Every Alpha in the Room

Hana

Luca's words sent a hot pulse through me. My body answered the warning as if it were a promise. I opened the nearest spreadsheet and held the tablet between us. “That's an inappropriate thing to say to a woman you've just met.”

“It wasn't criticism.” His hand still hovered near my waist. “Come with me.”

“No.”

His wolf flashed through his eyes. “Something is wrong.”

“Your family is attempting diplomacy. The shock will pass.”

I walked toward the service corridor without hurrying. Running would draw every predator's attention. So would striking Luca De Santis with my tablet, although the option remained attractive.

“Hana.”

His low voice followed me through the ballroom doors. The corridor beyond smelled of starch, industrial cleanser, and roasted meat from the kitchens. I passed two hotel employees arranging silver coffee pots, entered the women's lounge, and locked the door. My hands shook as I pulled out the suppressant case. The mirror showed straight black hair pinned at my nape, lipstick still neat, and fever burning across my cheekbones. I looked composed if no one noticed my pupils or the pulse pounding beneath my jaw.

I removed the vial I'd used that afternoon. Aiko marked every dose with a blue line fired into the glass. This one appeared blue until I rolled it beneath the vanity light. Green flashed along the edge. Paint. I snapped open an unused vial and smelled saline. Someone had replaced all three. Pain clenched low in my abdomen. I caught the marble counter as sweat gathered beneath my blouse. My breasts tightened against the silk. My skin became too sensitive for air, fabric, or the memory of Luca's gaze on my mouth. My wolf rose through nine years of chemical silence.

She didn't search for safety. She searched for Kenji and Luca.

“Traitor,” I whispered.

Omega, she answered. The designation wasn't a discovery. It was a death sentence my mother had taught me to outrun. At sixteen, she'd pressed the first illegal vial into my hand and warned me never to let an alpha learn what I was. Registration would have placed my bloodline, address, and cycle dates inside a Council database available to every recognized pack. The law protected omegas by telling dangerous men exactly where to find us. My mother chose invisibility. After she died, I kept choosing it. Someone had just ripped it away inside the most heavily guarded hotel in Manhattan.

I called Aiko. Her phone went dead without ringing. I sent Kenji the false invoice and one line. SUPPRESSANTS REPLACED. LOCK THE FLOOR.

Delivered. Unread.

A man's shoes struck the corridor outside. They stopped at the lounge door. I removed the steel pin holding my hair. The sharpened end was six inches long, decorative enough to pass hotel security and strong enough to reach an artery. The lock clicked. No key had entered from this side. The door opened, and Carlo Bianchi stepped inside. De Santis soldier. Alpha. Thirty-two. Three assault charges and one witness who had reconsidered testifying after his bakery burned. He closed the door behind him.

“Wrong room,” I said.

His nostrils flared. Hunger thickened his scent. “Not anymore.”

Fear hollowed my stomach. I pressed my thumb against the hairpin's point and welcomed the sting.

“Your boss is forty feet away.”

“My boss doesn't know what you are.”

Luca knew. His restraint had trembled with it. Carlo didn't have any.

“Then leave before I tell him you cornered me in a locked room.”

“You won't tell anyone once I get you out.”

He reached for my throat, not with desire but ownership, as though my scent had erased my name and made my body public property. Anger burned away the fear. I drove the suppressant case into his mouth. Glass broke. Blood and saline splashed his white shirt. He reeled, cursing, and I rammed the hairpin through the back of his hand into the wooden door. His scream rattled the mirrors. Claws split his fingertips. His jaw lengthened as his wolf surged forward. He swiped at me with his free hand, but pain ruined his balance. I twisted the pin.

“You stupid little bitch.”

“You followed an accountant into a room with one exit.” I drove my knee between his legs. “Only one of us failed to assess the risk.”

He folded. I wrenched the door open and stepped into the corridor. The hotel employees stared from beside the coffee service.

“Call security,” I told them. “He appears to have injured himself.”

Carlo roared behind me.

I ran.

The ballroom doors stood less than thirty feet away. I reached them as another cramp tore through me. My hand slipped on the brass handle. Heat surged beneath my skin, stripping away the final chemical barrier between my body and the world. The doors opened. Music stopped in the middle of a note. My omega scent flooded the ballroom.

Every alpha turned toward me.

Growls rolled beneath the chandeliers. Wolves pushed against skin and expensive suits. Chairs scraped. Glass broke. Someone near the De Santis table whispered, “Omega,” with the reverence of a prayer and the hunger of a threat. Carlo staggered into the corridor behind me, bleeding and furious. “She's mine.”

Kenji moved first. One moment he stood beside his father. The next, he crossed the ballroom with his wolf in his eyes and murder behind his teeth. Luca came from the opposite side. He shoved Raffaele out of his path hard enough to send a champagne flute spinning across the marble.

They were the two strongest alphas in the room. Heirs to criminal empires that measured mercy in debts owed and bodies buried. They should have terrified me more than anyone. Instead, my body opened to their approach. Kenji reached me and turned, placing himself between me and the Sato-kai. Luca took my other side and faced his own family.

Neither touched me.

That restraint burned hotter than hands would have.

“Mate,” Kenji said, the word torn from a place deeper than his control.

Luca looked across me at his enemy. “You too?”

Every wolf in the ballroom edged closer. Guns remained beneath jackets, but hands drifted toward them. Masaru Sato stared at me without surprise. Raffaele De Santis smiled as if someone had delivered a kingdom to his table. My mother had warned me that one alpha might recognize me someday. She had never warned me there could be two. My wolf rose inside me, wild after nine years of silence, and claimed the choice before I could stop her.

Both.