Rejected Omega, Secret Bride of the Billionaire Lycan

Elenor POV

The neon sign of the Tribeca bar flickered like a dying heartbeat, casting a sickly crimson glow over the sticky wooden counter. I stared into the amber liquid in my glass, watching the ice cubes surrender to the cheap whiskey. It burned. Goddess, it burned. But the fire in my throat was nothing-nothing-compared to the phantom claws still raking through my chest.

Three hours.

Three hours since Caleb Thornton, the Alpha I had devoted my entire worthless existence to serving, held me up to his glittering Pack like a piece of trash and let them watch me shatter.

I had been his secret weapon. The invisible architect behind the Silvermoon Pack's rise. I managed his affairs, memorized his enemies' weaknesses, smiled through every degradation while his Pack whispered wolfless freak behind my back. And I endured it all because I actually believed-stupid, desperate, pathetic creature that I was-that my loyalty meant something.

Then his eyes landed on Deann Hensley. Beautiful. Pure-blooded. The daughter of a powerful Alpha with territory stretching across three states. And in the span of a single heartbeat, I ceased to exist.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the memory was a wound that refused to scab over.

"Her?" Caleb's laugh had been champagne-bright, his arm already snaking around Deann's narrow waist. "She's just a wolfless charity case my Pack took in. Barely an Omega. Don't take her seriously."

Wolfless. The word was a silver-tipped dagger twisting into the hollow cavity where my wolf should have lived. Every werewolf pup shifted by sixteen. I was twenty-four, and my body remained a silent, empty tomb. Defective. Broken. A cosmic joke the Moon Goddess forgot to finish. I had spent ten years in the Thornton Pack, ten years letting Caleb use me, bleed me dry, all to prove that I wasn't the burden everyone whispered I was. And he had reduced my entire existence to a punchline just to make himself look available.

The glass trembled in my grip. I wanted to shatter it. I wanted to shatter myself.

"Hey, sweetheart."

The voice slithered through my grief like oil on water. A heavy, sweat-slicked hand clamped down on my thigh, fingers digging into my flesh with entitled familiarity.

I flinched, my eyes snapping open.

Two human men had boxed me in. The one touching me reeked of stale beer and three days of unwashed body odor. His friend stood at my other side, blocking my exit with a yellow-toothed grin that made my stomach lurch.

"A pretty little thing like you shouldn't be drinking alone," the first one crooned, his thumb stroking my thigh through the silk of my dress. "What's wrong, baby? Someone break your heart? We can make it better."

"Let go of me." My voice came out steadier than I felt. I shoved at his hand, but without a wolf to grant even a whisper of supernatural strength, my resistance was laughable. His grip only tightened.

"Come on, don't be a bitch," the second man sneered, leaning in so close I could count the broken capillaries in his nose. "We're just being friendly."

Panic detonated in my chest -hot, primal, all-consuming. I tried to slide off the barstool, but they pressed closer, a wall of unwashed flesh and predatory intent. The bartender had vanished. The few other patrons suddenly found their drinks fascinating.

I was alone. Wolfless. Defenseless.

Just like always.

Then the temperature in the bar plummeted.

It wasn't a draft. It wasn't the ancient air conditioning finally kicking in. This was something far more primal- a suffocating, bone-deep weight that instantly crushed the oxygen out of the room. The kind of pressure that made lesser creatures freeze and bare their throats in instinctive surrender.

A scent washed over me.

Sharp cedarwood. A raging rainstorm. Rich Cuban tobacco.

It was an Alpha's aura, but heavier, darker, infinitely more terrifying than anything I had ever felt in a decade of bowing to Caleb Thornton. This wasn't authority. This was dominion.

The human man's hand was ripped from my thigh before he could even scream. His body flew backward-thrown like a rag doll- and crashed into a table of empty bottles. Glass exploded. Blood sprayed. His friend took one look at the towering shadow that had materialized behind me and bolted out the door, driven by the kind of pure, primal terror that bypassed rational thought entirely.

Silence.

Even the groaning man on the floor went still, too terrified to make a sound.

I turned my head slowly, my pulse thundering in my ears.

He stood there like a cathedral carved from darkness. Easily six-foot-five, shoulders so broad they devoured the dim neon light, a bespoke black suit stretched over muscles that didn't belong in any boardroom. His jaw was granite, his cheekbones razor-sharp, his black hair swept back from a face that belonged on magazine covers and in nightmares.

But it was his eyes that stopped my heart.

Deep. Charcoal-gray. And swirling with a possessive fury so absolute, so specific, it felt like being struck by lightning.