The only sound in the twenty-eighth-floor conference room was the gentle clink of Elara Thorne setting down a hand-cut crystal glass of water. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of her private suite, the afternoon sun fractured across the steel and glass canyons of the city, a view she had bought, built, and ruthlessly defended.
Elara didn't look at the view. She looked at the polished mahogany table—vast, sterile, and ready for war.
Five years. Five years ago, she was just Elara, the weak, human pack ward, dressed in worn-out denim and terrified of everything. Five years ago, her heart was a raw, exposed thing, and the Alpha's rejection had been the final, fatal wound. Now, her name was Elara Thorne, CEO and founder of Thorne Global Acquisitions. She wore a power suit tailored in Milan, the lines as sharp and unforgiving as her gaze. Her hair, once a messy, sun-bleached brown, was now a sleek, obsidian curtain, pulled back so tightly that it emphasized the hard, sculpted angles of her face.
Every fiber of her being, every dollar in her multi-billion-dollar empire, existed for this moment. Not for the merger, not for the market share, but for the man who would walk through that door in exactly four minutes.
"Ms. Thorne," her executive assistant, Liam, a nervous man with an MBA and zero imagination, whispered into her earpiece. "Lycan Holdings delegation is exiting the elevator bank. They are four minutes early."
Impatient. The Lycan family always was. They believed their sheer power, their inherited dominance, exempted them from the rules of time and human decency.
"Acknowledge," Elara murmured, her voice a low contralto that never wavered. "Are the terms of the hostile takeover memorandum clearly placed on the table?"
"Yes, ma'am. Center-left, next to the NDA."
She nodded once, a gesture so minimal Liam would only see it if he were watching the secure feed. She took a slow, deep breath, smelling the expensive leather and polished wood, filtering out the fear that, even after five years, tried to claw its way into her chest.
Fear of him. Fear of the past.
She banished it with the practiced ease of a veteran killer. She had built a fortress around the fragile, vital secret she kept hidden far away from this concrete jungle, and no Alpha male—no matter how dominant—was going to breach it.
The heavy oak doors of the conference room swung inward, not with a polite knock, but with the casual force of men accustomed to moving obstacles.
The air shifted immediately.
The temperature in the room, previously a controlled sixty-eight degrees, suddenly felt thin, charged, and volatile. It was the scent of pine and rain, of pure, untamed wolf, but underneath that, it was the unmistakable, terrifying scent of Alpha.
The delegation from Lycan Holdings was led by three stiff, older board members, but nobody looked at them. All eyes, including Elara's, snapped to the man walking in last.
Ryan Lycan.
He hadn't just aged; he had been honed into something lethal. At twenty-three, he was no longer the cruel, arrogant boy who had ruined her life. He was a man sculpted by power, his frame wider, filling out the impeccable charcoal suit with raw, contained strength. His dark hair was shorter, his jaw tight, perpetually shadowed with five-o-clock stubble. His eyes—those deep amber eyes that had once looked at her with such blinding, soul-shattering indifference—were now harder, colder, and utterly predatory.
He had become the Alpha she always knew he would be, but magnified.
He shouldered past the board members and stopped short, taking in the scene: the glass table, the city view, the single, devastatingly beautiful woman waiting for him.
He was the first to speak. His voice was a low growl, vibrating with authority, even in a professional setting. "Thorne Global. I didn't expect the CEO to conduct a simple negotiation herself."
Elara met his gaze. Her hands, resting on the table, did not tremble. She had spent five years perfecting this look: utter contempt masked by professional ice.
"Alpha Lycan," she replied, using his title deliberately, stripping away the familiarity of his first name. She saw a flicker—anger, confusion—in the amber depths. "When the negotiation involves dismantling your family's legacy, I prefer a direct approach."
One of the older board members coughed nervously. "Ms. Thorne, we are here to discuss a fair acquisition."
Ryan ignored them. His entire focus was fixed on Elara. He walked slowly to the seat directly opposite her, a bold move that put them at the two opposing ends of the long table, maximizing the distance while minimizing the separation.
"Elara," he said, and the use of her name, the possessive, deep timbre of it, was a punch to the gut she was ready for. "You've done well for yourself. The street kid made good."
Street kid. The reminder of where she came from. The human shame.
She smiled, a tiny, chilling movement of her lips that didn't reach her eyes. "You underestimate me, Ryan. It's what you do best."
The atmosphere thickened. It wasn't just the corporate tension anymore. It was the crushing weight of the mate bond, dormant for five years, violently jolted back to life by their proximity. Ryan felt the familiar, sharp pull in his chest—the wrongness of their separation, amplified tenfold by the scent of her fear mixed with her overwhelming confidence.
But then, an entirely new scent hit him. Subtler than Elara's own, hidden beneath layers of expensive perfume, leather, and power, yet undeniable once recognized.
It was the scent of a Lycan pup. No, two. Strong, young, and undeniably part of his bloodline.
Ryan's perfectly composed Alpha facade cracked. His eyes dilated, going pure amber.
"What is that scent?" he demanded, his voice dropping an octave, shaking the crystal glass on the table. He stood abruptly, hands slamming down on the mahogany surface, towering over her. "What are you hiding?"
Elara leaned back slightly, her expression unreadable. She knew this moment was coming. She had prepared for it since the day she'd learned the terrible, wonderful truth five years ago.
"I'm hiding nothing, Alpha Lycan," she said, her voice still low and steady, a calming melody over his rising growl. She paused, letting the silence scream. "I simply brought my family with me."
A door behind Elara's chair, previously unnoticed, clicked open.
Not an assistant.
Two small figures, identical in every way, with messy dark hair and eyes that were the exact, piercing amber shade of Ryan Lycan's own, wandered into the room. They couldn't be older than four.
They looked up at the enormous, suited man who was yelling at their mother.
One twin, bolder than the other, stepped forward and tilted his head.
"Mommy," he asked, his voice a tiny, innocent bell in the charged silence. "Why is that man being loud?"
Ryan looked at the two small faces, his breath hitching in his throat. The raw, unfiltered Alpha power pouring off the boys was intoxicating, overwhelming. They were his. They were strong. They were the heirs he had been told he could never have with a human.
He had rejected the mother, but the goddess had given him her revenge twice over.
Ryan stared, his sophisticated suit suddenly feeling like a cage as the animal inside him roared.
His twins.
Elara stood up, smoothing the front of her expensive skirt. She walked around the table and placed a proprietary, protective hand on the shoulder of each twin.
Her icy gaze locked with Ryan's amber stare. The rejection, the humiliation, the years of pain—it was all channeled into the cold, surgical edge of her voice.
"Meet my sons, Alpha Lycan," she said, delivering the final blow with precise, devastating calm. "They are five years old. Which, as you may recall, is exactly five years after you declared me worthless and unfit to bear the Lycan name."