The gala had returned to its rhythm, or at least it tried to. Strings hummed, champagne poured, laughter tinkled on polished lips. But for Dante Moretti, the night had fractured in two—before Alistair Park, and after.
He leaned against the marble pillar, his glass of red wine untouched in his hand. Around him, people whispered. They thought they were discreet, but Dante's senses were sharpened beyond human instinct. He heard every syllable.
"Did you see the way he spoke to him?"
"Arrogant boy. Park's heir just signed his own death sentence."
"No one insults Dante Moretti and survives unscathed."
The voices blended into meaningless noise. They were wrong. Ali had not signed a death sentence—he had lit a fuse.
Dante's eyes tracked him across the ballroom. Alistair Park, laughing lightly with an investor as though he hadn't just broken every unspoken rule of dominance. Most Alphas wilted under Dante's gaze; their pride might flare briefly, but it always bent, always broke. Yet Ali had stood tall, emerald eyes burning like fire meeting steel.
It wasn't foolishness. It wasn't bravado. It was something else.
Dante inhaled slowly, tasting the air the way only an Enigma could. Every being carried a resonance, a subtle hum of essence that marked them as Alpha, Beta, or Omega. Ordinary scents were sharp, predictable—alphas like smoke and iron, betas with their muted salt-and-soap neutrality, omegas with sweetness that clung like honey. But Ali's scent…
It cut through the room like wildfire, impossible to ignore. Smoke, yes, but not charred wood. More like the sharp, living heat of a blaze that refused to be contained. There was a note beneath it too, something Dante couldn't place. Familiar, yet foreign. As though Ali carried within him a fragment of a language Dante had been searching for all his life.
The muscles in his jaw tightened. For years—no, decades—he had been alone at the top of the food chain. The only Enigma. The only one who could not be classified, could not be rivaled, could not be resisted. His dominance was absolute, his name a weapon. To him, people were categories: those who feared him, those who obeyed him, and those who foolishly tried to defy him before crumbling into ash.
But Alistair Park… did not fit.
Dante's glass tilted in his hand. He watched as Ali's head turned slightly, as though he felt Dante's stare from across the room. Their eyes locked again, and this time Dante did not look away. He studied him the way a scientist might study a rare, dangerous specimen.
Ali did not flinch. His aura did not dim—it flared, meeting Dante's with a reckless defiance that made something primal in Dante stir.
Dante's lips curved faintly. Interesting.
He closed his eyes briefly, allowing his other senses to pull apart the edges of what he was feeling. The room smelled of perfume, champagne, money—yet through it all, Ali's essence burned like a flare. His heartbeat was steady, unshaken. No fear. No submission. Only the arrogant steadiness of a predator who believed himself equal.
But he wasn't equal. He couldn't be.
And yet—
Dante's breath hitched once, so softly that no one else noticed. Attraction. Not the fleeting lust he indulged in when boredom struck, not the hunger for conquest he satisfied by breaking Alphas and taming Omegas. No, this was deeper. It wasn't just want. It was need. Instinctual. Primitive. His Enigma nature recognized Ali as something it could not categorize, and therefore something it could not ignore.
He thought back to Ali's words. Untouchable.
A soft laugh broke from Dante's chest. The boy had no idea what he was playing with. Untouchable? Dante Moretti had razed empires with less provocation. He had reduced entire bloodlines to shadows because of lesser insults. He had never needed to prove himself—his enemies destroyed themselves simply by standing against him.
And yet, instead of fury, all he felt now was heat. Sharp, alive, undeniable heat.
Across the ballroom, Ali excused himself from his circle, moving toward the balcony doors. His stride was fluid, confident, the gait of an Alpha who had never been forced to bend. Dante's silver gaze followed him, sharp and unrelenting.
His decision crystallized then.
This wasn't about a public insult. He could crush Alistair Park in a hundred different ways—financially, socially, politically. But none of that would satisfy the gnawing in his chest, the ache that had bloomed the moment Ali had refused to lower his eyes.
This wasn't punishment. This was obsession.
He would unravel him.
He would claim him.
He would break him—or perhaps, let himself be broken in ways he could not yet imagine.
Dante straightened, setting his untouched wine on a passing tray. His movements were unhurried, controlled, but his eyes never left the Alpha who had dared to challenge him.
The gala might have been filled with the powerful and untouchable, but Dante knew the truth. Tonight, the room held only one predator that mattered—and only one prey worthy of his focus.
Ali Park had drawn his gaze, and Dante never let go of what he claimed.
By the time their eyes met again, Dante's decision was final.
This Alpha is mine.