Claimed By His Uncle: The Lycan's Forbidden Mate

Celeste Benton POV:

"Your fiancé—Darrien Page is not downstairs, Miss Benton," the Beta server sneered, deliberately tilting his champagne tray to force me to a halt.

His eyes dragged over my unbranded, off-the-rack gown with unapologetic disgust. In a penthouse packed with blue-blood Alphas whose raw authority made the floor joists hum, my total lack of an inner beast marked me like an open lesion.

"Where is he?" I asked, keeping my spine like forged steel.

"Top floor. Private penthouse suite," the server tossed out, his smile rancid. "Though if I were you, little girl, I wouldn't interrupt."

A cold lead ball sank into my stomach. I turned my back on the glitz and corporate vultures of the gala floor and strode straight toward the private elevator bank.

The heavy oak doors of Suite 802 were cracked open an inch.

I raised my hand to knock, but a woman's breathless, filthy whimper leaked through the seam.

My blood iced over. I pressed two fingers against the door and nudged it open.

The scent hit me like a chemical burn: cheap synthetic vanilla and the heavy, musky pheromones of an Alpha in rut. Crumpled across the foyer floor was the bespoke charcoal suit jacket I had spent thirty minutes pressing and hand-buttoning for Darrien only four hours ago.

I crossed the threshold into the bedroom.

Darrien had a woman pinned back across the vanity table. Her legs were locked tight around his hips, her manicured hands gripping his dark hair. Chloe Sterling. The rising pack starlet whose father had just inked an eight-figure transit deal with the Page syndicate.

Chloe tilted her neck back, her eyes catching mine in the mirror. She didn't recoil. She didn't even flinch. Instead, a venomous, triumphant smirk curved her crimson lips, and she sank her polished claws into Darrien's shoulders, letting out an exaggerated groan of pleasure.

A wave of pure, blinding acid surged up my throat.

I didn't scream. I didn't let a single tear fall.

Survival on the streets had beaten helplessness out of me years ago. My hand snapped out on raw instinct, closing around the heavy solid-bronze urn sitting on the console table.

I whipped it across the room with all the force in my shoulders.

It detonated against the mirrored vanity with an ear-splitting crash. Tempered glass exploded like shrapnel.

Darrien threw himself backward, stumbling into the bed frame, his shirt torn open, his chest heaving as his predatory gold eyes bled back into panicked brown.

"Celeste?" he stammered, the practiced mask of a politician slipping on instantly. "Wait! Don't be insane—this isn't what it looks like! It's business, she was drunk—"

"Save your breath," I whispered, the rage chilling my vocal cords to dry ice.

I looked down at the glittering engagement diamond on my left finger. It burned like a slave brand.

I spun on my heel and sprinted into the corridor.

I reached the corner by the express lifts just as the chiming bell echoed through the hall.

The metal doors slid wide, and an explosion of strobing flashbulbs blinded me.

"Room 802! It's Page's heir!"

"Is that the wolfless fiancée?!"

Paparazzi. Dozens of them, carrying telephoto lenses and microphones, swarming out of the lifts like locusts.

If they pinned me here—the wolfless bride running from her Alpha's cheating bed—the Page machine would pin the entire scandal on my defectiveness by sunrise. I backed into the alcove, frantically clawing at every handle. Locked. Deadbolted. Trapped.

"Celeste Benton! Over here!"

Suddenly, a door behind me swung inward without a sound.

A scarred, massive hand shot out of the abyss, thick fingers clamping around my wrist like hydraulic steel.

Before I could choke out a scream, the force violently hauled me off my feet, yanking me straight into pitch blackness.

The reinforced door slammed shut. The deadbolt engaged with a heavy, pressurized click.

I thrashed wildly, my back colliding with a chest as unyielding as a slab of granite. A broad, scalding palm clamped down over my mouth, suffocating my scream against my teeth.

"Silence," a voice dropped into the dark, scraping low and lethal against the shell of my ear.

Then, his aura hit me.

It wasn't an ordinary Alpha presence. It was a crushing, suffocating wave of frozen mountain air and bitter black cedar. It carried an ancient, reality-warping Lycan sovereign pressure so colossal that my wolfless biology buckled in pure evolutionary terror. My legs went entirely numb.

His other arm snapped like an iron band around my ribs, lifting my feet clean off the carpet, pinning my trembling spine against his muscular frame.

Through the thin fabric of my gown, the blistering heat of his hands seared into my flesh, sending violent, electric jolts crackling straight down my nervous system.

Outside, the hall erupted in chaos. Shouted questions, slamming doors, Darrien's muffled curses—yet none of the paparazzi paused outside our door. The beast holding me was projecting such a thick, suffocating shield of his own scent that my presence had been completely erased from the world.

The footsteps faded down the hallway.

I gasped against his palm. "Let... let me go..."

Instead of releasing me, his arm tightened until my ribs creaked. His head dipped into the curve of my neck, his nose brushing the vein pulsing violently at my throat, inhaling my scent with a deep, shuddering rasp.

A violent tremor ripped through his massive body. His breath turned ragged, feral—as if he were waging war against the primal urge to sink his fangs into my jugular.

Then, just as violently, he shoved me away.

I hit the console table in the dark, gasping for air.

"Out," he rasped from the pitch black, his voice dripping with barely restrained violence.

I fumbled for the latch, threw the door open, and tumbled into the bright hallway. I didn't look back. I tore off my high heels, grabbed them by the straps, and bolted barefoot down the concrete fire exit stairs.

I hit the second-floor fire door and slammed it open.

Waiting on the other side, arms crossed over a blood-red gown, was Domenica Spence.

Celeste Benton POV:

"Look who finally dragged herself out of the penthouse," Domenica drawled, blocking the narrow service corridor with a venomous smirk.

She was my adoptive sister—my adoptive parents's biological daughter. Unlike me, Domenica had shifted into an agile Beta wolf at sixteen. She had spent her entire youth kicking down at the wolfless stray her parents had pulled off a church step.

"Move, Domenica," I breathed, my chest burning from the sprint. "I'm not in the mood."

She stepped forward, digging a razor-sharp acrylic nail hard into my collarbone.

"Did you enjoy the VIP show upstairs, little sister? Did you finally see how a real Alpha handles a female who isn't defective?"

I froze, the blood draining from my face. "You tipped them off."

Domenica let out a high, mocking laugh that bounced off the cinderblock walls. "Tipped them off? I called the media desks myself thirty minutes ago, darling. I slipped the photographer Darrien's master keycard."

"Why?" I hissed, trembling with rage. "Page Enterprises was supposed to sign the commercial transit merger tonight! That contract clears Dad's union debt! Why destroy it?!"

"Save our business?" Her eyes flashed with sudden, feral malice. She closed the distance until her breath hit my lips, sour with red wine. "You honestly thought our father was going to hand those transit corridors to an Alpha for your sake? You're a wolfless parasite! You have no beast, no claws, and no right to sit at an Alpha's high table! Why should you get an heir while I get the scraps?!"

I shoved her forearm off my chest. "If you wanted that two-faced coward so badly, Domenica, you should have just asked. He's all yours."

"He's already mine, Celeste."

The words were sickeningly sweet.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Domenica rested her manicured palm lovingly over the flat plane of her stomach. A victorious, predatory sneer stretched across her features.

"Three weeks," she whispered, leaning into my ear. "I'm carrying Darrien's pup."

The ground vanished beneath my bare feet. A deafening roar filled my ears, louder than an artillery shell.

"You're lying," I choked out, the words tasting like ash.

"Am I?" She reached into her crystal clutch, pulled out a folded glossy document, and flicked it across my face.

The sharp edge sliced across my cheekbone, drawing a thin bead of red. The paper fluttered down between my bare, dirty feet.

It was an official document from the Cascade Medical Center, stamped with a Beta physician's seal.

Positive gestational index. Bloodline: Darrien Page.

"He was sick of waking up next to an empty shell months ago," Domenica sneered, leaning over me. "He needed a female who could actually birth a wolf, Celeste. You couldn't even give him a pup with teeth. You were just a placeholder until the commercial permits cleared."

The man who had slipped a ring onto my finger, who had sworn my lack of a beast didn't matter—he had been bedding my adoptive sister in my own home while I worked sixteen-hour tactical shifts to pay off our family's loans.

Heavy, synchronized boots pounded against the floorboards before I could speak.

Four massive men in tailored ballistic suits rounded the corner, their lapels gleaming with the silver crest of the Page Pack.

The lead enforcer blocked my path, his gaze dead and clinical.

"Miss Benton," he commanded, his voice vibrating with pack authority. "Alpha Beaulah Wilkins requires your presence in the third-floor executive boardroom immediately."

They formed an impenetrable perimeter, their massive shoulders blocking every inch of the hall.

"Get out of my way," I said, wiping the smear of blood from my cheek. "I'm leaving."

"You leave when the Alpha dismisses you," the guard barked, taking a menacing step forward.

Domenica chuckled, leaning against the wall with folded arms. "Run along, Celeste. Don't keep Darrien's mother waiting. She has a few choice words about how you broke her crystal."

Four high-tier wolves against an unarmed, barefoot human in an evening gown. If I fought them here, they would zip-tie my wrists and break my collarbone before I cleared the exit.

"Fine," I said, my voice dropping to a flatline. "Lead the way."

They escorted me like a condemned prisoner into the private lift, rising straight to the executive suites.

Inside the boardroom, the tension was thick enough to suffocate a beast.

Sitting at the head of a massive obsidian conference table was Beaulah Wilkins. Tailored emerald silk, diamonds dripping from her ears, her spine rigid as a marble column. The matriarch of the Page bloodline.

When her eyes landed on my bare, bloodied feet, her lips peeled back in open disgust.

"Close the doors," Beaulah ordered.

The heavy oak slammed shut behind me.

Beaulah set down her fine china teacup. The sharp clatter broke the silence like a gunshot.

"You utterly useless little stray," she spat, each syllable laced with venom. "You had one single task tonight: stand at Darrien's side, smile for the cameras, and keep him out of the headlines until the merger cleared."

I stood tall in the center of the Persian rug. "Your son was buried between another woman's legs, Alpha Beaulah. If you want someone to blame for the cameras, look in the mirror."

"Do not raise your tone in my house!" Beaulah snarled, her irises flashing predatory amber. "A proper female keeps her mate satisfied! If Darrien sought comfort elsewhere, it is because you are defective! An empty vessel we took pity on!"

I let out a harsh, dry bark of laughter. "Pity? You wanted my adoptive father's freight lanes. That's the only reason I was ever allowed past your gates."

The double doors banged open with violent force.

Darrien stumbled into the room, his tie ripped off, sweat glistening on his flushed neck, reeking of raw sex and spilled liquor.

He locked eyes with me, and his face instantly twisted into pure, unbridled malice.

Celeste Benton POV:

"Look what you did!" Darrien roared, storming across the Persian rug.

Veins bulged along his throat. He stopped inches from my face, his breath reeking of bourbon.

"The press is streaming live from the lobby!" he snarled, spitting as he screamed. "They caught Chloe exiting my suite! If you had stayed at my side like you were told, none of this would have happened! You brought this ruin down on my head by running off!"

I looked at him, feeling nothing but total, bone-deep disgust. "I caused this? You were spread across a vanity table five minutes after I left the ballroom!"

"It was a corporate setup!" he yelled, throwing his arms wide. "Someone drugged my glass! As my mate, your only job was to cover for me, not shatter my mirrors and summon the vultures to my door!"

"That is enough, Darrien," Beaulah's voice sliced through the air like a whip.

Darrien flinched, snapping his jaws shut and retreating like a kicked cur.

Beaulah slid open a black leather portfolio on the obsidian table. She unclasped a heavy gold pen, scrawled a signature across a slip of paper, and slid it toward me.

A cashier's check from the Page treasury. Five hundred thousand dollars.

"Here is your reality," Beaulah said, steepling her diamond-clad fingers. "You will sign a standard non-disclosure agreement. Tomorrow at eight sharp, you will sit beside Darrien at a press conference. You will announce that you were the woman in that room, and that the model photographed was merely an assistant handling a wardrobe malfunction. You will confirm your bond is unbroken."

Around the room, four Page elders nodded with cold detachment. To them, a wolfless girl from the slums had no right to dignity. Five hundred thousand dollars was more than my adoptive father made in five years running freight vans.

"Take the money, Celeste," an elder near the window scoffed. "It's ten times what your blood is worth."

I looked down at the check. Five hundred thousand dollars to swallow my soul, lie to the city, and spend my life chained to a coward and the adoptive sister carrying his bastard.

A strange, freezing clarity settled over my pulse.

I stepped forward. I reached out and took the check.

Beaulah's lips curved into a smug, triumphant smirk. "Good. At least you have some sense—"

I gripped the paper with both thumbs and ripped it down the middle.

The sharp tear sounded like a whip crack. I folded the halves, ripped them again, and shredded the check into white confetti.

I stepped forward and hurled the scraps straight into Beaulah's face.

The paper fluttered over her emerald silk and into her hot tea.

A collective gasp sucked the air from the room.

"The Benton family might be poor," I said, my voice ringing out like a battle cry, "but our spine is not for sale to a house of lying cowards."

"You insolent little bitch!" Darrien lunged, his hand shooting forward to seize my throat. "You don't walk away from me! I am the heir of this pack! You will submit!"

Years of tactical police training took over before his Alpha strength could pin me. I twisted my shoulder, slipped beneath his reach, and grabbed his wrist, driving my weight down to wrench his joint.

With my free hand, I dug my thumb beneath the heavy four-carat engagement ring on my left hand.

The metal ripped skin as it came free, but I tore it off in one violent jerk.

"Take your damn ring!" I snarled.

I drove the heavy platinum setting straight across Darrien's cheekbone.

The diamond tore through his flesh like a razor blade. Darrien howled in agony, stumbling backward, clutching his face as blood poured between his fingers.

The ring bounced off his chest and clattered into the trash bin in the corner.

"Our engagement is dead," I announced to the room.

"Restrain her!" Beaulah shrieked, kicking her chair backward into the paneling. "Lock her in the subterranean cells! She does not leave this compound until she signs!"

The four tactical guards lunged at once.

I didn't blink. I seized a heavy lead-crystal ashtray off the table and hurled it with full force.

It struck the lead enforcer squarely in the bridge of his nose with a wet crunch. He roared, clutching his shattered face, blinding the man behind him for a single fraction of a second.

That was all I needed.

I dropped low, ducked under an outstretched claw, and burst through the heavy double doors into the corridor.

"Block the elevators!" Darrien's muffled scream echoed behind me.

I hit the heavy emergency fire door with my shoulder, tumbling into the raw concrete stairwell. My bare feet hit the freezing steps, tiny chips of metal and gravel driving into my soles, but the adrenaline burned the pain out of my veins. I threw myself down the steps three at a time, using the handrails to sling my body around the turns.

Two floors. Four. Six.

Above me, the fire doors banged open, accompanied by the guttural, echoing snarls of shifting wolves.

I slammed through the ground-level crash bar and burst into the subterranean chill of the P2 parking garage.

The air reeked of damp concrete, gasoline, and motor oil.

"Spread out! Pillar twelve!" a guard roared from the stairwell.

I ducked behind a thick concrete column, my chest heaving, blood smearing the floor beneath my torn feet. Fifty yards away, the exit ramp was barred by a heavy hydraulic gate and an armed booth.

Behind me was a dead-end wall of high-voltage transformers.

I was trapped.

I crouched, wrapping both hands around a jagged chunk of broken curb. If I was going down, they were going to bleed for every inch.

The lead wolf rounded the pillar, his nose twitching as he caught the copper scent of my blood.

"There! Take her down!"

They raised their shock batons and surged forward.

Suddenly, blinding high-intensity halogen beams tore through the gloom.

A massive, matte-black armored SUV roared around the corner, its engine screaming like a jet turbine. The vehicle drifted sideways with a deafening screech of burning rubber, slamming to a halt inches from the guards, cutting off their line of fire with an impenetrable wall of ballistic steel.

The rear door unlatched and swung open.

Inside, the cabin was a cavern of pitch blackness.

I didn't stop to think. Anything was better than Beaulah's dungeons.

I dropped the concrete stone, threw myself forward, and dived headfirst into the darkness of the SUV.

The door slammed shut behind me with a pressurized, vault-like thud, cutting off the gunfire and shouting outside.

I collapsed onto the plush floor mats, gasping for air, trembling violently.

Then, from the captain's chair above me, the scent drifted down.

Bitter mountain frost. Ancient black cedar.

The Alpha from the dark suite.