Dante Voss I

Across the territory in Obsidian Crown pack, a man sat alone in his office, staring blankly at the laptop in front of him. He rubbed both hands over his face and tried to force himself to concentrate, but his mind kept drifting back to the same memory.

The pleas of the woman he had forced himself on returned to him without warning.

Her voice.

Her cries.

The fear in her voice when she had begged him to stop.

Dante closed his eyes briefly, but the memory only became clearer. He had no idea who she was or where she had come from, yet he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

He finally closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair, releasing a quiet breath.

The door opened a moment later, and his Beta, Jason Cooper, walked into the office with one hand tucked into the pocket of his trousers.

Jason took one look at him before his expression changed.

“Dante, are you all right?”

Dante slowly lifted his head.

“Did you find anything about the girl?”

Jason swallowed and took a deep breath before shaking his head.

“No. I didn’t.”

Dante’s hand came down hard against the desk.

“What do you mean you didn’t find her?” he demanded, his voice rising. “You brought that girl to the room and drugged me so I would sleep with her. Then you took her away before I woke up and dumped her somewhere, and now you’re telling me you can’t find her?”

Jason flinched at the anger in his Alpha’s voice.

“Okay, for context, I had you given Velmora. I didn’t drug you myself,” Jason explained, still trying to understand why Dante was so furious.

Jason had genuinely believed he was doing his Alpha a favor. Dante had always been a workaholic and rarely allowed himself time for women and didn't even have a Luna… what kind of alpha doesn't have a Luna?

Jason knew Dante was attracted to women, even though the way he avoided them had led some people to wonder otherwise.

He had wanted to give Dante something different for his birthday.

He just hadn’t expected Dante to react like this.

“Velmora?” Dante repeated, his expression changing instantly. “Oh, goodness.”

Velmora was a powerful drug designed to affect a werewolf’s instincts. Once it entered a wolf’s bloodstream, the body could interpret it as a false mating signal, making the wolf’s instincts extremely difficult to control.

Jason nodded.

“And I didn’t bring the girl myself. I paid some men to find a random woman and bring her to the room. They told me they saw her walking along the street and abducted her. They could barely describe what she looked like. She wasn’t from this pack either, and I didn’t want rumors spreading that an Alpha had slept with one of his own pack members, so I specifically told them to find someone from another pack.”

Dante stared at him, his expression becoming increasingly difficult to read.

“I didn’t even have the opportunity to see her before she was taken away,” Jason continued. “I told the men to return her to wherever they found her, and that’s what they did. No one knows who she is, so finding her identity won’t be easy.”

Dante’s fingers curled into fists beneath his desk. A low growl rumbled in his chest as he fought to control his anger.

He failed.

He rose from his chair, crossed the short distance between them, and punched Jason hard across the face.

Jason staggered backward and touched the corner of his mouth. When he pulled his fingers away, there was blood on them.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Whoever you paid to abduct her, pay them to find her,” Dante ordered, his voice low. “Find her, or I’ll kill you.”

Jason sighed and wiped the blood from his mouth.

“Even if we find her, we don’t know what she looks like. You spent the night with her. Maybe you can describe her.”

Dante went still.

Memories of that night came rushing back. The room had been dark, and he hadn’t been in control of himself, but he remembered the woman beneath him. He remembered her scent, the way his wolf had reacted to her, and the helpless sound of her voice.

He swallowed as he tried to picture her face.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t remember anything clearly. Just find her and get out.”

Jason raised both hands in surrender.

“I’ll make some calls. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”

He turned and walked out of the office.

The moment the door closed, Dante’s control finally broke.

He shoved his laptop from the desk, sending it crashing onto the floor.

“I need to find her,” he growled.

His wolf had been restless ever since that night, refusing to settle no matter how many times Dante tried to push the memory away.

It had been his birthday, and Jason had given him Velmora before bringing a strange woman into the room.

Dante had not been in his right mind when he forced himself on her. He remembered walking into the dark room and finding a female figure lying on the bed. The moment he got close to her, her scent had overwhelmed him.

Something about her had felt strangely familiar.

He had felt as though her wolf was calling to his, pulling at an instinct he couldn’t understand.

But none of that changed what he had done.

He could still hear her crying.

He could still remember the way she had begged him to stop, and the memory made his stomach twist.

Dante had spent most of his life keeping women at a distance. He had never wanted to become attached to anyone, and now he had done something he could not take back.

He needed to find the woman.

He would compensate her for what had happened. Money, protection, anything she wanted. He would give her whatever he could to make amends, and once he had done that, he would leave her alone.

At least, that was what he told himself.