CHAPTER FOUR

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

"Your... what?" she asked, her voice trembling.

Jonathan 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," Marcus said, his voice carrying a thick, potent rumble that vibrated the air. "We've been through this."

"You cannot simply claim her so easily," Marcus countered, his tone unwavering. "Not without the rites."

"The rites have been suspended until the prophesied Moon Maiden chooses her path forward," Jonathan said, his eyes narrowing into 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," Marcus said, his words dripping with acid. "The Maiden's power hasn't even awakened fully. To claim dominion over her now is a fool's path."

"Mind yourself, Marcus," Jonathan growled, his voice thick with menace. "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!" Marcus shot back.

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—" she began.

"Silence!" Jonathan roared, his voice a thunderclap that rattled 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 a 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, her 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, Damien 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 curled a 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 said, his tone dry. "I'd have brought refreshments for our guest's arrival. But then..." He smiled 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, his 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," Jonathan said, his voice edged with a warning.

"Oh cease with the caveman act," Damien 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. He was close enough for his pine and mahogany scent to curl around her senses in teasing wisps.

"After all..." Damien's 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, his 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," he said, his tone 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 said, his authoritative tone brooking no argument. 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," Damien said, his voice trailing off.

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, his 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 seatbelt. "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.

Sophia froze as Jonathan stepped out, the reality of her nightmarish situation crashing down anew. She was trapped amid an ancient supernatural feud between powerful alpha werewolf factions and their unhinged rogue brethren. And now, destined to be Jonathan's... mate?

Adrenaline spiked as the weight of everything threatened to smother her. Her home—her entire world—had been shattered beyond repair.

A warm hand settled over her clenched fist where it dug grooves into the butter-soft leather. Sophia flinched, only to find Marcus's penetrating obsidian stare pinning her from mere inches away.

His earthy, virile scent enveloped her senses once more, steadying her frantic mind like an anchor in the raging storm.

"Breathe," Marcus commanded in that low, potent rumble that seemed to vibrate straight through to her bones. "Hold to my voice."

Inexplicably, she found herself obeying, drawing in a deep draft of night-cooled air tinged with his piney essence. Against all reason, it centered her, banishing the panic clawing up her throat to replace it with prickling awareness.

"Good," Marcus murmured, close enough that she could feel its bassy resonance buzzing through the scant space between them. "They seek to drown you in their posturing and power games, little one."

At that, a hint of a smile curved the sharp angle of his jaw as he leaned fractionally nearer - every molecule in Sophia's body screaming at the potent provocation of his proximity.