The silence that followed Malcolm's defiance was heavy, broken only by the sound of his ragged breathing and the distant hum of the building's ventilation.
Marcus, seeing his boss pinned to the marble floor like a captured beast, couldn't take it anymore. He stepped forward, his hands raised in a gesture of frantic peace. "Please! Mr. Lukas! Let him go! We'll leave. I'll get him out of here, I'll take him back to Freenly, just... please, don't break him!"
"Marcus, shut up!" Malcolm roared, his voice muffled by the floor. "Don't you dare beg this... this monster! I don't need your pity, and I don't need his mercy!"
Malcolm's body suddenly convulsed. A wave of heat rolled off him, so intense that the air above his skin began to shimmer. He began to release his Alpha pheromones— A raw, high-concentration burst of dominant aggression and hunger.
