Maya's POV
I couldn't move.
Fire raced through my body as my scent burst into the night air. Every cell in my body felt like it was burning, changing, becoming something I didn't understand. The moonlight above me pulsed like a heartbeat, so bright it hurt my eyes.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was watching every unmated man in the ceremony circle turn toward me like I was made of pure gold.
"Stay back," Elder Samuel ordered, stepping in front of me. His voice shook with fear. "Everyone stay back until her scent settles."
But they weren't listening. Tommy, who'd been my friend since childhood, took a step toward me with his eyes sparkling yellow. Marcus, the quiet boy who worked at the garage, growled low in his throat. Even Jake, Alpha Damon's beta, was trying to stay in his spot near the pack house.
"What's happening to me?" I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself.
The vanilla and rose smell pouring from my skin was so strong it made me dizzy. But underneath it was something else - something wild and dangerous that called to every wolf instinct around me.
"You're the Omega Prime," Elder Samuel said quietly. "Your scent is awakening powers that have been sleeping for centuries."
I wanted to run. I wanted to escape. This was supposed to be an easy ceremony where I got a nice, normal scent like lavender or honey. Instead, I was some kind of mythological wolf that made grown men lose their minds.
That's when I felt it.
Eyes on me. Not just any eyes - these felt like fire against my skin, making every nerve ending come alive. Slowly, I looked up toward the pack house balcony.
Alpha Damon stood there, holding the railing so hard I could see his knuckles were white even from this distance. But it was his eyes that made my heart stop beating.
They were sparkling gold. Pure, burning gold that seemed to see straight through me.
Our gazes locked, and the world disappeared.
Everything else faded away - the other wolves, Elder Samuel's worried words, the chaos around me. There was only those golden eyes looking into mine with an intensity that made my knees shake.
Something passed between us in that moment. Something electric and dangerous and absolutely scary. It felt like lightning hitting, like the ground shifting under my feet.
My wolf, the part of me that had just woken, called out to his. Not with words, but with something deeper. A recognition that scared me more than anything else that had happened tonight.
"No," I breathed, putting my hands to my chest where my heart was hammering like crazy.
This couldn't be happening. Alpha Damon was getting married next month. He was cold and cruel and famous for using women like rags. He was everything I should stay away from.
So why did looking at him make me feel like I was coming alive for the first time?
"Maya," Elder Samuel's urgent voice broke through my thoughts. "You need to control your smell. It's getting stronger."
He was right. The vanilla and roses were pouring off me in waves now, and I could see several wolves starting to shift, their human forms flashing as their animals took over.
But I couldn't stop looking at Damon. He was moving now, pushing past his beta, headed for the stairs that led down from the balcony. His face was set in hard lines, but those golden eyes never left mine.
He was coming. For me.
Terror and something else - something I didn't want to name - rushed through me.
"Elder Samuel," I whispered, grabbing his arm. "Make it stop. Please make it stop."
"I can't," he said, his voice full of old sadness. "The Omega Prime picks her own path. Your scent will call to any Alpha it thinks worthy, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it."
"But I don't want this!" The words burst out of me, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I just want to be normal!"
The ceremony circle had cleared now except for Elder Samuel and me. Everyone else had backed away, some of them shifting into wolf form to better handle the overwhelming smell. I stood alone in the moonlight, feeling like a freak.
That's when Damon appeared at the edge of the circle.
He moved like a predator, all controlled power and dangerous grace. But his eyes - those burning gold eyes - were fixed on me with a look I'd never seen before. Hunger. Need. Something that made my stomach flip in ways I didn't understand.
"Stay back, Alpha," Elder Samuel warned. "Her scent during awakening could make you do things you'll regret."
Damon ignored him totally. He took one step into the circle, then another, and I could see the exact moment my smell hit him full force.
He stopped dead, his whole body going rigid. A sound came from his throat - not human, not wolf, but something in between. Pure want made into sound.
"Maya," he said, and my name on his lips sounded like a prayer and a curse all at once.
I backed away, my heart racing so fast I thought it might burst. "Don't come any closer."
"I can't help it," he said, his voice rougher than I'd ever heard it. "Your scent... what are you doing to me?"
"I'm not doing anything!" I cried. "I don't know how to control it!"
But even as I said it, I could feel the pull between us getting stronger. My wolf wants to go to him. Every urge I had was screaming at me to close the distance, to let him hold me, to give in to whatever this electric thing was.
Damon took another step forward, and I saw his hands shaking. The Alpha who never lost control was falling apart right in front of me.
"This is impossible," he whispered. "I don't feel things like this. I don't want things like this."
"Then leave," I said, but my voice cracked. "Go back to your perfect Luna and forget about me."
Something flashed across his face - pain so deep it made my chest ache. "You think I haven't tried? You think I want to feel this way about someone who..."
He stopped talking, but I knew what he'd been about to say. Someone like me. Someone beneath him. Someone not good enough to be more than a one-night escape.
The hurt must have shown on my face because Damon's expression changed quickly.
"Maya, no. That's not what I meant."
"Yes, it is," I said, tears burning my eyes. "I know what you think of girls like me. I've heard all the stories about your rules."
"My rules don't apply to you," he said desperately. "You're different. You're..."
"What? What am I, Alpha Damon?"
He stared at me for a long moment, those golden eyes full of something that looked like fear.
"You're everything I swore I'd never want," he whispered.
Before I could ask what that meant, a new smell hit the air. Expensive perfume and cold drive. A smell that made my wolf bristle with instant dislike.
Luna Elena Cross stepped into the ceremony circle, her perfect face twisted with anger as she looked between Damon and me.
"So this is where you ran off to," she said, her voice sharp as a knife. "Sniffing around some common omega like a dog in heat."
The insult hit me like a slap, but it was Damon's response that made my blood turn to ice.
He stepped protectively in front of me, his whole body radiating dangerous threat.
"Don't," he growled at Elena. "Don't you dare speak to her like that."
Elena's eyes went wide with shock. Then they narrowed with rage.
"You're defending her? Over me? Over our engagement?"
That's when I discovered the truth that made my world crumble.
Alpha Damon Stone, the man who'd just called me everything he'd sworn he'd never want, was ready to fight his own fiancée to protect me.
But I also realized something else - something that scared me even more.
I was falling in love with him.