Chapter 2 2

The King's Arrival

The Mate Bond was a constant, distracting hum at the base of my skull. At my desk in the Packhouse administrative office, I found myself staring at the same requisition form for ten minutes, the words blurring into meaningless shapes. All I could feel was Alaric. A faint echo of his confidence, his power, a possessive warmth that made my skin prickle.

"Vance, are you daydreaming or simply incompetent today?"

Seren Delphi's sharp voice cut through my haze. My supervisor stood over my desk, her perfectly coiffed black bob unmoving, her dark eyes narrowed in disapproval. She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the stack of unprocessed reports I'd been ignoring.

"My apologies, Seren," I mumbled, my cheeks flushing with heat. "I didn't sleep well."

"Your personal life is of no concern to this office," she said, her tone clipped. "What is of concern is the arrival. The new Alpha King will be formally taking control of the Thorne Dominion at the Pack Assembly in three days. The preparations are in chaos, and you, Elara, have just been assigned to the reception committee."

My blood ran cold. The reception committee? For the Alpha King? That meant being visible. It meant standing before the highest authority in our world. "Me? But I'm just-"

"You're an administrator with a steady hand and a talent for following orders. At least, you usually are," she interrupted, her gaze pointed. "Do not make me regret this assignment. The King is said to be... exacting. He has unified the outer territories with a ruthlessness not seen in generations. We cannot afford a single misstep."

She swept away, leaving me with a new pile of checklists and a knot of dread in my stomach. Whispers about the new Alpha King had been circulating for weeks. A mysterious figure from the Thorne royal bloodline, raised in seclusion, now returning to claim his birthright. They said he was powerful beyond measure, that his wolf was a monster of legend. A true king.

I spent the rest of the day in a state of heightened anxiety, my earlier distraction replaced by a gnawing fear. During a brief lunch break, I retreated to an empty archive room and pulled the heavy key from my pocket. I traced the snarling wolf's head with my thumb. Alaric's power, his mysterious aura... a foolish, impossible thought sparked in my mind.

Could he be...?

No. It was absurd. The Alpha King was royalty, a being of immense stature and ancient lineage. Alaric was a rogue, a powerful one, but still an outsider. The Moon Goddess might be cruel, but she wouldn't be so ironic as to mate a low-born Omega descendant like me with the ruler of our entire world.

I shoved the key back into my pocket, my heart thudding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. It was just a coincidence. It had to be.

But as I looked at the reception manifest on my desk, the title 'Alpha King' seemed to pulse with a premonitory weight, sending a shiver of pure dread down my spine.