Elias POV
The first thing I noticed was the ceiling.
It was too high. Too expensive. The kind of ceiling that belonged to people who had more money than sense.The second thing I noticed was that I was naked.
I sat up so fast the room spun.
No. No no no
I looked down at myself and my brain short-circuited for a full ten seconds.
I was in the finest silk sheets I had ever touched in my life, in a bed big enough to fit six people comfortably, in a room that looked like it belonged in an architecture magazine.
And I had absolutely nothing on.
I grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around myself like my life depended on it.
Okay. Think. Think think think.
Last thing I remembered was the club. Elera's weird smile. The wine that tasted slightly off but I drank anyway like an idiot. The floor tilting. A voice. Arms catching me.
Then nothing.
I swung my legs off the bed and immediately hissed. Every muscle in my body ached like I had run a marathon backwards. My hips specifically felt like they had been through a construction site.
I was going to kill someone today.
The question was just who.
I scanned the room for anything useful and my eyes landed on a glass bottle of wine sitting on the bedside table.
Perfect.
I grabbed it.
The door clicked open at that exact moment and the tall man from earlier walked in, looking completely unbothered, holding a tray with food like he was delivering room service and not walking into a hostage situation.
He opened his mouth ,I threw the bottle at his head.
It connected with a very satisfying crack.
"WHAT THE--" He dropped the tray. The food went everywhere.
"That," I said, pointing at him from across the room, sheet wrapped around me like a toga, "is for whatever you did to me while I was unconscious."
He straightened up slowly, touching the side of his head where the bottle had hit. There was a small cut above his eyebrow. He stared at the blood on his fingers like he genuinely could not believe what had just happened to him.
Good. He should be confused. He should be many things right now.
"You just," he said slowly, "threw a bottle at my head."
"I did," I agreed. "And if you come any closer I will find something heavier."
He looked around the room. His jaw tightened. "You're wrapped in my sheets."
"Your sheets are currently the only thing standing between my dignity and this entire situation so yes I am wrapped in them and I will continue to be wrapped in them, thank you."
He stared at me.
I stared back.
Neither of us moved for a long moment.
"Sit down before you fall down," he finally said. "You still have Tramadol in your system."
"I will not be taking instructions from the man who bought me like a piece of furniture," I said. But my legs were shaking slightly and I hated that he was right so I sat on the edge of the bed anyway. "Talk. Explain everything. Starting with why I am naked."
He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking infuriatingly calm for someone with blood dripping down their face. "You don't remember anything?"
"If I remembered anything I would not be asking."
He was quiet for a second. Then he said, "Your sister drugged you and sold you to me. I brought you here. During the night your body went into a kind of crisis because of the drug mixing with your pheromones and I—"
"You what?"
"I stabilized you."
The way he said it was too careful. Too controlled.
"Stabilized me," I repeated flatly. "Is that what we are calling it."
"It was that or let you burn through the reaction alone, which would have—"
"I swear if the next words out of your mouth are anything other than an apology I will find that broken bottle and use the sharp end."
He closed his mouth.
Smart man.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and breathed. My chest felt strange. Not painful exactly but tight in a way I didn't recognize. Like something had shifted inside me that I didn't have words for yet.
"What are you," I asked quietly. "You said you are an Enigma. What does that mean."
"It means I am above an Alpha in the hierarchy."
"And what am I." I looked up at him.
"Because I know I am an Alpha but everyone keeps acting like I am something else. Your friends last night. You. Even my sister when she sold me, she said something about my pheromones being different."
Something shifted in his expression. Just slightly.
"You don't know," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Know what?" My voice came out steadier than I felt.
He pushed off the wall and walked toward me slowly, like I was something that might bolt. He crouched down in front of me so we were at eye level. His silver blue eyes were completely focused on my face.
"You are not an Alpha," he said quietly.
My stomach dropped.
"You are not an Omega or a Beta either." He paused. "You are a Primarch."
The word landed in the room like a stone dropped in still water.
I waited for it to mean something to me.
It didn't.
"I don't know what that is," I said.
"I know," he said. "Almost nobody does. Because the last one existed over three hundred years ago." He held my gaze. "A Primarch sits above every Alpha alive. Below an Enigma. You are not beneath the people who spent your whole life treating you like you were less. You were always above them."
The room was very quiet.
My chest did that tight strange thing again, stronger this time, like something inside me was pressing against my ribs trying to get out.
And then without any warning, without me choosing it or understanding it, something happened.
A pulse of energy rolled off my body like a shockwave.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't visible. But it hit the air like a second heartbeat and every single object on the shelves rattled. The windows trembled. The cut above Aiden's eyebrow stopped bleeding instantly.
We both froze,I looked at my hands.
Aiden looked at me with an expression I had never seen on anyone's face before.
Not fear.Not shock, but something closer to awe.
"That," he said very quietly, "is the second time you have done that since last night."
"I didn't do anything," I said.
"Your body did," he said. "You just haven't caught up to it yet."
I stared at my hands for a long moment.
Then I looked up at him.
"I want clothes," I said. "I want food since you dropped mine on the floor. And then you are going to sit down and explain every single thing you know about what a Primarch is."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then, slowly, he almost smiled."Okay," he said.