The air in the restaurant hung heavy with Asheren'spheromones, sharp and untamed, filling every corner like storm winds trapped inside a cage.
For a moment, no one moved. No one breathed.
Then Lucien Thessara stirred.
The old Alpha didn't raise his voice. He didn't slam his hand or bare his teeth. He only leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing faintly, and allowed a sliver of his own pheromones to roll across the table.
It wasn't violent, not even loud. It was crushing.
A tide of raw Alpha power seeped into every breath, coiling around Asheren's flaring aura, smothering it as easily as a hand snuffing out a flame.
"Sit down," Lucien said.
The command was quiet, but it struck with the weight of law.
Asheren's knees nearly buckled. His heart slammed against his ribs, lavender eyes wide, fighting against the instinct to kneel. His blood screamed at him to submit, to fold beneath the authority of Thessara Alpha. But he gritted his teeth and forced himself back into his chair, jaw tight, hands trembling with the effort not to break.
Lucien's gaze lingered on him, hard as stone. For a long, suffocating moment, it felt as though the old man could see straight through him—past the defiance, past the shame, down to the boy who still hadn't learned how to breathe through blood and fear.
"…You've grown," Lucien murmured at last, his tone unreadable. "You carry your father's fire. But fire without discipline only burns its own master."
The heavy weight of his pheromones eased, like a mountain shifting off Asheren's shoulders. The room inhaled again. Omegas trembled; Kael and Renzo avoided Asheren'seyes; even Draven sat stiff, lips pressed thin.
Lucien straightened, folding his hands. His voice was calm, but iron threaded through every syllable.
"Do not mistake me. This marriage will happen. I gave my word to Aurelian Bryant, and I will not break it."
His gaze swept the table, daring anyone to speak. Then, slowly, it returned to Asheren.
"The only question left is—" his eyes narrowed, sharp as blades—
"—will you face it with dignity, or will you shame yourself and your mother by clinging to fear?"
The words cut deeper than any insult.
Nyra's hand tightened over Asheren's beneath the table, her warmth trembling with silent plea.
Asheren's throat worked, his chest burning from the clash of pride, fury, and something colder—dread. The image of golden, storm-like eyes flashed unbidden in his mind. The Demon General.
Nyra's hand slipped over Asheren's, her fingers trembling so badly he could feel the shiver travel into his own bones. She tried to steady him, but he could smell the anguish rolling off her—salt-sharp, suffocating.
Every word, every sneer hurled at her by Draven's wife and children, still clung to the air like a wound that refused to close. Even now, years later, the family never let her forget that one mistake.
Asheren's chest heaved. Rage boiled inside him, his Alpha pheromones pressing against the edges of the room, sharp and storm-laced. He wanted to drown their scorn, to rise and crush every hateful look with his presence alone.
But before he could, Lucien's voice rumbled across the table.
"I will decide who honors this promise," the patriarch said. His tone was calm, but his Alpha dominance pressed down on the entire gathering, heavy as iron. His gaze swept slowly over each of them, before landing at last on Kael.
"And it will be you, Kael. You will go to the Demon General as his spouse. That is final."
The words fell like a gavel striking stone.
"Ma!" Kael's voice cracked as he turned to Siora, clutching desperately at her sleeve. His Omega scent spiked—sweet, distressed, cloying with fear. He shook his head like a boy begging to be spared punishment.
Siora wrapped her arms around him, shielding him instinctively. "Dad, please—he's only just come of age. You can't—"
"Enough." The old Alpha's eyes burned with command. "This is not a request. This is duty."
"Dad." Draven rose from his chair, following after Lucien as the man pushed back and stood. His voice was tight, conflicted, Alpha pride colliding with the chains of filial obedience. "Surely we can discuss another way. There must be someone else—"
Alaric moved too, sharp-eyed but composed, the perfect heir trying to contain the storm. Marek stood as well, face pale, his Alpha instincts unsettled by Kael's fear. Together they followed Lucien toward the edge of the table, leaving a trail of tension in their wake.
At the far end, Asheren sat rigid. His lavender eyes burned, his hands clenched white against the tablecloth. Kael's fear knifed through him, but so did something colder—the bitter taste of injustice.
They were all too ready to offer him up a moment ago. Too ready to push the bastard son into the fire. Now, faced with the weight of Lucien's final word, they turned their eyes to Kael instead.
Asheren's pheromones thrummed at the edge of release, stormy and unsettled, but he forced himself still. His mother's trembling grip anchored him in place, though her pulse betrayed the same dread that clawed through him.
"Ma, let's go." His voice was low but firm as he guided his trembling mother to her feet.
"No. You won't."
Siora's voice cut through the silence, sharp as a blade. She rose, her Omega pheromones bleeding into the air—sickly sweet and suffocating, meant to humiliate Nyra where she stood. Her gaze locked on them, cold and venomous.
"Are you happy?" Siora hissed. "Happy that Father chose Kael to be sent to that Demon General instead of your bastard son?"
"It's not like that, Siora," Nyra tried, her voice tight but steady. "Any mother would never want—"
CRACK.
The sound of Siora's palm striking Nyra's face silenced the room.
"Ma!" Asheren's roar shook the air. He pulled his mother behind him, shielding her with his broad frame.
His Alpha pheromones surged in defense, heavy and sharp, but Siora didn't flinch. Instead, she sneered.
"Defending your whore of a mother?" she spat.
Asheren's eyes blazed. "What did you just say?"
"You don't know?" Siora's voice dripped venom. "It's her habit—ruining families for her own gain. She whored herself to my husband years ago and birthed you. Now she dares prance around with another man, spreading her legs for some director."
She yanked open her bag, pulling out a stack of glossy photographs and flinging them at Asheren's chest. They scattered across the floor like shards of glass.
His gaze fell. In the photos, Nyra sat across a candlelit table from a well-known film director, their heads bent close in conversation. To an outsider, it looked like a date.
"Ashen…" Nyra's voice wavered, looking up at her son's rigid profile. "It's nothing. Just a misunderstanding. I swear—"
But Asheren didn't speak. His jaw clenched hard enough to ache as he crouched down, gathering the photos one by one, his hand shaking with the effort to contain his fury. His pheromones vibrated in the air, restless and sharp, but held back—for her sake.
Siora's laugh was low, poisonous. "You're lucky I haven't shown these to Draven or to your grandfather. If I had, their support for you would vanish in an instant. Worse, they might throw you both out—or put her in prison."
The photographs crumpled in Asheren's fist, the paper wrinkling under the pressure of his grip. His teeth ground together as his Alpha instincts screamed to rip Siora apart.
"And if you want these to remain hidden…" Sioracontinued smoothly, her Omega pheromones laced with smug control, "…then you'll do exactly as I say."
She drew out a small memory card from her purse, holding it between two fingers like a weapon. "Every file, every photo—it's all here. I can make a thousand copies. I can send them directly to your grandfather. But… if you replace Kael and offer yourself to the Demon General instead…" Her lips curved into a cruel smile. "…then I'll give this to you, and no one will ever see it."
Asheren's chest heaved, his breath burning hot through clenched teeth. Rage roared in his blood, his Alpha instincts screaming to dominate, to protect, to crush this woman where she stood. But he couldn't—not here, not in this house, not against her.
Because in this family, his voice was nothing. His mother's word was nothing.
And Siora knew it.
Asheren's pheromones spiked, sharp and electric, rattling through the air like the storm inside his chest. His vision tunneled on Siora's smug face, every instinct demanding he lunge forward, tear the memory card from her hands, and crush her beneath the full weight of his Alpha dominance.
But then—he felt the slight tremor of his mother's hand clinging to the back of his sleeve.
"Asheren…" Nyra whispered, her voice thin and pleading.
Her touch was like a chain around him, pulling him back from the edge. He shut his eyes, forcing air into his lungs. His pheromones, wild and destructive, coiled tight inside his chest until he shoved them down, suppressed them so low it made his muscles shake with restraint.
For her. Only for her.