The villa was quiet.
Too quiet for a woman used to being the center of every room she entered.
Misty lounged in her private salon, half-wrapped in a velvet robe and framed by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Capital's western ridge. The marble underfoot was warm from the evening sun, the wine in her crystal glass older than her latest assistant, and the silence—
—deafening.
She hadn't turned on the music today. She hadn't summoned the housekeeper. The soft rustle of her robe as she moved was the only sound in a room built for opulence. The walls were covered in imported tapestries, the shelves lined with rare perfumes and rarer contracts. A small fortune slept here in silver frames and monogrammed wax.
She had built this life with precision.
And now it was slipping.
The message from Odin had been brief, but that made it worse. No threats. No fury. Just a single message delivered through encrypted proxy:
I assume there's a misunderstanding. You have the right to rent him, not sell. You have two weeks to bring him back.
Misty read the message again, each word tightening like a noose.
Rent, not sell.
As if Lucas were a chair at a gala or a villa suite in summer. As if the years she spent grooming him, silencing him, and bleeding every ounce of unpredictability from him meant nothing. As if Odin still believed she held the leash.
But she didn't. Not anymore.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached for the cigarette case hidden beneath the mahogany armrest. Polished gold. Custom monogram. She clicked it open, lit one with steady fingers, and took a drag long enough to slow her heartbeat. The wine followed—dry, sharp, burning down her throat like clarity.
Lucas wasn't just gone, he was protected. Legally. Publicly. Paraded around like a reborn heir in House D'Argente's colors, complete with the northern Duke circling him like a wolf in court-polished shoes.
And she was removed from Lucas's life and anything that had something to do with him.
She tossed the phone onto the chaise beside her and stood, crossing the room with long, measured strides. She didn't panic. Not yet. Odin's message wasn't a strike—it was a warning. A window. The kind given to loyal dogs before the muzzle was tightened.
Two weeks.
She crushed the cigarette into a marble ashtray, already reaching for her backup phone. The old one. The one with buried accounts, ghost numbers, and two contacts left alive from her original network.
She could still flip the game.
Misty crossed into the private wing of her villa, unlocking the mirrored cabinet built into her dressing chamber. Inside were folders—old, thick, yellowing at the edges. She pulled out the one marked L.O.K.—Private. The initials were enough. She didn't need his name to remember.
Fourteen years old.
She remembered the appointment clearly. The clinic had been off-grid—paid in coin and silence. The doctor, cautious. She remembered laughing. A dominant omega? At that age? Impossible. The doctor hadn't laughed.
"Genetic markers are inconclusive, but aggressive. If he expresses, he'll do so violently. Recommend immediate suppressants."
She had signed the waiver. Paid extra to keep it off the books and the doctor silent.
The first dose was administered within the hour.
She flipped through the rest. Medical graphs. Hormonal charts. Behavior logs marked compliant, flat affect, and dissociative tendencies—which had made him even easier to handle, truthfully. No rebellion. No fire. Just an elegant, expensive shell she could fill with whatever narrative suited the sale.
And now?
Now he could awaken at any time.
A rare omega, verified by a court physician and escorted by Serathine herself. And the moment that detail reached the wrong ears—or the right ones—every power-hungry house on the continent would come sniffing.
She smiled to herself.
It would take Serathine and the northern dog at least a few more months to find out. By then, the whispers would be too loud to silence.
Let them scramble. Let them cloak it in ceremony and protection and all those other useless words nobles liked to use when their territory was threatened.
If Odin thought he could just order her around, he was mistaken.
She had chosen him as the final buyer not because of the money or the titles or the power—but because he could keep the boy away from her.
She didn't want to see him. Didn't want to know what years of being rented and passed between hands had made of Lucas. She hadn't been ready to look at the face of what she had shaped.
She never intended to.
But now, with Serathine's hand gripping one shoulder and Fitzgeralt's ring circling the other, the boy was visible. And she had never hated him more for it.
Misty returned to the salon in silence, poured herself another glass of wine, and didn't bother with the crystal this time. She drank straight from the decanter.
She wasn't afraid of Serathine. That woman had always been too clean, too principled, and too concerned with appearances. But Odin?
Odin wouldn't care about titles or sentiment. He wouldn't care that Lucas had been reclassified, renamed, and repackaged. He would only care that the goods hadn't arrived. That his order had been intercepted.
And if he found out that she had known?
She took another long drink, then lit a fresh cigarette. Her hand didn't shake. Not anymore.
She would lose Lucas. That much was certain.
But no one else was going to win.
Not Fitzgeralt, with his polished restraint and long reach. Not Serathine, with her titles and protective laws. Not even the Empire, if it came to that. Because if the truth came out in public—if the right rumor landed in the wrong ear—no one could stop what followed. Not even Odin.
Dominant omegas were rare enough that the law did not apply to their relationship; in the best case scenario, Lucas would be bound to someone powerful enough to force him; in the worst case scenario, he would be shared among alphas in order to breed as much as possible.
She reached for the burner phone—the old one, tucked behind false ledgers and perfume boxes. It still worked. Of course it did. She'd kept it for a reason.
The network she logged into wasn't meant for names. It was meant for stories. Whispers. Bait.
She didn't have to mention Lucas. She just had to give the right scent.
Unconfirmed: A noble heir, recently presented, confirmed as dominant omega. Early suppression suspected. House protection active, but no public bond.
If verified—first case in over two decades.
She added one more line:
If you want him, move now.
And pressed send.
The moment the message left her screen, she leaned back in her chair and exhaled. Smoke curled against the ceiling like a prayer no one would answer.
She would lose her investment.
But so would they.
And the boy—
The boy would suffer.
As he was always meant to.