Defy The Alpha(s)

Chapter 531: Take Henry’s Place

Although the call hadn’t lasted long, Violet’s voice stirred Asher like fire in his veins, and he needed that now, walking into a room full of lions waiting to tear him alive.

Behind him, his Beta, Jeremiah, followed close. When they reached the door, the guard on duty made to announce his arrival, but Asher lifted a hand to silence him. It was best they didn’t see him coming.

Asher pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was alive with raucous laughter. Meat and wine flowed freely, the air thick with the smell of grease and smoke. The alphas sprawled in their seats like they owned the place, boasting and barking, trading stories loud enough to shake the rafters.

The atmosphere was rowdy and careless. A celebration that tasted too much like mockery, because the wolf who had held them all in chains for decades was dead.

Not that any could blame them.

But then Asher entered and one by one, heads turned. Just like that, the laughter faltered and the noise strangled into silence.

In that split second, their goblets froze mid-air, teeth no longer flashing. Sixteen pairs of eyes turned on him, measuring him.

Goblets froze mid-air, the smile gone from their faces. A few alphas scratched at their throats, their eyes cutting sidelong and avoiding direct gaze. Some gave him polite looks, while the bold ones stared at him with thinly veiled contempt.

Polite or not, Asher could smell it all. Pride, hunger and the sweet stink of ambition.

And they saw him too as the boy. The son. Henry’s blood — but not Henry.

A few of the alphas cleared their throats, feigning ease while the rest smirked like men humoring a child. A baby tiger playing at lion.

smugly as he rose from the far end of the table. "We were just sharing stories of your father. Come, sit.

at the man, long enough for the silence to curdle into discomfort. Then without a word, he took the empty seat at the head of the table without

alive and now, Asher had taken it without permission. Without acknowledging the

son had come to claim the father’s throne, and

yourselves?" Asher finally asked, his lips curving into that signature unsettling

glasses tonight. His infamous slitted eyes were bared for all to

they looked less like a man’s and more like a predator’s, as if something feral lurked beneath his skin. Worse still was the power hidden in them—the compulsion that could drag a man

that Asher walked into this meeting without hiding them meant one

He

laugh to cut the tension. "The cub glares like he thinks he’s grown claws. Careful, boy, baring

broke across a few of the alphas. Even

was unruffled as still water. If anything, he only tilted his head in

given the command so softly it was almost conversational, but the effect was

like a puppet on strings, his eyes wide with horror just before

chairs scraping back as though the compulsion might leap from Rowland and drag them

Asher didn’t relent. There came a second crash. Then a third. By the fourth, blood streamed down his nose, spattering the wood. Bone gave way with a

met the table for the fifth time before he finally collapsed in a heap of groans on the floor. His hands came up

was going to heal. But

gaze sweeping over

thinks I’m