THE ALPHA KING'S DARK OBSESSION

KENNY

The universe has a twisted sense of humor. One minute you're standing tall, the Beta of Winnor Pack, feared, respected, downright handsome if I do say so myself—and the next minute, you're standing in the antiseptic, too-bright hallway of a human hospital, staring through a glass window at the one person you never thought you'd see again.

Annalise. Keaton. The Omega-turned-Ghost.

I almost laughed right there, would have if my lungs hadn't frozen when I saw her. Same piercing eyes, same slender hands, same stubborn little frown furrowing her lips. She hadn't changed much, except for the scrubs. She looked. important. Comfortable, even. Like she'd built a whole life that didn't have us in it.

The irony? She was the one fighting to keep Nicholas, my Alpha and best friend, from bleeding out on the table.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I pressed my forehead against the glass, watching her move, her hands steady even as her patient—our Alpha—hovered inches from death. The girl had guts, I'd give her that.

"Of all the bloody hospitals," I muttered to myself. "Of all the bloody doctors. It had to be her."

I'd always wondered where she disappeared to. After all, Omegas don't just pack up and leave the Winnor pack, not without consequences. But here she was, in her element, a surgeon with a scalpel in her hand and fire in her veins. She looked like she belonged. She didn't even glance at me.

"Beta?"

The nurse beside me blinked up, eyes wide, as if she was trying to figure out why I looked like I'd seen a ghost. I waved her off, rubbing a hand through my hair.

Nicholas. Focus on Nicholas.

But it was hard, nigh on impossible, not to get caught up in the past when the past was a few feet away, dressed in blue scrubs and covered in blood that wasn't hers.

When the doors finally opened and she emerged, pulling the mask off her face, her eyes flickered to me. There was a flash of recognition in her eyes before she shut it down, professional as ever. She wiped her hands on a towel and nodded.

"He's alive," she told me. "Barely, but I bought him time. The rest is up to him now."

"You always were too damn stubborn to let people die," I croaked, my throat dry.

Her lips twitched, the shadow of a smile, but it never materialized. "And you were always too loud, Kenny."

It was the first time she'd said my name in years. And hell, it hit harder than any punch.

I waited until she was gone before I fell into the nearest chair. Nicholas was going to be all right. That was meant to be the triumph. But all I could consider was the sound of her voice. How different she seemed from the kid we'd left behind.

And when Nicholas woke up, the first words out of his mouth weren't about his wounds, or the son of a bitch who put a hole in his side.

They were about her.

"She saved me, didn't she?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Annalise saved you."

His eyes sharpened, the old Nicholas here and accounted for despite the tubes and machinery that were keeping him alive. "Then I want her back. With us. I don't care how, Kenny. Get her back."

And just like that, my world tipped all over again.

Because getting Annalise Keaton back to Winnor?

That was going to be a hell of a war.

The air was still antiseptic and char-flesh, but at least Nicholas was breathing. I stood back from the side of the hospital bed, arms over my chest, watching the man who'd, in spite of everything, refused to die.

Classic Alpha. Too stubborn damn to quit, even when his insides were shredded paper.

He shifted, groaning, his eyes finally coming into focus.

"Finally took you long enough," he snarled, voice as rough as rock.

I snorted, hiding the relief constricting my throat. "Yeah, well, thank you for dragging your sorry behind to the ER. Your wonderful personality nearly kept me from doing it half the way."

Nicholas did not smile. He never did when he was plotting in his mind. His eyes went dark instead, all wolf, all business.

"Who did this?"

I was reluctant. The words seared like hot coals against my tongue. I'd witnessed the attacker myself. Hell, I'd caught a whiff of the son of a bitch, too. There was no mistaking that smell — dominance, cold calculation, old money and death.

"It was Vance," I said at last. "The Beta to the Alpha King."

Nicholas stiffened, his fingers curled slightly into the sheets.

Vance. The very sound of that name had the ability to make experienced fighters wonder at their life choices.

I leaned back against the wall, one foot over the other, trying to sound as casual as possible, while the twist in my stomach betrayed me and whispered that this was not nearly casual. "Yeah. Walked right into the trap. Vance did not miss. He wanted to kill you, Nick. Bad."

There was silence between us, thick and choking.

"Draco's Beta?" Nicholas spoke slowly, savoring the words as if they were foul. "Why would the King's Beta be after me like that?"

I shrugged, although we both knew that it wasn't for lack of trying to attempt. "Beats me. You haven't gotten on the wrong side of the crown lately, so far as I know. Unless breathing was recently made treason."

His jaw tightened. That was his thinking face — the one in which he anticipated twenty moves down on the chessboard. But today, even Nicholas looked as though the puzzle lacked sufficient pieces.

"There's no way the King sent him without a reason," he growled.

"Or maybe he did." I paced a slow, agitated circle away from the wall. "But why you? Why now? Unless this is about Annalise."

Her name lingered in the air like a gun loaded with bullets.

His gaze snapped towards the window, face mask-like, but the hesitation spoke volumes.

"You believe the King's after her?" I ventured carefully.

"I don't know," he growled. "But it wasn't random, Kenny. Vance wouldn't spend his time on impulse."

The ensuing silence was bitter and cold.

Nicholas sat up straight as much as his bandaged self would permit, all aspects of his Alpha power bleeding into existence even in that hospital bed.

"Listen up," he ordered, voice low and cutting. "I need all scouts on their toes. Stealth. If the King's moving pieces, I want to know before the next one falls. And Kenny…"

I stopped in my pacing, meeting eyes.

"Observe Annalise. If this concerns her, she's the center."

I quirked an eyebrow. "You sure she's better off away from us?"

His face darkened. "No. She's safer in my care than out there, where Vance can reach her."

There was no persuading him otherwise.

I saluted, feigning, causing the smirk to draw the edge of my mouth. "Guess I'll have to babysit the doc, then. Hope she doesn't stab me with a needle out of spite."

But within, the joke did not register.

Because if Vance had been sent.

Then things are much more serious than we thought.