Chapter 5

The Claiming Window

I left the lecture hall with the letter still sealed and the three sets of documents burned into my memory.

Identical crests. My real name in clean black type. A formal interest petition already stamped with the Grand Master’s authority. And the quiet certainty that one of the three Alphas in that room had lied to my face.

The restricted corridor felt longer on the way out. Darius walked slightly ahead, Cassian slightly behind, Elias carrying the folder under one arm like it weighed nothing. None of them spoke. The temporary mark on my wrist still carried Darius’s smoke-and-cedar scent. Cassian’s winter-steel clung to my clothes from the earlier corridor. Elias’s colder rain-and-ink note lingered in the air between us. Three layers of possession I had not agreed to.

I wanted the nearest exit. I wanted a bathroom with a lock, a fresh dose of suppressants, and enough distance to think. The scholarship packet no longer mattered. The university no longer felt like a path out. It felt like a stage someone else had already set.

We reached the main junction that opened onto one of the central atriums. Afternoon light poured down through the high glass ceiling. Students crossed the open floor in ordinary groups, voices echoing off stone and metal. For a moment it almost looked normal again.

Then the atrium doors at the far end opened and the ordinary noise died.

The Grand Master entered with six black-suited aides and a clear path that formed in front of him without anyone being told. He was taller than Cassian, silver-haired, dressed in formal black and deep crimson. His eyes were the same ice-blue as his son’s, only emptier. The silver pin on his lapel was larger, heavier, impossible to mistake.

Students stopped walking. Conversations cut off mid-sentence. Phones lowered. The entire atrium went still in the space of a few heartbeats.

Cassian’s posture changed first—shoulders squared, expression locked into perfect court neutrality. Darius shifted his weight, one hand flexing once at his side. Elias closed the folder and held it tighter.

The Grand Master’s gaze found me across the open floor and did not move.

He walked forward at an unhurried pace. The aides fanned out just enough to control the space without touching anyone. When he stopped ten feet away, the silence was absolute.

“Leo Ashford,” he said. His voice carried without effort, calm and precise. “The last recorded pure-blood royal Omega of a line I ordered erased twenty years ago.”

A low ripple moved through the watching students. No one spoke above it.

I kept my feet planted and my shoulders level. The letter in my hand suddenly felt fragile. Heat that had been simmering under my skin since the suppressants failed began to climb faster, sharper, no longer content to stay controlled.

The Grand Master continued as if we were the only two people in the building.

“A formal interest petition was filed in your name this morning. The claiming window is now open. Any Alpha of sufficient standing may present a claim before sundown tomorrow. The Council will review and authorize. You will remain under observation until the matter is settled.”

“I do not consent,” I said. My voice carried farther than I expected in the quiet.

He looked at me the way a man looked at a document that required only one more signature.

“Consent is not required,” he answered. “Presence is. You are present.”

The heat surged without warning.

It hit like a wave breaking under my ribs—hot, violent, impossible to swallow back. My vision narrowed at the edges. The three Alpha scents around me intensified at the same moment, as if my body had decided to announce itself to every trained nose in the atrium. Students nearest to us took an instinctive step back. Someone whispered the word “heat” and the whisper spread.

I locked my knees and forced my breathing into a slow pattern that no longer worked. The letter crumpled slightly in my fist. My pulse slammed once, twice, then refused to settle.

Cassian moved first.

He stepped in front of me, close enough that his winter-steel scent became the only thing I could clearly track. One hand rose, not to strike, not to steady—simply to close around the side of my throat with controlled pressure, thumb resting just under the hinge of my jaw. The contact was deliberate. Public. Unmistakable.

A claim bite position.

I could feel the edge of his canines against my skin, not yet breaking it, waiting. His voice was low enough that only I could hear the first words.

“Do not collapse in front of them.”

The heat kept climbing. My legs threatened to give. The atrium lights seemed too bright. Somewhere to my left Darius said my name once, sharp with warning. Elias remained silent, but I felt his attention like a second set of hands.

The Grand Master watched without expression.

“The window is open,” he repeated. “Choose carefully who you allow to finish what has started.”

Cassian’s hand tightened a fraction. The points of his teeth pressed harder against the side of my throat—still not a full bite, still not blood, but the intent was clear to every Alpha and Omega watching. Rescue or ownership. I could no longer tell the difference.

My knees buckled.

The last clear thing I registered was the solid weight of Cassian’s arm taking my weight as the heat finally tore through the last of my control, and the sound of the Grand Master’s voice carrying across the silent atrium like a final seal.

“The Omega Prince will be claimed before the window closes.”

Then the lights went white.