CHAPTER 28: PRESENTED BEFORE THE CONCORD

🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡

Stepping out of the car was equivalent to stepping out of a furnace. I followed the two towering figures of Vladimir and Veronique, feeling small, insignificant, and out of place. The building that loomed ahead could have been conjured out of an urban sci-fi novel.

A long rectangle that reached for the sky. It looked almost alien, with intertwined moons in silver embellishing the front. I wondered what it meant as I went under and inside the building.

The interior was just as intimidating but strangely breathtaking as the exterior. While the outside had been black, the inside was silver, softened with neutral hues that made it feel like I was walking into a constructed dream—one made from the strongest steel and moonlight so bright you had to squint.

The people that ambled and bustled through the cavernous hallway seemed to move like dancers in a choreography. All tall, shoulders squared, they looked as though they could have been Alphas themselves. None of them looked at me directly, but the weight of their awareness pressed on me.

"High Alpha, good morning," they greeted. Some—but not all—did the same for Veronique.

Vladimir only nodded.

I followed Veronique and Vladimir to an elevator, wondering if they ever had light conversations once in a while, because I dreaded standing with them in a confined space.

Adrenaline threaded through me as we stepped into the elevator. The doors slid shut with a soft hiss, sealing me inside a silence so sharp it made my ears ring. Vladimir and Veronique stood like sentinels at my sides, neither sparing me a word.

By the time we were in front of the enormous black double doors, I was a bottle of nerves. The doors opened—and my heart plummeted.

The doors parted like the gates of judgment, and before me stretched a chamber that seemed older than time, yet sharpened by modern touches. A single massive table dominated the center. Around it sat the Alphas—eleven of them, each radiating such weight and authority that the air itself felt thinner here, harder to draw into my lungs. They came in pairs.

Below them, a second tier branched outward into another table, smaller, where the Betas sat. That was where Veronique walked in. She sat without hesitation, the picture of belonging.

I did not.

I had no seat. No place. No welcome.

Vladimir strode forward, his long shadow cutting across the floor of polished obsidian. He moved with the authority of a man who did not need to be introduced. The Alphas’ eyes flickered toward him briefly—nods of acknowledgment, respect, and in some cases, something closer to wariness.

But not a single one looked at me.

Not once.

And that should have been a relief. It should have given me room to breathe—the mercy of invisibility. But instead it was worse. Infinitely worse. Their silence, their refusal to even glance in my direction, made me feel not like a guest but like a ghost. As though I was already dismissed, already beneath notice, already nothing.

My palms itched. My throat went dry. I wanted to shrink, to vanish into the floor, and never again be forced to stand under the crushing weight of people who didn’t need to say a word to make it clear I didn’t belong.

Vladimir stopped at the head of the table, his presence filling the chamber. The scrape of chairs, the subtle clearing of throats, the hushed shuffle of parchment—all of it was deafening compared to the silence that wrapped around me.

No introductions were made. No explanations.

I stood there while they greeted Vladimir.

I surveyed the room, taking note of the embellished daggers that hung on the wall. All thirteen of them were of a different design.

When all that was done, finally, it began.

"Let us proceed." Vladimir’s voice carried through the large room. His gaze slid over to me. "Lilith Brooks is present today."

The words rang out, and suddenly every head turned. A dozen pairs of Alpha eyes—sharp, ancient, merciless—landed on me at once.

I froze, my instinct betraying me before Kaia could catch up. My hand lifted in a weak, uncertain wave. It was ridiculous, almost comical in such a chamber, but nerves commandeered my body before reason could.

Not a single one of them returned the gesture. The air grew heavier, colder, like stone pressing into my chest. Their gazes slid off me, uninterested, dismissive, as if I were nothing but a child who had wandered into a place where only legends belonged.

"Drop it." Kaia’s voice rasped through me. "Still your hand. Still your heart. You are not prey unless you let them scent your fear."

Heat burned my cheeks as I lowered my hand, curling it tight into a fist by my side. I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing my spine straighter.

Then, cutting through the chill like a blade through silk, a voice rose from the far end of the table. Smooth, dark, threaded with the kind of amusement that cloaked malice.

"So, Kustav," the man said, lips stretching into a smile that showed too many teeth, "this is your daughter." His silver hair gleamed beneath the chamber’s light, his dark skin striking against the paler suiting of his peers. His eyes, however, were sharper than the polished daggers on the wall. They slid to me, appraising, then back to the man across from him. "She looks more like you than your sons."

The chamber stilled, the words sinking like stones in deep water.

My breath caught as my gaze snapped to him.

Amber eyes met mine, molten and gleaming. They glittered with something almost playful, a predator’s amusement—but beneath it lurked a shadow crueler, one he covered with a smile.

My mother was in an urn, and he lived on.

That had to change; that was why I was here.

For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The nervousness that had tied my chest in knots sputtered out, replaced by something else entirely.

Cold. And hot. At the same time.

He was everything I hated, everything I feared, everything I had tried to cut out of my veins—and he was here, smiling at me like I was already his.

The pig.

My shoulders squared before I realized what I was doing. My chin lifted. My lungs filled, even if it felt like inhaling smoke. I tore my eyes away from him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me stagger.

And when I looked forward again, it was Vladimir I looked at.

He nodded at me almost imperceptibly and continued. "As we have all agreed, as per Alpha Kustav’s proposition, bonding will be a catalyst for Lilith’s ascension. This has been validated by substantial research results. Therefore, I have decided to do one better. Instead of the familial bond that the Alpha proposed, we will replace it with a bond stronger than kinship. A mate bond," he declared, each syllable clipped.