Anaelia
The world didn't just go quiet; it went extinct. Every noble, every guard, and even the cruel, sharp-eyed Zora seemed to fade into a blur of static. There was only the heat radiating off Enzo's body and the terrifying, magnetic pull of his gaze.
"I—I don't know what you mean, Sire," I stammered. The lie felt like dry ash in my mouth.
I clutched the silver tray to my chest like a shield, the metal cold against my palms. My heart was thundering so loudly I was certain he could hear it. In the shifter world, a racing heart was a confession.
Enzo didn't pull away. He leaned closer, his nostrils flaring as he took another slow, deliberate inhale. His eyes, usually a cold, calculating grey, flickered with a sudden, violent flash of molten gold. The wolf was at the surface.
"Don't lie to me, little bird," he rasped, his voice dropping to a register that made my knees wobble. "A Null smells like nothing. But you... you smell like a fever dream."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zora step forward. Her face was a mask of strained elegance, but her scent had turned sharp and acidic—jealousy.
"Enzo, darling," Zora said, her voice dripping with forced honey as she reached out to touch his arm. "She's just a clumsy servant. She probably spilled one of the floral liqueurs on herself. Anaelia, leave us. Now."
For a heartbeat, I thought I was saved. I moved to bolt, but Enzo's hand shot out. He didn't grab me—he slammed his palm against the stone pillar behind me, effectively pinning me between the cold rock and his massive, radiating frame. He didn't even look at Zora.
"I didn't give her leave," Enzo growled.
The room gasped. An Alpha ignoring his high-status fiancée for a servant was a scandal; an Alpha pinning a Null to a wall was insanity.
"Your pulse," Enzo whispered, his eyes locked on the vein in my neck. "It's dancing. Why are you so afraid, Anaelia?"
"Because you're the High Alpha," I said, my voice gaining a sudden, desperate edge of spine. "And I'm a nobody who just wants to finish her shift without being executed for breathing your air."
A flicker of something—amusement? surprise?—passed over his dark features. The corner of his mouth quirked up, just for a second, a tiny crack in the ice of his expression. It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I had ever seen.
"She has claws," he murmured, almost to himself.
Then, he did something that made my breath stop entirely. He reached out with his free hand and tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers were calloused and warm, and where they touched my skin, a jolt of pure, electric fire shot straight to my core.
It was the "Mate Spark." It had to be. My wolf—the one I had spent years silencing with chemicals—gave a faint, pathetic whimper in the back of my mind. Alpha, she whispered. Ours.
No, I screamed back at her. He will destroy us.
"Enzo!" Zora's voice was higher now, shrill. "You are making a scene. The Council is watching. Dash is watching."
Enzo finally looked away from me, his gold eyes cooling back to grey as he glanced at Dash, who was standing a few feet away with his arms crossed, a look of intense, clinical interest on his face.
"Dash," Enzo commanded, his voice returning to its usual icy authority.
"Sire?"
"Take this girl to the North Tower. Lock her in the Guest Suite. Not the dungeons," Enzo added, his eyes snapping back to mine with a predatory intensity. "The suite. I want her scrubbed of the scent of lye and floor wax. I want to see what she smells like when she isn't trying to hide."
"You can't be serious!" Zora cried. "She's a Null! She's a servant!"
"She is a mystery," Enzo said, stepping back and finally releasing me from his shadow. "And I've always hated mysteries I couldn't solve."
Dash moved toward me, his expression unreadable. I looked at the exit, then at the guards, then at Enzo. My hand went to the waistband of my skirt, feeling the empty vial. I was out of serum. By morning, my scent would be at full strength. By morning, he wouldn't just suspect I was a wolf—he would know I was the only Omega left in existence.
As Dash placed a firm, not-unkind hand on my shoulder, I looked back at Enzo one last time. He was watching me go, his hand hovering over his own chest, right over his heart, as if he were trying to steady his own rhythm.
For all his power, for all his cruelty, he looked... haunted.
"I'll kill you for this," Zora hissed as I was led past her.
I didn't doubt her for a second. But as I was marched toward the North Tower, I wasn't thinking about Zora's knife. I was thinking about the way Enzo's touch had felt like coming home—and how that feeling was the most dangerous trap of all.