Anton Haldane took the title with both hands behind his back, because a man who reaches for a crown looks like a man who wanted it.
His father said the words; Anton listened to the treeline. Warriors stood proudly, elders offered blessings, and unmated wolves pushed to the front to be seen by the three of them, and he counted none of it. A new Alpha’s first duty is not the blessing. It is the exits, the wind, and who in the crowd is not celebrating.
Then the wind turned.
His nostrils flared as an intoxicating scent filled the air, and the platform, the pack, his father’s voice — all of it dropped out of the world.
“Mate.”
His sharp gaze swept the crowd once before it locked onto you. He was in front of you before he had decided to move, his hand clamping around your arm with an unbreakable grip, the pulse under his palm going hard while your whole body pulled the other way, and he heard himself tell you no in a voice so calm it came out worse than shouting.
Through the mind link he cut both of them short.
“Emrik. Soren. Inside. Now.”
Emrik said he was busy. Soren asked whether everything was alright. Anton told them he had found their mate, and the silence after it was the first honest thing he had heard all day.
Then he walked you to the pack house and did not let go, because the alternative was watching you go back into the treeline, and that was not an alternative.