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A few cops were lined against the wall as we made our way down the hall. I could only guess why they’d been ordered here. “Hey, Marlowe! You should stop by the station again sometime soon. You know we always have donuts…”

The smarmy looks on the officers’ faces were too much, but Julian and Elias caught me before I could wipe all those smirks off with my fists.

“Focus!” Elias seethed, his teeth clenched in fury. “Marlowe needs you!”

One look at her hazel eyes, beautiful and scared, brought me back. “Yeah, yeah,” I shrugged, wrapping an arm around her more tightly.

As the doors to the chamber room swung open, the cacophony of overlapping conversations fell silent, all eyes now drawn straight to Marlowe.

I felt their dominating presence before I even saw them—the Shifter Conclave.

Conclaves always consisted of a whole alpha pack, and the five males in front of us made up the strongest, most successful, and highly decorated Conclave we’d seen in generations.

In the middle sat the pack leader, Roland Thorne, a three-star Lieutenant General in the Marine Corps. To his left were Eamon Frost, a retired linebacker and two-time MVP recipient, and Brennan Grimm, the billionaire tech mogul. On his right were Theodore Hartwell, a U.S. Senator from Wyoming, and Torin Vaughn, one of the biggest action film stars in Hollywood.

If this were any other day, and they were here for any otherreason, I would have been fangirling like Marlowe at a BTS concert, lining up for a selfie and asking for their autographs.

But today? I wanted to tear their fucking heads off. I watched their calculated stares as they sized us up, then dismissed us to move on to Marlowe with hunger in their eyes.

“Wait…they’reshifters?” Marlowe whispered. “They’re famous.”

“Yeah, there’s a few of us out there,” I grumbled. Despite our collective desire to live among our kind in isolation, alpha ambitions sometimes drove us out into the human world to make our own way, like with Archer and Elias. Only these males had taken it to a whole other level.

She squeezed my hand and chuckled, giving me a performative yet welcome kiss on the cheek. “It makes sense, though. I always thought they seemed like assholes.”

I hadn’t even wanted to consider that Marlowe might be swayed by their combined strength and status, but hearing her confirmation that she wasn’t, was more comforting than she even knew.

I squeezed her hand back and found Nolan at the podium in front of them, white knuckling the sides. His jaw ticked in frustration and anger, and even Marlowe’s presence wasn’t calming him like it usually did.

We were in deep shit.

Vaughn, the actor, was the first to speak, his white veneers shining unnaturally as he grinned with casual arrogance. “Well, now, what have we here? An omega, in the flesh. Come on over, sweetheart, let us have a sniff.”

He had typical leading man good looks and a history with almost every shifter actress in Hollywood. The male was likely used to females falling all over themselves to talk to him, and probably expected the same reaction from Marlowe. He patted his knee and winked, as though she had been merely waiting for the invitation.

But she was having none of it. “I’d rather eat glass, thanks.”

The Conclave’s mouths dropped open and a shocked gasp made its way through the crowd. A few females giggled, and while I was proud of Marlowe sticking up for herself, there was nothing an alpha male hated more than being made to look stupid, especially by a female from a “weaker” designation.

Omegas were supposedly shy and submissive, desiring praise and attention from powerful alphas above all else, but one minute withMarlowe would tell you that was all bullshit.

I braced myself for the backlash, ready to hand her over to Elias so Julian and I could defend her, but instead the actor laughed, more amused than embarrassed. “Ooh, the mouth on this one. What do you think, General? Wanna give her one of your patented barks?”

Thorne’s barks were the stuff of legend—even humans were compelled to obey when he took command.

But thankfully he simply smirked at Marlowe rather than reprimand her. “No need to be so hostile, Ms. Linden. I understand you aren’t used to our customs, but greeting through scent is just how we do things. I promise, we won’t bite.”

“Yeah, but I might,” she mumbled under her breath. She took a step back and looked to me for guidance.

She didn’t want to do this, she didn’t want to be here, and I was one hundred percent in agreement. But despite my overwhelming desire to tell them to go fuck themselves, I knew it would only make things harder if we didn’t play along.

“Go on, we’re right here,” I told her.

Resignation and reluctant understanding flashed across her features, and she nodded, stepping up to the open space in front of the long table where they sat.

Fuck, did I feel like a failure as she marched towards them, head held high. She shouldn’t have to offer herself to them like this.

Not that I was some paragon of bodily autonomy, either. I cringed, thinking back to how I’d scented her and forced her to scent Julian. For all the justifications I could make in my head that it turned out for the best, if I could go back in time and change how I’d handled meeting and introducing her, I would. The Conclave came around from the table one at a time, with Vaughn going first.