Chapter 2 Alpha Clash

The beast rumbled a guttural warning, jaws snapping mere inches from the immaculately dressed man's face.

Yet he didn't so much as flinch.

"Down," he commanded with a soul-shaking timbre.

To Sophia's shock, her monstrous protector withdrew his raised fist and slowly lowered his other boot from the fallen creature's skull.

With visible reluctance, he backed away, allowing the shredded beast to stagger upright.

The newcomer's authoritative presence seemed to smother the very air as he zeroed in on Sophia.

"You. Step forward, now."

Trembling, she shook her head and pressed back against the door. "W-Who are you? What's going on?"

A muscle ticked in his chiseled jaw, eyes flashing with condensed impatience.

"I am Jonathan Davenport, Alpha of the Manhattan Pack. And you..." He whirled around her, sniffing in her scent.

But rather than get annoyed at the act, her breath hitched and her body was almost responsive to him.

A feeling I couldn't quite apprehend.

"No wonder why he came for you...the Moon Maiden. I scent it." His growl reverberated through her body and sent unhealthy thoughts to her head.

She didn't even understand why she was so attracted to a stranger she just met.

Sophia's brows knit. "T-The what? I don't know what you're talking about!"

Jonathan's lips peeled back, revealing a hint of razor sharp fangs. "Of course you don't."

He started forward, only for the beast in human form to intercept with a warning growl.

Jonathan froze, pale eyes freezing to ice as he met the other's animalistic glare.

"Is that insubordination I detect, Marcus?" Each consonant dripped with lethally restrained fury.

Marcus said nothing, simply holding his Alpha's stare as Sophia watched an unspoken battle of wills unfold.

"She is to be treated with the utmost reverence," Jonathan gritted out between clenched teeth. "Stand down."

For a long, charged moment, Marcus remained unmoved, his hulking form still braced protectively.

At last, he gave the barest dip of his chin. "Yes...Alpha."

Though the title was ground out reluctantly.

With a huff of irritation, Jonathan brushed past him.

Sophia shrank back against the door, heart pounding wildly as he stopped within arm's reach.

His presence was overwhelming - innately powerful and dominating.

Every fiber alerted her she was in the presence of an apex predator.

"I will explain everything," he stated in a tone that brokered no argument. "But first, we must-"

THWACK!

The crack of shattering glass whipped their heads around as a figure sailed through the open window.

It twisted lithely in mid-air, raining glass shards, before landing in an impossibly controlled crouch between them and the recovering rogue beast.

"Well, well..." The intruder slowly rose, shadows bleeding away to reveal a dark-haired man with penetrating graphite irises. "I thought I caught the scent of a little family squabble."

Danger and arrogance rolled off him in dizzying waves, putting Jonathan's palpable authority somehow in the shade.

Sophia's breath caught with the realization that whoever this stranger was...he outranked Jonathan.

To underscore this, as twin spheres of obsidian fixed on her, his lips peeled in a lethally sensual sneer. "And the lovely Moon Maiden herself."

Marcus issued another warning growl, shifting to shield her - but Jonathan waved him off with a curt flick of his wrist. "Damien."

The one called Damien spared the Alpha a withering glance. "Hello Jonathan. Yet again, you're late to the dance."

Jonathan bristled like an angry grizzly bear spying an encroaching predator on his territory. "The rogue pack fell upon my territory. Well within my domain."

"And yet here I am, mopping up your mess," Damien drawled with exaggerated nonchalance, pacing with a liquid prowl that commanded the enclosed space and all attention. "As usual."

A thick tension bore down, laced with clashing egos and simmering undertones.

Primal power swelled between the two men until it saturated the very air.

Sophia shrank further against the door, feeling impossibly miniscule amid these two juggernauts despite their human visages.

Jonathan's jaw knotted, pale eyes smoldering with outrage that demanded violence as retribution. "You overstep your boundaries."

"And you remain shockingly unprepared." Damien raised a perfectly manicured brow that seemed to further shift the power dynamic in his favor. "You're all fang and no follow through, old friend."

The crippled rogue beast gurgled a pitiful sound and tried staggering away, perhaps sensing the escalating clash between these two certified alpha males.

They both snapped predatory glares its way, freezing it in its tracks.

"You dare insult me?" Jonathan demanded with deadly calm.

Damien chuckled, deep and taunting. "Please. Preening around like a territorial house cat screeching at the neighbor's tabby."

His smoldering gaze lasered to Sophia, pinning her in place with lurid promise and something else...something ancient and undeniably magnetic.

She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.

"We both know I'm the real alpha here," he purred. "A fact the Moon Maiden herself will soon understand."

Jonathan moved with blinding speed, standing toe-to-toe with Damien, towering over him yet falling just short of overpowering him.

Glacial chips of ice met onyx granite as they stared each other down at point-blank range.

"Over my dismembered corpse," Jonathan uttered with sepulchral calm.

A heavy, electrified moment stretched out with the rising threat of violence before--

"M-MERCY! Please masters! Mercy!"

The collective menace deflated as all eyes snapped back to the rancid beast still groveling on the kitchen tiles.

Marcus snarled, muscles bunching as he prepared to deliver the killing blow.

But Damien raised a hand, pausing the violence with just a subtle gesture.

He pivoted slowly until facing the writhing creature fully, expression inscrutable.

"Speak quickly, wretch."

The thing bobbed its fractured head, spewing a mix of coherent words and slobbering howls.

"Forgive us..our disrespect...sires. We scented the Lunar Might and-akh--" It hacked, spraying viscous phlegm. "And thought to claim it for...Mikhail."

Low growls instantly thrummed from both alphas at the mention of that name like a vile curse.

"We live...to serve his will," the rogue whined through inflamed vocal cords.

"No..." Damien abruptly dropped into an ominous crouch beside the trembling beast. His honeyed voice descended into something dangerously silken as he leaned close. "You live only because I allow it."

With a speed that shouldn't have been possible, his hand whipped out and clamped iron hard around the rogue's trachea.

It gurgled, claws scrabbling frantically as a dark fire blazed in Damien's stare.

"If you have any wisdom left in your pathetic mind, tell your master that the Davenport and Westin Packs now stand together under the law of the Moon Maiden." He punctuated each core word with debilitating pressure. "His war ends here and now."

The rogue's beady eyes rolled up into its skull, limbs going limp.

Jonathan crossed his arms and exhaled an irritated huff...yet made no move to interfere as Damien squeezed the final life from the rogue's throat.

Only once the foul body had collapsed into a lifeless heap did he release and rise fluidly to his feet.

Marcus shifted, shooting Jonathan a loaded look. But Damien waved him off, as casual as if discussing the weather.

"Clean up this mess."

Understanding the dismissal, Jonathan glanced his way, then back to Sophia where her doe-eyed stare still registered shock.

She simply couldn't process everything she'd seen and heard - all the raw, feral violence exploding out of nowhere into her once mundane world.

This wasn't anything she'd ever known existed.

Yet based on the grave lines scoring Jonathan's expression...her world had just forever changed.

"Come," he commanded without preamble, already turning for the ruined door. "We depart, now."

Bewildered and overwhelmed, Sophia stood paralyzed as Damien watched her through veiled eyes laced with calculation.

His voice washed over her psyche like a low, smooth caress.

"Soon, sweet Maiden. Once you know your rightful place...I shall return."