All Chapters of Claimed by the Seven Alphas: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Four in the goddamn morning. The gland at my nape doesn't just wake me. It *drags* me out of a pitch-black abyss by my spine. For twelve hours the repair agent had been wildfire in my veins. That dull, bone-scraping pain has finally receded. What's left in its place is worse. A hollow ache, deeper and more fevered. The kind of emptiness that feels like something alive buried under permafrost all winter, finally rolling over and baring its fangs. I push myself upright on arms that feel like wet rope. The silk nightdress is his choice. Always his choice. It's stiff now, crusted with dried sweat that chafes against my skin like coarse sandpaper. Everything is too much. To

A gale tears across the arena. The first to descend is cedarwood. Cain's pheromones don't drift. They *invade*. They drive through my nasal cavity and coil into a burning knot of possession deep in my chest. Then old paper. Elias's scent slides down my spine vertebra by vertebra, like he's measuring bone density. Wildfire arrives third. Rex's pheromones don't climb. They stop three inches below my navel and just *blaze* there, forcing the muscles of my inner thighs to clamp tight. Metal scrapes my collarbone. Fresh grass grazes my knees. Honey clings to my fingertips. And last of all, ashes. Silas's bone-ash scent cups my heels. Impossibly cold. Impossibly light. Like he's afraid I might collapse in this final step. These seven streams do not blend.

BOOM. Rex's greatsword drags across the stone slabs, throwing a trail of blinding sparks as he bursts from the mist. His flame-scarlet armour is covered in wood splinters and dire wolf blood. He halts ten paces from the VIP tier. Cain's growl didn't scare him. The scent still surging from my nape nailed him to the spot. He cocks his head. Those muddy yellow eyes travel from Cain's hand locked around my waist all the way to the exposed gland. His throat works through one heavy swallow. Then he grins. He reaches across and tears the hair ribbon off the head of a terrified Omega servant nearby. The ribbon just caught a thread of my scent on the wind. He brings the ribbon to his nose. Closes his eyes in front of everyone. Inhales deep. His Adam's apple rolls from above his

The Third Lord rises from his seat with a face of stone. He sets his wine glass down on the armrest with a heavy, deliberate thud. The guards around him retreat another half-step. He's broad-shouldered and powerfully built. Grey hair immaculate. The corners of his mouth pulled down. Deep creases carved around his eyes. His venomous gaze travels slowly across the Alphas surrounding me and finally settles on Cain with crushing weight. *A recording. Evidence can always be fabricated.* Cain doesn't even lift his eyes. His large palm, heavy with the full weight of his claim, clamps around my waist again and hauls me against him. The Head of the Elder Council rises slowly fr

Boom— The demon wolf's claws tore through the last of the mist and through Kane's left shoulder in the same savage stroke. His combat uniform split open on a diagonal. Beneath the ripped fabric, a wound gaped wide, deep enough to flash white bone beneath the curling flaps of torn flesh. Thick, dark blood sheeted down the corded muscle of his forearm and hit the stone floor in heavy, rhythmic drops. Pat. Pat. Pat. Each drop bloomed into a vivid crimson flower against the cold gray slate. He didn't look down at the wound. Didn't even frown. Those irises had already burned from ice-blue to molten gold, sweeping acro