CHAPTER 92: CLAIMED

💠Dmitri

I’d watched him, watched her. I couldn’t blame him—his fiancée and his former beta’s dance had been a spectacle to behold. Right down to what they were dressed in.

Lilith in black and Veronique in that pale blue that sent a message everyone had caught on to. It was a challenge to Lilith’s place, it was Veronique staking a claim without any fear of scandal.

And our race thrived on dauntlessness.

The dance had been the second challenge and it had taken all Vladimir had in him not to let the dance floor ice over.

Jaws tight, eyes set on Lilith’s every move like a heat-seeking missile. Every time she stumbled, he didn’t grimace like a man embarrassed by his date—he flinched.

Every. Single. Time.

Watching the High Alpha of The Thirteen react so outwardly without care of those watching was surreal.

My chest constricted watching Lilith struggle against Veronique’s vicious steps.

But I doubted it compared to what the High Alpha was being forced to endure.

Then she stilled, for a moment.

If I had blinked, I would have missed it.

But she did not only stop, her eyes found Vladimir where he stood and even from the distance—I heard and felt the crackle of electricity that lit the air like a match.

Suddenly, it was as if Lilith was possessed. Her back straightened, her stance confident and no longer trying to hunch into herself and hide away.

Even Veronique felt the shift as I caught her eyes widen a fraction.

The rest of the dance was a fight but this time Lilith threw her punches and still knew when she had to hold her ground.

I had watched butterflies rip out of their cocoons before but no one’s wings were as breathtaking as Lilith’s.

Hers shimmered with her assured, fluid motion, they fluttered with every time she slid out of Veronique’s figurative headlock.

And Vladimir saw her new wings too, because even as she caught her bearings, his eyes did not wander away from her. The anxiety fell away, giving way to something far more primal.

It was longing, aching and hot enough to turn bone to dust.

But then Veronique threw her.

The entire hall went silent for a heartbeat—that suspended moment where violence masqueraded as art—before the gasps erupted.

Vladimir moved.

Not toward the dance floor. Not yet. But I saw it—the way his body coiled, the way frost began creeping across the floor at his feet in a thin, almost imperceptible layer. His control was a fraying thread, and everyone close enough could feel it.

The temperature in the hall dropped.

Then Lilith landed.

Perfect. Controlled. Lethal.

The crowd went wild, and I saw Vladimir’s shoulders drop a fraction. The frost stopped spreading.

But his eyes never left her.

When Veronique took Lilith’s hand, playing the gracious partner for the crowd, I saw Vladimir’s jaw clench so hard I thought his teeth might crack. His bionic hand flexed at his side—open, close, open, close—like he was restraining himself from ripping Veronique apart right there in front of the entire Gathering.

Then Lilith was free, standing alone in the center of the floor, and Vladimir moved.

Not rushed. Not frantic. But deliberate and unstoppable, like gravity itself was pulling him toward her.

He reached her in seconds, his hand finding her waist with the kind of possessiveness that made several nearby wolves shift uncomfortably. This wasn’t the cold, calculated High Alpha we all knew.

This was something else.

Something predatory, unbridled and unbidden.

Then he bit her.

Right there. In front of everyone. His mouth on her throat, teeth against her pulse, and the growl that rumbled from his chest was loud enough that those of us nearby heard it even over the renewed applause.

The noise, the energy, the sheer intensity of emotions flooding the room—it was becoming too much. I was restless beneath my skin, agitated by the charged atmosphere and the barely restrained violence that had played out on the dance floor.

I started to retreat toward one of the quieter alcoves when another growl cut through the crowd.

Closer. Angrier.

I turned, instinct pulling my attention even though part of me just wanted to find somewhere quiet to process what I’d just witnessed.

Alpha Caesar.

He stood near one of the pillars, rigid as stone, a tall woman at his side who bore a striking resemblance to Lilith. She was speaking to him urgently, her hand on his arm, but he wasn’t listening.

His eyes were fixed on Vladimir and Lilith.

I’d noticed him watching her throughout the night. It was hard not to—the way his attention kept drifting back to her, the tension in his posture whenever Vladimir touched her, the barely concealed frustration when she never once looked his way.

Now that frustration had crystallized into something sharper.

Hunger. Envy. Want.

His hands were clenched at his sides, trembling slightly. His wolf was close to the surface—I could feel it from here, the barely leashed aggression radiating off him in waves.

His date was still talking, her voice sharp now, but Caesar didn’t respond. Didn’t even seem to hear her.

All his focus was on what he couldn’t have.

I looked away, uncomfortable with the raw need I’d seen in his expression. This wasn’t my business. None of this was.

But I couldn’t help cataloging it anyway—the way the room had shifted after that dance, the alliances reforming, the predators circling.

Veronique stood across the hall, surrounded by sympathetic acquaintances her expression carefully neutral but her posture too rigid.

Kustav was speaking urgently to someone I didn’t recognize, his mask doing nothing to hide the fury in his eyes.

And Caesar, still watching the doors Vladimir and Lilith had disappeared through, looked like a man who’d just realized he’d lost something he never actually had.

The social weight of the room pressed down on me—hundreds of conversations, schemes forming, emotions running high.

I needed air.

But I had made a promise.

Vladimir had claimed his her publicly.