C2

“You think this dirty little street wolf can handle the weight of my silver fur?”

Seth Adebayo’s dark baritone sliced right through the silk veil covering my face. He didn't use a gentle touch. His massive, scarred hand clamped hard around my throat, not enough to choke me, but just enough to force my chin upward so I had to look into those burning amber eyes.

“I do not know how my blood got onto that registration parchment, Alpha,” I gasped out. My heart went fast, hitting against my ribs like a trapped bird, but I kept my body perfectly still. For fifteen winters inside the Mensah Clan, I had played the role of a broken, scentless omega. If I shifted my weight even an inch, if my footwork showed the years of lethal combat training my mother secretly beat into me before she perished, this apex predator would rip my throat out right here on the sheets.

Seth let out a low, vibrating rumble from his chest that made the entire oak frame of the bed tremble. “You expect me to believe a pathetic rogue managed to slip past my border patrols, enter the high council vault in Podgend, and match my alpha genetic sequence without assistance?”

“I am a mutant outcast who sweeps the floors of the Shadow,” I whispered, forcing a pathetic tremble into my hands as I gripped his thick wrists. “Look at me. My father calls me a curse. Do you truly believe I possess the power to deceive the entire Adebayo Dominion?”

He didn't answer right away. His gaze dropped to the ceremonial battle armor currently strapped to my chest. It was a legendary piece of gear, forged from hardened silver-alloy leather and studded with over four hundred thousand crushed diamond-pearl scales, worth more than five hundred million pack resources. Luna Vivian and Alpha Tade had spent their entire black-market treasury to buy that armor for Amara, intending to cement the ultimate modern werewolf mafia alliance. Instead, because of the ancient laws, their precious heir had to stand in the Alpha Hall and watch the guards strap the family fortune onto my back.

Amara had looked like he wanted to drink poison right there on the stone steps.

“Your stepmother thinks you will not survive past midnight,” Seth murmured, his thumb brushing against the heavy ash paste I used to cover the left side of my jaw. “She stood by the helipad while my rotors kicked up the dust, telling the execution squads that I would discard your carcass in the neutral zones before morning.”

“And will you?” I asked, holding his gaze.

Instead of answering, Seth leaned down further, his chest pressing flat against mine. The sheer pressure of his dominant alpha aura felt like a mountain collapsing on my chest. I could smell the tobacco, gunpowder, and raw timber scent radiating from his skin. It was suffocating. Outside the high walls of the Adebayo Dominion’s fortress, a swarm of underground mafia reporters and rival pack scouts were howling for information, desperate to know why the prize bride had been switched at the altar. Seth had bypassed them completely, throwing me into a military chopper and flying straight into the mountain peaks to lock me in his private quarters.

He let out a dry, dangerous chuckle that brushed hot against my ear. “You play the trembling pup very well, Rapha Okoye. But your eyes are too bright. A truly broken wolf does not look at a executioner with defiance.”

“I am simply trying to stay alive, Alpha Seth,” I said, keeping my voice soft, using the simple words of a submissive mate.

“Earlier, when Amara lunged at you with his claws bared, you didn't flinch,” Seth said, his grip tightening slightly before he suddenly released me, drawing back just enough to look down at my body. “You shifted your heels exactly three inches to the left. Perfect defensive alignment. A useless omega does not possess that kind of combat instinct.”

My skin went cold. He had noticed. In that split second of chaos inside the Alpha Hall, my old survival training had taken over. I had used Seth’s massive body as a shield, making it look like a clumsy accident to the rest of the council, but this man was a tactical genius. He saw through the clumsy act instantly.

“I was terrified,” I lied, keeping my voice flat. “I just moved away from the sharp silver.”

“We shall see how terrified you are,” Seth growled.

Without a single word of warning, his hands gripped my waist. He didn't hesitate. With one powerful heave, he hoisted me completely off the mattress, flipping my body over until my chest slammed hard against the furs. The heavy diamond-pearl armor clattered loudly against the wood as he pinned my arms behind my spine, locking his heavy thigh over my legs so I could not move.

“What are you doing?” I barked, my disguise slipping for a fraction of a second as anger flared in my veins.

“A genuine husband must inspect his property on the binding night,” Seth whispered against the back of my neck, his fangs grazing the sensitive skin right above my pack mark. “Let us see what lies beneath the ugly ash and the rumors of a melted face.”

The rumors were my shield. For fifteen years, the Mensah Clan told the world that at five winters old, I had set the fire that killed my mother, Nyara Okoye, and left my own skin scarred and hideous. They called me a murderer. They called me a monster. It kept the other alphas away, which was exactly what I needed until my twentieth birthday.

Seth’s hand reached around, grasping the edge of my coarse, ash-stained hairpiece and tearing it away with a violent yank. My real hair, thick and silver-pale, spilled across the dark furs.

He paused, his breath catching in his throat for a short second.

“A curse, they said,” Seth muttered, his voice dropping into something raw and primitive. His heavy hand moved down, grabbing a damp cloth from the bedside washbasin and dragging it roughly across my cheek, wiping away the thick layers of black grease and fake scars I had applied this morning.

The pale, unblemished skin of the Okoye bloodline gleamed under the twin moons shining through the window. I wasn't a scarred monster. I was a high-blood alpha-born omega, my features sharp, my skin smooth, and my structure built for power.

“You are a beautifully wrapped lie,” Seth growled, his amber eyes shifting to dark gold as his inner beast recognized the true form beneath the rags. He pressed his heavy frame down, crushing me into the bed until the air left my lungs.

“Let me go, Seth,” I growled, my voice finally dropping the fake weakness.

“Never,” he whispered, his teeth pressing hard against my throat. “You are my bound mate now. And I will extract every single secret from your flesh.”