Chapter 1 1

Kingsley POV

The Annual Pack Leaders' Gala was a suffocating breeding ground for arrogance. I swirled the amber liquid in my crystal glass, my Lycan senses assaulted by the clashing scents of fifty different Alphas trying to out-dominate each other.

Across the room, Clotilde Schmidt was holding court with Preston Howell. Her eyes darted toward me with a sickening, obsessive hunger. She thought she could play games. She thought my political marriage to that useless, wolfless Omega, Elodie, was a weakness she could exploit to slide into my bed and my territory.

I raised the glass to my lips and took a drink.

The reaction was instantaneous. Liquid fire tore down my throat. *Silver.*

My vision fractured into blinding white light. A neurotoxin, laced with a heavy dose of silver nitrate, hijacked my nervous system. My Lycan healing, usually instantaneous, slammed into a brick wall of agonizing heat. *Rage*, my inner wolf, clawed at the inside of my skull, roaring in pure, unadulterated agony.

The crystal glass slipped from my numb fingers, shattering on the marble floor. My knees buckled. Through the sensory static and the sudden, terrifying loss of motor control, I caught Clotilde's gaze. A vicious, triumphant smirk twisted her red lips. She had poisoned me.

I had to get out. If I shifted here, if I lost control in front of these vultures, it would be a political disaster. I stumbled backward, the massive champagne tower rushing up to meet me. I braced for the crash that would draw every eye in the room.

It never came.

Hands-surprisingly strong and ruthlessly efficient-gripped my arms. A waiter in an ill-fitting uniform, a low-pulled cap, and a black face mask hauled me upright. I flared my nostrils, desperate to identify my handler, but there was no wolf scent. Just the sterile, nauseating reek of cheap catering food and industrial bleach.

"Move," a voice ordered, low and deliberately muffled.

Before I could snarl a command, I was dragged through the heavy wooden service doors, swallowed by the shadows of the service area. My limbs were lead. *Rage* thrashed, humiliated by our helplessness, furious at being handled by a nameless ghost.

The freight elevator doors slid open. The waiter punched in a sequence on the keypad. My blurred mind barely registered the numbers, but a chill ran down my spine. It was the private override code to my penthouse.

The doors opened to The Alpha's Aerie. The shadow dragged me across the black marble floor of my bathroom and shoved me hard. I crashed into the massive freestanding tub.

Freezing water and blocks of ice swallowed me whole.

The brutal shock of the ice jump-started my paralyzed nerves. The silver still burned in my veins, but the extreme cold fought back the neurotoxin, giving me a fraction of my strength. I surged upward, water cascading off my ruined suit, and lunged.

My hand clamped around the waiter's wrist. I reached for the mask, desperate to rip it off and expose the face of the creature who dared to touch an Alpha.

*"Alpha, respond! Where are you?"*

Arthur's frantic voice exploded through our Mind-Link, a psychic sledgehammer that shattered my focus. My grip faltered for a microsecond.

It was all the shadow needed. They twisted violently. Fabric ripped. I stumbled back against the porcelain as the figure bolted through the glass doors, disappearing down the fire escape into the city's night.

I stood shivering in the ice water, my chest heaving as the poison slowly burned out of my system. I looked down at my hand. Resting in my palm was a single, hand-forged obsidian cufflink, torn from the waiter's sleeve. My jaw clenched, my thumb tracing the cold, sharp edges of the stone.