I froze completely, my blood feeling like it had turned to ice in my veins. How could this have happened? How could none of us have realized what he was? How had we trusted him? How had I trusted him?

There stood in my room next to a glaringly open window was Alpha Mrow. Staring back at me with a deceptively soft expression. At least he had the decency to lower his eyes after a moment. Clearly he knew what he was doing was wrong. I was more than a symbol, more than a declaration.

I was a person, a person he had begun to get to know. How had he sat there speaking to me, asking me questions, learning about me when this was his plan all along?

"How could you?" I asked softly, not able to even raise my voice just yet. The walls of the house were soundproof up to wolf standards, and over the water downstairs they wouldn't hear me. I had to open the door, and even then they would get here too late. Alphas were incredibly fast, and impossibly strong. Especially an Alpha with a build like Alpha Mrow's.

He would kill me before they could get here, but they would know at the very least, be prepared in case there were an ambush. That was all I could hope for now, that they would be safe. My heart pounded in my chest as I thought of Lola, according to custom they would kill me first, but Lola was alone it was possible they had spent wolves after her as well.

"I apologize, I didn't know what else to do." The Alpha admitted, glancing up into my eyes fleetingly before looking back down at the floor. At least he had the decency to seem regretful, although it made up for nothing.

"You're despicable." I said, reaching a hand back towards the doorknob. If I would go, I would not go quietly or easily. I was going to make this as hard on him as possible, give them as much time as I could. Hopefully someone would have the time to alert the pack.

"I'm so sorry Parisa, I just, I couldn't do this in front of them. They're so protective of you." The Alpha said, looking so remorseful had he not been here to kill me I would have felt the urge to comfort him.

"As all pack members are, as all family is." I said twisting the doorknob as slowly and quietly as I could.

"Please don't do that, I'll only be a moment." The Alpha said making my hand falter in bewilderment, he could at least pretend he didn't consider it to be so very easy to murder me. The practise was barbaric, but wolves were honourable, they at least didn't ridicule the omega before taking their life.

"A moment now perhaps but it'll change both of our packs forever. Do you have any idea of the travesty that follows such a declaration?" I asked. How dare he act as though all the wolves that would perish in the name of war were ignorable. As though this would end with me.

"I'm aware how uncommon this is, but I simply couldn't pretend this wasn't worth pursuing. I thought you might understand." The Alpha said, having the audacity to look let down. How dare he be let down that I wasn't more understanding of the reason why he had to kill me and subsequently cause all the deaths that the war surely would?

"Understand that you have to kill me to fulfil some pathetic whim of yours? Is it land you want? Or is it just power?" I bit out bitterly. The dread quickly turning to anger. He was not even half the man I had thought him to be.

"I don't want either, I know you're of high status but believe me Parisa that is not why- Wait did you say kill?" Alpha Mrow tilted his head to the side with the most innocently confused expression on his face. All the niceties and innocence were just a farce to hide the greedy barbarian that hid within.

"Would you prefer sacrifice? Would it make you feel as though this wasn't as horribly wrong as it is? Taking a life just to declare the start of an event that will lead to so many more deaths?" I asked.

"Take what life?" The Alpha asked looking at me in such bewilderment even I was starting to have doubts. Was he so set in his ways he wasn't even acknowledging me as a living being? Or did he honestly not know?

"My life, you're here to murder me as omega of highest status to declare war, aren't you? I asked hesitantly.

"Murder? You think I'm here to murder you?" He questioned, putting unnecessary emphasis on the word considering he was repeating it, there was no way I would miss it. I nodded slowly in response.

"No! Jesus Parisa, I'm not here to kill you or-or anyone." The Alpha said looking so positively stricken at the thought it had my defenses lowering.

"You're not here to kill me and leave me for the Pack Alpha to find my dead body?" I asked just to really make sure in case he was trying to trick me with the use of particular words. He shook his head immediately, looking at me with comically widened eyes. Somehow even the stricken owl look kind of worked for him.

"That's great." I said, unable to contain the little laugh of relief.

Relief that was quickly followed by embarrassment at the way I had acted. Called him horrible things and accused him, jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Although to be fair Pack Alphas sneaking into the rooms of other wolves wasn't something that happened other than to kill that person.

"Wait, why are you here?" I asked, his befuddlement melting to give way to ridiculously charming bashfulness at my question. The very tops of his cheeks pinkened as he turned his head towards the floor, rubbing the back of his neck before peeking up at me from beneath ridiculously thick lashes.

"I-I'm here to- Parisa can we sit?" The Alpha asked and I nodded, gesturing towards my bed and he looked at it as though it was a pit of fire instead of a queen bed with fairly clean sheets. We had just done laundry yesterday.

My mouth twisted self-consciously, did I perhaps smell bad to him? Was that why he didn't want to sit on my bed and get my scent onto his clothing. I wasn't sure what I smelled like, but no one had ever said I smelled bad. The shampoos and other products I used that my family said blended with my scent smelled quite nice to me. Leave it to me to be unlucky enough for my scent to offend my first potential.

I watched him stand there silently, he looked back towards me giving me a pleading expression, although what he wanted I was unsure about. I didn't have the time to ponder it over much before he had sat down gingerly at the very edge of the bed. Furrowing my brows in confusion I moved to sit on my desk chair, turning it to face the bed.

I folded my hands in my lap, giving him what I hoped was an open expression as I waited for him to explain why he had broken into our home, and specifically my room.

"I couldn't say this in front of the others because I'm afraid your sister, the future Alpha Nina might try to rip my head off. Also you might be pressured with others present. I wanted to make sure your decision was yours alone, without any sort of pressure of any kind. Although your parents don't seem the type to pressure you." The Alpha rambled and I couldn't help but wonder if my behaviour earlier had been contagious. What would we tell his pack members? They had trusted us enough to send their Pack Alpha to our territory alone and we had returned him with a horrid case of the 'Parisa'.

"Say what?" I asked, having to bend my neck a little to be able to look into Alpha Mrow's eyes which were focused intently on the floor of my room.

"Have you ever had a feeling, an urge that you just couldn't ignore. A temptation of sorts, something that was so alluring you just couldn't stop yourself?" The Alpha asked and I stared at him blankly, had he broken into my room to ask me to give him more of the cookies? Admittedly they were very good but really he could have just had more in front of everyone else, we would have understood. He must be very conscious of his reputation, wanting to seem composed and unfazed at all times. He was a very young Pack Alpha so it was understandable that he was more careful about the way he acted to avoid giving people a reason to doubt his capabilities.

"I totally understand." I said and he looked up with eyes so bright with hope I wanted to buy him the entire bakery.

"You do?" He asked softly, the unease melting from his face.

"Yeah those cookies are amazing, I can pack you some more, we have about a dozen downstairs, we eat them all the time, so we won't miss them." I reassured him, frowning when his face fell.

"That's alright, thank you for the offer and they are great but that's not what I meant. Have you ever felt that way about something else?" The Alpha asked hesitantly.

"I don't understand." I said after a moment of wondering what he could mean, was it the hot chocolate maybe? But that was just made from a hot cocoa mix and we added chocolate to it.

"I need to be more clear, it's just very difficult, you-you unnerve me." The Alpha admitted making my eyes widen. I unnerved him? Dimple extraordinaire with eyes like flowing water and tight muscle everywhere.

He glanced up at me, the intensity of his gaze halting my thought process entirely, leaving me unable to do anything else but listen. The room that I had always thought was large suddenly seeming impossibly small, tight, and despite the distance between us I felt as though we sat far too close. As though there were not enough air in the room for both of us to breathe, my chest feeling constricted. The window let in the frigid winter air and yet my skin felt heated, feverish under that gaze.

"I-I like you Parisa. Before today I had thought it might just be me. That only you were my potential, and I wasn't yours. But today, forgive me if I've read this wrongly, but it seemed I might be yours as well." The Alpha said hesitantly, making my heart stop in my chest for a moment before it began to race so quickly he could very surely hear it.

"You are." I admitted quietly, making the Alpha's uncertain expression give way to a very small smile. A nearly invisible quirk of his lips, but somehow that little movement conveyed so much more delight than most grins could. A delight so contagious it compelled the person to witness it to feel it as well.

Perhaps it was his eyes that seemed to light up at the admission. As beautiful as they were all on their own they lit up enthrallingly when their owner became even remotely genuinely happy.

"I knew from the first moment I saw you. You threw that door open and the best scent I had ever smelled just positively assaulted me. I couldn't think, all I could do was stare. As someone as impossibly enchanting as their scent was stood before me. You looked so cold, so grumpy I almost couldn't stop myself from hugging you right then and there." The Alpha murmured, glancing at me with such an intense longing so visible on his face that it robbed me entirely of breath.

My mind reeled at his words, heart clenching at the vulnerability he expressed allowing me to see so easily the depth of his feelings. Ears ringing with echoes of the breathy little chuckle he let out as he recalled my grumpiness.

"And then I touched you, the softest, smoothest skin I had ever felt, so incredibly cold though, I just wanted to warm you up. As though it wasn't hard enough to stop myself from wrapping around you before. Giving me another reason to touch you. And those eyes, I didn't think it was possible for brown to be so sweet. I only got a moment to look into them but I couldn't get the image out of my head, it haunts me still." The Alpha admitted quietly, my chest beginning to feel even more constricted with the breathlessness I felt.

I leant back in my chair, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear, nervously looking away from the eyes that stared at me so intently. With such intensity that I felt there was no place for me to hide myself from that gaze. The only option I had was to allow myself to be drowned in their depths, there was no running away from them, no escape. He said it was my eyes that haunt him, but I knew then that the way he looked at me now would be burned into my mind till the day I died.

"I knew I had to see you again, so I came to your home that second time even though your mother and I were done discussing what we had to. And then I really got to meet you. The real you, and you are so much more than the allure of your scent and the captivation of your eyes. Infinitely more. I couldn't stop thinking about you, I tried to stop myself but I couldn't and so I came today. Only to be greeted by a sight so similar to the one that started all of this." Alpha Mrow mumbled letting out a humourless breath of a chuckle.

"For the first time I felt as though there was a chance I was your potential. For the first time I thought I affected you too. That maybe you liked me, not nearly at the level of the hopeless infatuation I feel, but something. I was going to leave, but I couldn't not without asking you this." My breath caught as I waited for him to continue, my heart pounding a rhythm that proved his words to be lies. I could deny it all I wanted but no matter what I did, no matter how I had tried to distract myself, my thoughts inevitably found their way back to him. No matter who I was with, no matter how much I tried to stop myself.

"Parisa Calisto will you allow me to court you?" Th Alpha asked, looking at me with eyes so soft a grey it made me feel like my heart was melting. His expression open, but the hope in his eyes that he kept carefully from his expression so apparent that I wondered how anyone could say no to that? I stared at him in silence and he waited, not once showing a single sign of impatience, just limitless hope.

"I wanted to ask you before I asked your mother, even if that is the proper way to go about it. I don't want you to feel any pressure. Whatever your decision is I want it to be yours alone. I-If you say no then I will leave immediately and you will not hear from me again Parisa. I won't bother you or-" The Alpha was interrupted by the quiet "yes" I had uttered cutting him off.

He went completely still for a moment, mouth open to talk falling slack as he stared at me with wide eyes as though having trouble processing what I've said. The expression stayed for a moment before it gave way to the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. Full lips stretching into an almost perfect half circle, marred slightly by the crookedness occurring due to the left side of his lips stretching up slightly higher than the right giving his smile an adorable lopsided appearance. A smile framed by the indents at the corners of it, that deep dimple popping into his cheek. And the most beautiful of all, his eyes that looked like they contained all the stars of the sky within them with how brightly they shined in that moment.

He looked at me not as though I'd uttered a single word, or agreed to a courtship, but as though I'd hung the very moon. I sat in awed silence as he sank to his knees before me, slowly taking my hands that rested in my lap into his grasp. He stroked his thumbs so reverently over the tops of them as though he was touching the petals of the most delicate flower in the world and not just a girl.

My decision may have been sudden, and not at all what I had planned but I couldn't bring myself to regret it when he was kneeling before me staring up at me that way. I hadn't thought it possible anything I could say would bring such joy to another as a simple yes from me seemed to have him.

"Parisa I don't know how to thank you for giving me a chance, but I can promise you this, I will never give you a reason to regret it. If you ever decide this isn't what you want then that- that will be the end of it." Alpha Mrow promised.

"Before anything even starts you'll have to ask my mother for permission to court me." I reminded him, unable to refrain from letting out a breathy laugh at the fear that flashed in his eyes. His fear of my mother only served as proof of his intelligence. As polite and kind my mother could be to all those she deemed deserving, those in touch with their instincts could sense how powerful an Alpha she was, how capable of causing mass destruction if she so wished.

"Your agreement to it is what meant most to me, I will do my best to convince Alpha Warina to allow me to court you. I'd do anything she wants me to." The Alpha said and I believed him. He would do anything and that thought had my mind reeling once again.

"It won't help your case if you're found in my room." I said, biting my lip to keep from giggling as he whipped his head around to look at the door before looking back down at my hands that are in his regretfully. So very warm and even the calloused texture of them somehow comforting that I felt as reluctant to have him let go as he looked to have to do so.

Sighing shortly he let go of my hands, placing them gently back on top of my knees. He got up to his feet and took a step back so I could do the same.

"You're right, I should go. I hope you weren't offended by this. I couldn't stop myself from asking you. I've had enough trouble as it is concentrating on anything, if the thought of asking you this and what you might say plagued me I would've become entirely useless. Beta Arenas is very irritated with me as it is." The Alpha admitted making me giggle imagining an exasperated expression on the beta's face. Alpha Mrow smiled down at me softly with a look in his eyes unfitting of a man who barely knew me, only shaking himself out of it when I ducked my head in embarrassment.

"I wasn't offended and I'm sorry for thinking you were here to kill me." I said sheepishly making the Alpha chuckle.

"I'm glad that got cleared up." The Alpha said.

"Me too." I responded, glancing up into his eyes unable to keep from smiling when I saw his soft smile. We were both jolted out of it though when a loud thud was heard from downstairs. Probably Micah having dropped something or tripped.

"I really should go now." Alpha Mrow said and I nodded even though I'd really rather he stay here. For once I wasn't trying to stop myself from enjoying his scent, and it was so much better when those thoughts weren't plaguing my mind.

"Goodnight Parisa." The Alpha murmured.

"Goodnight Alpha Mrow." I said, leaning against the wall as he placed his hands on the window sills ready to propel himself out of it, stopping just a moment before he did and turning to look at me.

"Call me Emeric." He said with a charming smile right before he jumped, leaving me with the whisper of his name on my lips as he disappeared into the night.

A/N--------------------------------------------------

Hello my lovelies! This chapter is admittedly roughly edited because I was too excited to post it so if you notice any grammatical errors feel free to point them out. For those of you who have read my other books, you surely are aware of how fond I am of fluff, even cheesy fluff so do expect loads more. I hope you all liked the chapter, and I hope you all have a lovely week.