Chapter 4 Mate clash

Sophia felt the world grind to a disorienting halt as Jonathan's words ricocheted through her psyche.

"Your...what?"

He arched one commanding brow, as if daring her to challenge his proclamation.

But Marcus was already shifting, planting himself between the two alphas with a low warning rumble.

"Steady," Jonathan droned with deceptive calm, eyeing his beta over the top of the seat back. "We've been through this."

"You cannot simply claim her so easily," Marcus countered in that thick, potent rumble that vibrated the air. "Not without the rites."

"The rites have been suspended until the prophesied Moon Maiden chooses her path forward." Jonathan's eyes narrowed to pale chips of ice boring into Sophia with unsettling intent. "Right now she is in clear and present danger. As her fated mate, I have every right under Moon Law to spirit her to safety until-"

"You allow your arrogance to blind you...yet again." The words dripped from Marcus's lips like acid. "The Maiden's power hasn't even awakened fully. To claim dominion over her now is a fool's path."

"Mind yourself, Marcus," the blond alpha growled. "That's dangerously close to insubordination."

"And you're getting perilously close to the same bullheaded choices that left you flatfooted when the rogues came calling!"

The two glared at each other over Sophia's head, the tension so thick she feared it might smother them all.

Pinned between their argument and the seat, she simply froze, unsure how to diffuse the escalating confrontation.

Struggling to project calm, she raised her hands in a placating gesture. "Please, both of you-"

"Silence!" Jonathan roared, the sheer force of his voice rattling the chassis.

His eyes snapped to her, irises flaring to twin crescents of molten silver under the security lights.

A frisson of undiluted power radiated outward, slamming into Sophia's sternum with the force of a wrecking ball.

Her lungs seized, rendering her mute as some strange, compulsive need to submit shuddered through her nerve endings.

Marcus, too, snapped his gaze away, throat working in an audibly thick swallow as he ceded ground to his Alpha's dominance.

In the ensuing silence, a dark figure detached from the shadows ringing the motor court and strode forward in long, purposeful strides.

Damien.

Sophia's heart instantly kicked up several notches, breath catching as the handsome stranger woven now inextricably into this nightmarish realm approached.

Though dressed simply in a crisp white button-down and slacks, he moved with a natural prowling grace that commanded attention from every cell in her body.

All three males instantly stiffened as he neared, their mingled scents - musk, smoke, frost, and some indescribable psychic element - thickening and turning caustic like a brewing storm.

Unaffected, Damien merely quirked one brow, pausing several feet from the idling vehicle. His smoldering gaze sliced over each of them in turn before settling on Sophia.

"The Fates did not bless me with timing." He tutted dryly. "I'd have brought refreshments for our guest's arrival. But then..." His lips curved with wry menace. "I didn't account for you mongrels fighting over the scraps again before the main course."

"Get...out." Jonathan snarled the warning through gritted teeth.

Damien waved an insolent hand, dark eyes still drinking in Sophia without shame. "The pack house reeks of your testosterone already. No need to unload further and frighten the little dove."

"You test my patience, Damien."

"Oh cease with the caveman act," the other man chuckled, supremely unconcerned as he strode closer still. "I merely came to extend my...sincere welcome."

Marcus shifted warily, angling a fraction closer to Sophia as if sensing whatever gambit Damien was playing.

But instead of heading directly for her, the intruder pivoted on his heel and leaned a hip against the SUV's flank.

Close enough for his pine and mahogany scent to curl around her senses in teasing wisps.

"After all..." That smoldering gaze snared her own from behind a thick fan of lashes. "It's not every millennium that the Moon Maiden emerges to unite us all under one..." He inhaled deeply, chest expanding to accentuate the masculine v-cut of his partially unbuttoned shirt. "Extraordinary banner."

The way his eyes caressed her curves through the fabric of her clothes made Sophia intensely aware of how underdressed and exposed she felt in skinny jeans and a thin tank top stained with drying blood. Remnants of the night's carnage.

She shifted almost imperceptibly, yet every male in the car instantly reacted with subtle coiling of muscle and narrowed-eyed attentiveness.

Damien smiled a serpent's smile. "You find yourself at the eye of a hurricane you never knew existed, little Maiden." His tone turned honeyed and lethal. "Never fear. I shall be your anchor to cling to when the winds howl their darkest."

Marcus erupted in a wordless snarl of challenge, only to cut off abruptly when Damien's basilisk stare rounded on him. Power crackled between them, thick and viscous with unspoken challenges and indecipherable layers of masculine menace.

"Enough."

Jonathan's authoritative tone brooked no argument, shattering the tense silence. He sliced Damien a flat, assessing look. "She's under my protection tonight. You'll have your...audience in due time."

With a huff, Damien straightened, squaring his shoulders in a subtle gesture of dominance before turning on his heel and striding away.

His parting words still seemed to linger in the space between them, ringing like a bell before the next ominous strike.

"So I shall await with...rapturous anticipation."

Sophia blew out a ragged exhalation she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Marcus did the same, some of the menacing tension bleeding from his impossibly broad frame.

Jonathan, however, canted his head toward her, piercing eyes still luminous as the moon, seeming to strip away every layer of her flimsy humanity until she felt utterly exposed.

"Brace yourself," he intoned, casting off his seat belt. "What you've seen so far is but a whisper of what's to come."

With those ominous words hanging between them, he pushed open the driver's side door and strode into the night.

And Sophia knew, with unshakeable certainty, that her life would never be the same.