All Chapters of Alpha Romanov: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Nikolai:“I accept your rejection, Alpha Nikolai Romanov.”The words should have been a relief. They were not.My wolf slammed against the inside of me like a fist against a locked door. I felt it in my knuckles, in the way my fingers curled until the nails bit my palms.No! I ignored him and watched as Valeria stood across from me with her chin lifted, the contract crushed between her fingers.Mate.I had known the second she crossed the threshold. Before her eyes found mine and before she inhaled the same air as me. She was mine…And I was rejecting her.The word nearly left my mouth when I saw my mother again: pale beneath linen, the Romanov mark darkening against her throat while her wolf thinned and vanished. I had been thirteen. I remembered every scream as if it were my own.So I had done the only thing I could.I rejected her.“You may go,” I said. “The maids are going to show you to your chamber.”Her brows lifted. “That’s all?”“For now.” I said, and she scoffed.“How gene

Nikolai:“Get out,” I said.Valeria looked at me as if she were weighing whether I meant it, and for a moment I expected her to argue; she had argued since she arrived, every sentence a blade. Instead she laughed, a small, bitter sound that held no humor.“Gladly,” she answered.She slid the ring back onto her finger, tightened the robe around her shoulders, and walked to the door with the same steady control she used for everything.I didn’t move… I simply watched as she stepped out into the corridor without looking back. The door closed behind her with a soft final click, and the silence that followed felt heavier than the argument itself.I crossed the room and picked up the glass I had abandoned. The whiskey burned down my throat and did nothing to dull the ache under my ribs. Her scent lingered in the curtains and on the air where she had stood, and every breath tasted of pine and smoke and something softer that made my jaw clench.The door opened behind me. Viktor entered withou

Nikolai:I should not have kissed her. The thought repeated itself like a wound as I walked away from Valeria’s door, jaw clenched, wolf tearing at the inside of me.And in less than a day of her being here, I allowed her to provoke me…One moment she had stood in front of me with that defiant look, asking what I intended to do after rejecting her and sending her to another wing. The next, my mouth had been on hers, and even worse; she had kissed me back. That was the part I could not stop thinking about: her fingers in my shirt, her body beneath mine, the sound of my name leaving her lips when my mouth moved to her neck. My wolf stirred violently.Mate.“Shut up,” I told the animal, and a passing guard lowered his eyes as if I had not spoken aloud.I needed a drink, something strong enough to erase the memory of Valeria beneath me, lips swollen from my kisses, pulse beating under the place I could never allow myself to mark.I had spent years training every instinct that came with be

Nikolai:“Yes,” Valeria said. “Our marriage has been consummated.”For a moment I thought I had misheard her. The councilman nodded as if satisfied, Viktor’s head turned toward me with an expression that tried very hard not to react, and the rest of the room carried on as if nothing unusual had happened. I stared at Valeria. She did not look at me. That irritated me more than the lie itself.She stood with her chin lifted, calm enough that no one would have guessed she had just lied to the Romanov council about something that concerned my bloodline, my succession, my bed. A growl threatened to rise in my chest; I swallowed it down.“Very well,” the councilman said. “Then the agreement can proceed according to expectation.”Valeria inclined her head as if she had merely confirmed the weather. Viktor shifted beside me; I felt his attention and ignored it. Another council member began to speak about medical examinations and the timing of assessments, but I heard almost none of it. All I

Nikolai:I heard enough of Viktor’s conversation with Valeria to understand what he had been telling her, and that knowledge settled over me like a slow, familiar ache.He was right about the council; he was right about the questions that would follow. I understood why she had lied. That was the problem.My irritation had nothing to do with Viktor being wrong. It had everything to do with Valeria not understanding the weight behind the choices I made around her.She did not understand why I had sent her from my room, why I had kept my distance, or why the moment my mouth had brushed her neck I had nearly lost control. She thought my anger was about pride, about wounded vanity. She thought I had rejected her because she was inconvenient. She did not see the restraint in my actions; she saw only punishment.I walked past the turn that led to the eastern wing without letting either of them see me. My wolf paced beneath my skin, restless and insistent.Mate, he murmured, and by the time I