They had Dante in a cell.
The room was dim, lit only by the flicker of a single feverish red light that pulsed from the ceiling like a dying heart. Shadows seemed to breathe across the walls. And the air clung to her skin like sweat—hot, suffocating, and charged. They'd done something to the cell, must have pumped it full of suppressants because she could barely smell the ozone of his Alpha.
Halcyon stood by her side, holding her wrist as if he were afraid. The others lingered outside the door like puppies. They couldn't all enter, Seraphim had explained. It was a domination thing, something about the pack Alpha immediately attacking if he sensed too many in his territory. But Levi and Kieran were monitoring from the shadows and the light. Kieran would pull up barriers, and Levi could take her away.
They'd been treating him like a savage, caged animal.
One minute. They'd offered her. One look, one wave, and you're out.
She froze, eyes combing the ground.
There was blood.
On the walls. On the floor. Spatters like brushstrokes on a madman's canvas. Claw marks torn into the concrete. The walls cracked and singed as if burned. Debris all over the ground.
It was chaos.
"His electricity did this," Halcyon told her. "If he uses it, you can get behind me. I'll block it off. But Kieran's barrier will do the trick. He's tried to surprise us before."
"I can stand it too," she told him. There was surprise then on his face, glowing bright in his eyes.
"Completely?"
"Yeah," she shrugged. "I can wield it, control it, like how I can control everyone's powers. I guess that is why Levi let me in. He wouldn't if he didn't know." Halcyon seemed startled at her words, lips parting as if wanting to speak, but a low rumble had him growing silent.
And then she saw him.
Crouched in the far corner like a God in ruin, his shirt was completely shredded. His skin was soaked in sweat and streaked with blood. Chains lay snapped by his side, twisted and melted like they'd been burned off his body. He looked awful, still gorgeous, but his complexion was alarmingly flushed. And he seemed almost in pain.
Dante turned to look at her then and grew still.
Rue barely had time to breathe before the air seemed to shift—dense, suffocating, feral. The scent of blood hung heavy, but beneath it all, beneath the iron, the ash and the scorched air, he was there.
Dante.
No.
Not the Dante she remembered.
This thing—this man—was Alpha. Unfiltered. Unchained. And completely, devastatingly broken. And fucking eyes...She was startled then, breath caught in her throat.
His eyes weren't human anymore.
They were black. Pitch black voids rimmed with the faintest glint of red, as if a dying sun had been trapped inside and was now being devoured by his madness.
"Omega," he purred.
Not Rue.
Just Omega.
The word fell from his lips like a command and obsession all at once. His tongue lingered on it, tasted it, rolled over the syllables like it was the only language he remembered. He smirked, almost crazed.
"Omega," he repeated, a taunt growing on his tongue.
Rue's body jolted.
She stepped forward. The sound of her footsteps was soft, slow. It seemed to echo like thunder in the room. His gaze followed every motion, reverent and starved. His pupils expanded, swallowing all colour. Then deepened into insanity when Halcyon stopped her, hands gripping her wrist.
"Not another step," Halcyon warned. "Just look."
Dante's head lifted slowly then, something burning in the air.
And she could see now that something was wrong.
The blue of his electricity was completely gone, drowning in a slick, bottomless sea that shimmered like the darkest of oil. Something vast and monstrous stared at her from within those pupils, something that had snapped. Something that had crawled out of a grave of loss, something that only wanted her.
His electricity was now red.
He moved.
"Shit. Kieran!" Halcyon snarled, expletives streaming from his tongue.
Rue felt the floor tremble, a beam of light erected between them, bars of gold shimmering. Her body reacted before she could think. Slick dripping from between her legs, a pulse thrumming low in her belly with raw, terrified arousal.
Dante stopped inches from her, hands raised for her throat, claws sharp. He'd banished the distance between them, and what remained was a mere gap between her, Kieran's bars and Dante. He'd cornered them both, had them almost flattened against a wall like a predator after prey that he'd be mounting soon.
And something naughty inside her, her goddamn Omega. It wanted him to mount her.
It wanted him to fuck her.
She could feel the heat of him then, radiating, suffocating. It was the overwhelming scent of Alpha in full Rut. It was something darker and unbound. She could see the way his pupils dilated even further, drinking in every tremor of her breath, every move. Rue barely had time to blink before Halcyon's hand gripped her arm tightly.
"Rue," Halcyon said, voice low in her ear, like a plea and a warning all at once. "Don't move."
"Why?" she breathed, stifled down a needy whine, heart thundering and fluttering in her chest like a snared bird. Her knees were almost buckling from the tremendous weight of her desire. "He's—"
"He's completely Alpha," Halcyon corrected, his voice shaking, an irritated growl rippling from his tongue. "And he wants you. You don't understand. He's not seeing clearly. He thinks you were stolen. He thinks we ripped you away from him. And he's going to want to take you back from us. His mind…" Halcyon frowned, seemed to read into an unseen bond. "He's forgotten completely."
"Huh?"
"I think we should go," Halcyon nodded, pulling at her wrist. "This was good enough." She stumbled back.
Dante's crimson electricity roared. He released a pained groan and her eyes now snapped to the space between his legs. The growing bulge in ragged slacks that both thrilled and utterly terrified her.
"Fuck." Halcyon's panic rose. "Levi." The shadows did not move, nothing swept her away. Levi was missing.
Rue's voice grew pitched. "What? What happened?" Halcyon's mouth had fallen open in shock, fingers digging into his chest. He turned sharply to her then, eyes combing her neck.
"Dante thinks you're already mated to him." There was confusion in Halcyon's gaze, a rise in his voice. "Did he bite you? When did he claim you? Where?" His anxiety rose. "Why didn't you tell us? This changes everything. Fuck!"
"N-No?" Rue stammered out. "We just fucked, he didn't bite me. Where's Levi?"
"Dante's using Alpha command, but it's not the same," Halcyon hissed, clenched at his chest as he heaved. "How the fuck is he doing that? He's not—"
Dante's silhouette had stretched, dwarfing the space, like something conjured from a dream—shoulders wide, chest heaving, blood smeared all over like war paint. The chains on the floor glinted beside him, melted iron bubbling.
And his smile?
It grew, like lightning cracking in the sky before a storm. His lips spread, his canines slowly sliding out from his gums. Something about it felt unholy, felt devastatingly feral. His tongue darted out to taste the air, flicked once over his lips.
His face contorted with agony.
Shit.
"Who touched her?" Dante whispered, his voice was timbre and honey. A coo erupted over his tongue. "Our mate smells tainted, Halcyon. She smells used." His expression fell, despair running all over. "How could you let this happen? I trusted you." His snarl was crazed.
Halcyon's grip on Rue's wrist turned brutal. "She wasn't touched," Halcyon said tightly. "She's safe. We kept her safe. She's right here. And we're leaving until you're better. She's just here to see you, to show you that she's alive and well." There was a tremble in his voice. "Dante, please."
But Dante's head tilted, like he was listening to a voice none of them could hear. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Liar," he said gently, and the word carried like a threat. "I smell you on her. I smell your lips on her calf, Halcyon. I smell Kieran on her waist. Levi on her lips. I smell every fucking one of you. You all fed on her scent and left me starving. But worse of all I smell that fucking thing all over her. We need to claim her again. We need to bury her in pack until she smells clean."
Dante laughed. It was a sharp sound. Unhinged. His hand reached out, pressed against the bars. His flesh sang against the glow, skin hissing against the rays of light. And yet he did not seem to care about the burn; the dismay on Halcyon's face disturbed her. Frustration knotted in his brow.
Rue tugged at Halcyon's hand. "What's wrong?"
But he seemed rooted to the spot, frozen as if controlled. She blinked. Was this Alpha's command? She knew then that she had to leave, had to go before everything gave out. And she turned, twisting towards the door, reaching forward. But Halcyon's grip stopped her, and she stumbled back.
"Halcyon, let me go!"
But he seemed frozen, eyes staring back at her in horror.
What the fuck?
Panic now rose in her chest. But a strange arousal continued throbbing between her thighs, thundering in her clit, wetness spilling between her thighs. Dante's scent seemed to grow, worsen by the minute. The weight of it was dragging down her skin.
It made her ache inside.
"You should've never left me," Dante whispered, his voice was low and blistering with venom and sorrow. He was completely feral and she felt a chill run up her spine as his tongue ran over parched lips, gaze coveting as it swept over her body. "You should've let me break your legs, so you'd never walk away. And I'll ruin you," he whispered, a terrible vow. "I'll fill you so full with my cum you forget your own name. I'll mark you so deep they'll smell me in your bones. He won't have you. He can't. That fucking monster can't."
Rue's breath caught, she shook free from Halcyon. One last attempt to run had her fingers at the knob. It sizzled, electric, melting the metal. Her eyes widened, jaw dropping as it sealed the door close. Outside, she couldn't hear a thing. Were they all just as frozen, just as controlled?
"Omega," the Alpha behind her purred, her pussy pulsed in response. "Will you let me knot you?"
The bars of light shattered into pieces.
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