around her wrist, while one reached for the vial, crushing bone like dry twigs…I watched with an emotionless stare as the liquid spilled to the floor.

 She gasped, eyes wide with shock and sudden fear.

The other hand shot to her throat, lifting her clean off the floor until her feet dangled. Her pulse hammered against my palm, frantic, alive.

“You think you can drug me?” My voice was ice. “You think you can whisper her name and I’ll roll over like some whipped pup?”

She clawed at my arm, nails drawing shallow lines that healed before the blood could bead. Tears streamed down her painted cheeks. Mascara ran in black rivers.

“P-please,” she choked. “I only wanted—I thought—”

“You thought wrong.”

I tilted my head, studying her the way a predator studies something already dead.

Downstairs, the music swelled. No one would hear her scream. No one would dare come looking for me unless I called.

My claws lengthened…just enough to tire through anything, even a brick wall.

I drove them through her ribcage in one clean, surgical motion.

Her eyes bulged, then a wet, surprised gasp escaped her lips.

I felt the moment her heart gave one last frantic beat against my fingers then nothing but complete silence.

I ripped it free in a single, brutal yank.

Blood sprayed across the stone wall in a dark arc. Her body slumped, lifeless, eyes still open in frozen disbelief.

I held the heart up to the moonlight. It dripped once, twice, then stilled.

Timber howled inside me…not in triumph, but in cold satisfaction.

 I swore I would only do this for duty and not love. 

I dropped the heart. It landed with a soft, wet thud beside her crumpled form.

Then I stepped over her like she was nothing..because she was nothing but a whore who thought I'd even let her have my cock…and walked back toward the staircase.

The corridor smelled of death now. Good. Let it linger. Let every wolf who passed this way tomorrow catch the scent and remember.

I paused at the top of the stairs, wiping my hand absently on my coat.

Below, the Gathering continued—oblivious, glittering, full of pretty lies and prettier females who thought they could survive me.

I almost laughed. Because deep in my chest, where the mate bond should have been a gaping wound, something stirred something… new.

A faint, impossible tug. Like a thread pulled taut across hundreds of miles.

I frowned, rubbing at the center of my chest as if I could crush whatever phantom sensation had dared intrude.

It didn’t fade. If anything, it sharpened.

My wolf lifted his head inside me, ears pricked, nostrils flaring.

*Mate..*

The word hit like a thunderclap. I bared my teeth at the empty air.

“No,” I snarled under my breath. “I know you are restless boy, Elara is gone…We just have to do this for the pack..no feelings allowed… .”

Timber whimpered in agony for the first time. I hated seeing him that way.

The night was about to end and It didn't seem like I'd find a suitable mate. They all smelt desperate, ugly or weak. That's something I hated most. Weakness.

And so…I mind linked Marcus to prepare a cruise, maybe I could meet the supposed “potential Luna” he kept pressing me about all these years.