The panic was a living thing. It clawed up my throat, squeezed my lungs, turned the courtyard into a spinning blur of stone and moonlight. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The rejection mark throbbed in time with my racing heart—cold fire spreading down my neck, into my chest.
Sebastian's voice drifted through the open doors. Introducing Emilia. Again. Louder this time. Making sure everyone heard.
My fingers found the scar. Pressed hard. The grey skin was ice-cold under my touch.
And then something inside me—some desperate, drowning part I didn't know existed—reached.
I felt it happen. A thread of consciousness extending through empty space, searching for an anchor that shouldn't be there. The sensation was foreign. Wrong. I'd never had a mate bond. Never had a wolf strong enough to form one. But my body didn't care about logic. It just reached.
And found him.
The connection snapped taut like a rope pulled between two points. Raw. Unfiltered. Every ounce of my terror flooded through it in a single, uncontrolled wave.
I gasped. The link cut off as suddenly as it had formed, but the damage was done.
Inside the banquet hall, I knew—somehow I knew—that Castiel had felt it.
Footsteps behind me. Not Castiel's. Wrong rhythm. Wrong weight.
"Lilith." Sebastian's voice. Smooth. Concerned. Performative. "You need to pull yourself together."
I didn't turn around. Couldn't.
"This is embarrassing," he continued, moving closer. "If you can't handle being in the same room as me and Emilia, how do you expect to complete your task? The Prince will think you're unstable."
I pressed harder against the scar. My vision was still tunneling.
"I gave you a purpose," Sebastian said quietly. "Don't waste it by falling apart at a formal event. Control yourself."
The courtyard door opened.
I felt Castiel before I saw him. The temperature dropped. The air went still.
Sebastian turned. "Your Highness. I apologize for the disruption. Lilith is—"
"Leave." Castiel's voice was flat. Final.
Sebastian blinked. "I was just—"
"Leave my territory."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut. I looked up through blurred vision. Castiel stood in the doorway, utterly motionless. His expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes made my breath catch.
Sebastian's jaw tightened. "With respect, Your Highness, she's a transfer from my former pack. I'm simply—"
"She's under Silverfang protection now." Castiel stepped into the courtyard. "Which means she's under my protection. And you're standing too close."
Sebastian's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "She's just an Omega playing dress-up, Your Highness. Nothing to concern a Prince."
The air pressure changed.
I felt it before I understood it. A crushing wave of dominance that made my knees buckle even though I was already sitting. Ancient. Absolute. The kind of power that didn't ask for submission—it demanded it on a cellular level.
Castiel's aura.
Sebastian's wolf reacted before his mind could catch up. His knees bent. His head dropped. A low whine escaped his throat—involuntary, humiliating. He caught himself halfway to the ground, fighting his own instincts, but the damage was done.
His wolf had submitted to a superior authority.
Castiel didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stood there radiating power until Sebastian straightened with visible effort, his face pale.
"Leave," Castiel repeated. "Now."
Sebastian left.
The aura withdrew. I sucked in air like I'd been drowning.
Castiel crossed the courtyard in three strides. He knelt in front of me—the same position he'd taken during my last panic attack. But this time he didn't wait. He lifted me from the bench, one arm under my knees, the other supporting my back.
I should have protested. Should have said I could walk. But I couldn't make my mouth form words.
He carried me through a side entrance I'd never noticed, down a corridor I'd never walked. Dorian appeared from somewhere, his expression carefully blank.
"She's under my personal protection," Castiel said without stopping. "Effective immediately. Make the announcement."
Dorian nodded once. "Yes, Your Highness."
We climbed stairs. Turned down another hallway. Castiel shouldered open a door and carried me into a room that was clearly his—dark wood furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows, the scent of cedar and night air.
He set me down on a leather couch. Stepped back. Put three feet of space between us.
"Breathe," he said.
I tried. My lungs cooperated better this time.
He watched me for a long moment. Then he turned and poured water from a pitcher on the side table. Brought it to me. Waited while I drank.
"What happened?" he asked quietly.
I set the glass down with shaking hands. "Panic attack."
"I know what it was." His voice was patient. Controlled. "I'm asking what triggered it."
I couldn't tell him. Couldn't explain that Sebastian's presence made the rejection mark burn, that Emilia's smile felt like a knife, that I'd been sent here to destroy him and instead I was falling apart in his private quarters.
"I'm fine," I whispered.
His jaw tightened. "You reached through a bond that doesn't exist yet. You flooded my mind with your terror in the middle of a conversation with the Northridge Alpha. You are not fine."
My head snapped up. "What?"
"The mind-link." He held my gaze. "You initiated it. Without a completed bond. Without a mark. That shouldn't be possible."
I pressed my fingers against the cold scar on my neck. Said nothing.
Castiel studied me for a long moment. Then he moved to the door. "You'll stay here tonight. In the guest room. Dorian will bring your things."
"Your Highness, I can't—"
"You can. You will." He paused in the doorway. "Sebastian Meyer is no longer welcome in Silverfang territory. If he returns, I'll consider it an act of aggression."
He left before I could respond.
I sat alone in the Lycan Prince's private quarters, trembling, and tried to understand what had just happened.
The mind-link. The aura. The way Castiel had carried me like I weighed nothing and mattered everything.
I closed my eyes and felt the suppressant tincture burning in my veins, fighting to keep my real scent buried.
It was getting harder.
