Claimed By The Four Alpha Demons

11. Harmonic Resonance

Greyson’s POV

The grandfather clock in the foyer chimed midnight, the deep, resonant toll echoing through the cavernous hall like a funeral dirge.

I stood by the fireplace, staring into the dying embers, my hands clasped behind my back in a posture of perfect, rigid discipline. It was a lie, of course, a carefully constructed facade designed to hide the chaos churning in my gut. But it was a lie I had perfected over three centuries.

To my left, Ace was pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. The rhythmic click-clack of his boots on the hardwood was grating on my last nerve, chipping away at my composure.

“Will you sit down?” I asked, keeping my voice low and devoid of the irritation I felt. “You’re wearing a groove in the floor.”

“I can’t sit,” Ace snapped, running a hand through his hair. “Raiden’s been gone too long. He said he was bringing her back, not taking the scenic route through the abyss.”

“Raiden knows what he’s doing,” Nate said from the armchair. He was the only one of us who looked outwardly calm, though I knew it was just another mask. He was scrubbing his glasses with a microfiber cloth, the repetitive motion betraying his anxiety. “The sensors picked up a massive electromagnetic surge in town forty minutes ago. Then a smaller, more controlled discharge near the Rusty Anchor. That was Raiden grounding her.”

“Grounding her,” I repeated, the word tasting like ash on my tongue. “Or draining her.”

“He wouldn’t hurt her,” Ace defended, stopping his pacing to glare at me. “He’s the protector, Grey. You know that.”

“I know he’s a Cambion with a temper and a hunger that rivals my own,” I countered coolly. “And Callie is…volatile.”

Volatile was an understatement. Since she’d stepped foot into Grimstone Hall, the very foundation of the house had shifted. The Hellgate beneath the mines, which had been restless for a century, had suddenly gone quiet. The static that constantly pulled at our sanity had smoothed out into a hum.

She wasn’t just a witch. She was a variable I hadn’t accounted for, and I hated unknown variables.

The heavy oak doors at the end of the hall groaned open, interrupting my thoughts, as the air pressure in the room dropped instantly, carrying the scent of rain, ozone, and cheap whiskey before they even crossed the threshold.

Raiden stepped into the light, looking like a war god returning from a siege. His black t-shirt strained across his chest, his hair was damp with mist, and his tattoos glowed a dull, smoldering red against his skin.

And in his arms, wrapped securely in his leather jacket, was Callie.

She looked tiny against his bulk, her head tucked into the crook of his neck and her blonde hair spilling over his arm like sunlight. She was limp, unconscious, and terrifyingly fragile.

Ace moved first, crossing the room in a blur of speed. “Is she hurt?”

“She’s sleeping,” Raiden grunted, walking past Ace without stopping. He headed straight for the fire as if instinct drove him to bring her to the warmth. “She burned out. The surge at the hotel drained her reserves.”

He stopped in front of me, his eyes meeting mine with a look that was both defiant and protective. He held her tighter, issuing a silent challenge that I read loud and clear. Mine.

Ignoring the provocation, I let my gaze drop to the woman in his arms.

Her face was pale, translucent in the firelight. Dark circles bruised the skin under her eyes, and her lips were parted slightly in exhausted sleep. She didn’t look like a threat. She looked like something that would shatter if I raised my voice.

“Report,” I said, keeping my distance, refusing to let the concern show.

“She found the fiancé,” Raiden said, his voice dropping to a low rumble so as not to wake her. “In bed with another woman. It got…ugly. She didn’t just leave, Greyson. She detonated.”

“The hotel?” Nate asked, joining us with a medical scanner already in his hand.

“Third floor is dark,” Raiden confirmed. “She blew the windows out. She has no control, Grey. None. She’s a raw conduit. If I hadn’t grounded her at the bar, she might have stopped her own heart.”

I looked at her hands curled against Raiden’s chest. The fingertips were red and irritated, electrical burns from her own output.

“She’s a danger to herself,” I said, my voice clinical. “And to us.”

“She’s scared,” Raiden growled, shifting her weight protectively. “She thinks she’s a monster.”

“She is a monster,” I said coldly. “Just like us. The sooner she accepts that, the sooner we can stop her from leveling the entire town.”

“Take her upstairs,” Ace interjected, his eyes glued to her face, ignoring my tone. “The Gold Room. It’s the warmest.”

“I’m staying with her,” Raiden stated. It wasn’t a request.

“We all are,” Ace said softly.

I felt a twinge of annoyance at their instant, emotional attachment. It was weak. Dangerous.

“Go,” I ordered, turning back to the fire. “I will secure the perimeter.”

***

The Gold Room

Ten minutes later, I stood in the doorway of the Gold Room, watching my brothers hover.

We had laid her on the massive four-poster bed, the warm ochres and creams of the room offering a stark contrast to the black-and-gray austerity of the rest of the house. Nate worked quickly, running the scanner over her body while Raiden stood guard at the foot of the bed like a gargoyle, and Ace paced by the window, agitated.

“Her vitals are stabilizing,” Nate murmured, reading the data on his tablet. “Heart rate is elevated, but dropping. But her cortisol levels are through the roof. She’s in shock.” He lifted her hand gently. “Look at this. The cellular regeneration is already starting. She’s healing herself.”

I walked over, stopping a foot from the bed, keeping my hands clasped behind my back. I didn’t want to touch her. I didn’t want to engage.

“Liam Miller,” Ace said from the window, the name dripping with venom. “He did this. I say we pay him a visit. Make it look like an electrical fire.”

“No,” I said sharply. “We’re not hitmen. We’re guardians. If we kill him, it draws the Council’s eyes to us, and right now, we cannot afford attention.”

“So we let him live?” Raiden growled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

“We let him live in fear,” I replied. “We let him wonder where she is.”

I looked down at Callie again. She stirred, making a small, distressed sound in her sleep, her brow furrowing as if she were trapped in a nightmare.

“She’s in pain,” Raiden whispered. “She’s still looking for a connection.”

“She needs to sleep it off,” I said dismissively.

“She needs a Focus, Greyson,” Nate said, looking up at me over his glasses. “She needs someone to stabilize the ambient energy in the room. You’re the strongest. You do it.”

I stiffened. “Nate—”

“Do it,” Raiden snapped. “Unless you’re afraid of her.”

I narrowed my eyes at my brother. “I fear nothing.”

To prove the point, I stepped forward. I reached out and placed my hand over hers, intending only to check her temperature and step away immediately.

But when my skin brushed hers…

Silence.

The world didn’t explode. It didn’t shake. It simply…stopped.

The constant, grating static of the demon blood in my veins, the noise that had been the background track of my life for three hundred years…vanished. The hunger that gnawed at my gut went quiet, and the ice in my chest melted, replaced by a warmth that felt terrifyingly like peace.

It was the “Zero Point.” The theoretical state of absolute harmonic balance.

I went deadly still.

I looked up to find my brothers staring at me. Raiden’s jaw was tight, Ace had stopped his pacing, and Nate had lowered his tablet, his eyes wide with a mixture of horror and awe.

They felt it too. The resonance wasn’t just in me. It was in the room. It was in us.

“What was that?” Ace whispered, his voice trembling.

“Resonance,” Nate breathed. “Biological and metaphysical lock.”

“No,” Raiden said, his voice rough as he looked from me to the woman in the bed. “That’s not resonance. That’s…that’s the mate bond.”

The word hung in the air like a blade.

Mate.

It was a fairytale. A weakness. Cambions didn’t have mates. We had conquests, we had enemies. We didn’t have souls to bind to another. But looking at her, feeling the absolute, terrifying rightness of her hand under mine, I knew Raiden was right.

I pulled my hand back as if I’d been burned.

The silence shattered. The static rushed back into my head, louder than before, screaming at the loss of contact.

“Greyson?” Ace asked, stepping forward.

I turned away from the bed, my heart hammering a rhythm against my ribs I couldn’t control.

“She stays,” I said, my voice cold, hard, and final. I forced the walls back up, forcing the ice into my veins.

“She’s our Mate,” Ace whispered, a wonder dawning in his eyes. “Callie is ours.”

“She’s a liability,” I corrected harshly, refusing to look at her. “She is a walking bomb with a target on her back. If the Council finds out what she is, what she is to us, they’ll tear this mountain apart to get to her.”

“Let them try,” Raiden snarled.

“They will try, and they will succeed if we are distracted by…sentiment,” I warned, walking to the door. I needed to put distance between myself and the gravitational pull of the woman in the bed.

“We do not claim her,” I ordered, stopping with my hand on the brass knob. “We do not seduce her. We do not tell her what she is to us.”

“You can’t be serious,” Ace protested. “You felt that. We all felt that.”

“I felt a tactical advantage,” I lied smoothy. “She quiets the Hellgate. She stabilizes our blood. That makes her a tool. A valuable one.”

“You’re lying,” Nate said softly. “I can see your vitals on the scanner, Grey. Your heart rate just spiked to 140.”

I turned slowly, fixing Nate with a glare that would have frozen a lesser man.

“She is an employee,” I said, enunciating every word. “She’s under our protection because she’s useful. Nothing more. Do not confuse biology with destiny.”

I opened the door, desperate to escape.

“Greyson,” Raiden called out, his voice low.

“What?”

“You can lie to us,” Raiden said, sitting in the chair beside her bed and taking her hand again. “You can even lie to yourself. But you can’t lie to the Bond. She’s already in your head.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

Because he was right. Even with the width of the room between us, I could feel her. I could feel the slow, steady beat of her heart as if it were beating inside my own chest.

“Maintain the watch,” I said stiffly. “And keep her contained.”

I walked out into the hallway and closed the door behind me, leaning back against the wood and letting out a shuddering breath.

Mate.

The word echoed in the silence of the corridor, mocking my control.

I pushed off the door and walked into the shadows. I would not yield to it. I would not break. I was the eldest, the leader, and I would protect this family.

Even if I had to protect it from the woman who was designed to be its soul.