Derek's face collapsed as the realization hit him. "You…" His voice broke. "You planned this." His eyes burned with humiliation. "You played me."
Tori stepped forward slightly but I did not let her go. Her voice carried clearly across the stunned audience.
Chet’s microphone people were excellent at their jobs.
"You broke the law." The calm in her tone was colder than anger. "You thought you owned me, Derek. That I was property." She turned to face him fully. "I don’t belong to you. I love… " She glanced over her shoulder at me. “I love Egon. I’m sorry, Derek.”
My gaze dropped to the man who had threatened her life. Who had tried to take her from me. "You are fortunate, human," I said quietly. The words carried farther than I intended. Damn Chet and his crew. "If I had my way, you would already be dead for threatening my mate."
Derek screamed in rage. The sound was raw and broken as the agents dragged him toward the exit. The audience sat in stunned silence, struggling to process what they had just witnessed.
Then Chet stepped forward, his gold hair gleaming under the lights, his smile wide and triumphant. "Well!" His voice rang out across the theater. "That was dramatic!"
A ripple of nervous laughter passed through the crowd. "But you know what?" he continued brightly. "I think our audience deserves the truth. The whole truth." His eyes sparkled as he led Tori and I to the center of the stage and waved at one of the many gigantic screens that had been placed around the area.
The massive screens all flickered to life. Footage filled them—the wedding, me bursting through the doors, lifting Tori into my arms while the entire room stared.
Gasps echoed through the audience. More moments followed. Stolen. Private. Our laughter. Our quiet conversations. The first time she had looked at me like I was the center of her world. Our first dance. The raw need in my gaze shocked me. As did the answering desire in hers. Feeling a thing and seeing it displayed to cinematic perfection were two different things.
Next came our trip to see the Northern Lights. Tori standing beneath the aurora while green light danced across her face, my arms around her, her head resting against my shoulder.
The audience began to murmur, then sigh, then cheer. They understood now. They saw what we had always been.
Mine, my beast confirmed, watching the video as if hypnotized by the sheer beauty of our female. She loved us. It was in her eyes. In her touch. And after this, there would be no more pretending. He would finally claim her, wear her mating cuffs, and proudly display them as a worthy, chosen male.
Chet raised his arms dramatically. "Ladies and gentlemen! The greatest love story reality television has ever seen!" The crowd erupted.
The noise of the crowd faded the moment I turned toward her. Tori stood only inches away, the lights from the massive screens still dancing across her face. The chaos around us—the cheering audience, Chet shouting something about ratings, the agents escorting Derek out of the theater—blurred into meaningless sound. All I could see was her.
Her breath came unevenly, chest rising and falling beneath the soft fabric of her dress. Tears tracked down her cheeks, catching the stage lights like scattered diamonds. My hands lifted without conscious thought. I framed her face gently, my thumbs brushing away the wet trails beneath her eyes. Her skin was warm beneath my palms—alive, real, undeniably mine. My forehead lowered until it rested against hers. For a moment we simply breathed, her breath touching my lips, warm and trembling. The beast inside me quieted completely.
I pressed a kiss to her mouth—soft, reverent, the kind of kiss meant to promise rather than claim. Then I stepped back. And dropped to my knees.
The theater went silent. Two hundred humans stared at us. Cameras zoomed closer. Every screen in the room showed the moment from a dozen different angles. I barely noticed. My attention stayed locked on the woman standing before me.
As Chet had sworn to me on penalty of a swift death, he appeared at my side with my mating cuffs in hand. I took them from him. The metal was cool against my fingers as I held the mating cuffs. Ancient Atlan steel caught the light, the engraved symbols etched into the surface gleaming beneath the stage lamps—my family's mark, the promise of every male before me. Sacred. Permanent. These particular cuffs had been in my family for centuries. Had belonged to my great grandfather and his female.
I held them out toward her.
"Tori." My voice carried easily through the silent auditorium. "You are my mate." The words felt larger than the room, larger than the cameras, larger than the world watching through their screens. "My beast recognized you as our mate. He chose you." My hands remained steady despite the thunder of my heartbeat. "As I choose you now. As I will choose you every day for the rest of my life." The cuffs rested between us, an offering. "Accept my claim. Be my mate. My partner. My heart. Forever."
For a moment she could not speak. Emotion flickered across her face—joy, disbelief, wonder. Then she nodded. "Yes." The word came out breathless. Then stronger. "Yes!" Her hands reached for the larger cuffs first. Warm fingers closed around my wrists as she fastened them with a firm snap of metal. "You're mine, Warlord Egon."
The declaration sent a deep, primal satisfaction through my blood.
The audience exploded into cheers. I barely heard them. My attention remained on her as I rose slowly to my feet. Her wrist trembled slightly in mine. The metal of her smaller mating cuffs felt alive the moment the first one touched her skin—warm, responsive, as if the ancient alloy recognized her immediately.
Then I closed the first cuff. The metal locked into place with a soft click. The second cuff followed. The moment it sealed, something shifted inside my chest—something deep and ancient finally settling into place. She was mine. Officially. Permanently. Irrevocably. And I was hers.
The beast settled at last. For the first time in years, the burning agony of mating fever completely gone. She. Was. Mine.
"I love you." The words broke from her in a sob as she threw her arms around my neck.
I wrapped my arms around her and bent down, pressed my lips to her ear. "I love you more.”
I lifted her easily off her feet, her laughter bursting through her tears as I spun her once across the stage, the audience roaring around us like thunder.
"THAT!" Chet's voice cut through the celebration with manic triumph. "THAT is how you do a season finale!" He threw his arms wide and motioned for the playback to continue. There was more. More of us. The other contestants. The group of fighters and warriors he’d invited to the set, whetting the audience’s appetite for whatever came next.
