The Fake Luna: Marked By The Alpha King

Chapter 283: Chapter 283 Planning to kill me?

Aria’s POV

The pressure slammed down over the room without warning, dense and electric, pressing against my chest hard enough to steal the air from my lungs.

I knew exactly what it was the second it hit me. I’d felt Alpha pressure before, watched grown wolves drop their eyes and bow their heads under it more times than I could count.

But I’d never felt it this strong. Never from Damian.

Around the table, every wolf reacted at once. Elena’s shoulders dropped low, her gaze sliding to the floor.

Grace went still, her jaw tightening as she fought the instinct to submit. Even Aldric—Aldric, who never showed weakness in front of anyone—flinched, just for a second, before he caught himself.

Damian’s eyes had gone fully crimson. A low sound rolled out of his chest, deep enough that I felt it in the floorboards under my feet.

I’d heard him described as terrifying before, by people who’d known him for years, by wolves twice his age who still chose their words carefully around him. I understood now exactly what they meant.

"Stay where you are."

Just as Aldric turned to leave with Grace, Damian’s voice cut through the room again—lower now, roughened, carrying the kind of weight that didn’t sound like a request.

"You hit her. And you think you can just walk away?"

Damian advanced, one measured step after another, and the pressure thickened with each one, pressing down until my pulse pounded behind my eyes.

I gripped the back of a chair, not because I didn’t understand what was happening, but because I did—because I knew exactly how badly this could end if nobody stopped him.

As he passed the dining table, his hand closed around a sharp carving knife without breaking stride.

I caught the motion, and my heart clenched violently.

"Damian, don’t. I’m fine, I’m okay—"

I kept my voice as steady as I could, the way I’d learned to when dealing with an Alpha on edge. It didn’t do much against the weight bearing down on the room, but I said it anyway.

Elena tried to steer me toward the bedroom, her hand light on my arm, her chin dipped low out of old habit. I refused to move.

I’d been part of this family long enough to know that leaving the room wouldn’t make anything safer—not for Aldric, and not for Damian either.

Aldric, provoked all over again by his grandson’s accusing tone, pushed back with a low, answering growl, his own eyes flaring gold at the edges—two Alphas’ wills grinding against each other hard enough that I felt it as a physical ache behind my sternum.

"What? You’re going to lecture me now? I’m still allowed to discipline you, aren’t I? She’s the one who threw herself in the way—why is that my fault?"

"What exactly did I do that deserves this kind of ’discipline’? You hit her. Doesn’t that even warrant an apology?"

Damian’s jaw clenched, teeth flashing too sharp, too long behind his lips. The pressure spiked again with his anger, sharp enough that I had to plant my feet to stay upright.

"I’m your elder!" Aldric’s face had gone red with the effort of holding his ground against a dominance he could clearly feel eating away at his own.

"And need I remind you—you’re not exactly innocent in what happened tonight either. Stop acting like the entire world owes you something, Damian!"

"Why are you glaring at me like that? Are you about to lose it again? You’ve kept up this act for years—finally cracking, are you?"

Damian’s restraint was fraying to nothing. The pressure in the room turned jagged, spiking and receding in violent pulses. I watched his grip tighten around the knife handle until his knuckles went white.

Grace hurried to tell Damian not to provoke his grandfather further, her voice pitched sharp and urgent.

Aldric noticed the movement of his grandson’s hand at almost the same moment she did.

In two quick strides, he closed the distance and grabbed Damian’s arm, yanking it upward. "What, planning to kill me? Go on, then. Do it, if you’ve got it in you!"

"Aldric!" Grace’s face went white.

None of us expected that this—Aldric’s own provocation—would be the thing that finally set Damian off completely.

The pressure exploded outward all at once, driving the air out of my lungs. Somewhere behind me, glass cracked on a shelf. Damian’s strength surged, and his arm tore free of Aldric’s grip.

The knife swung upward, tip aimed straight for the space between his grandfather’s brows.

"Damian!!!"

Everyone screamed at once.

Aldric’s eyes went wide, his whole body locking rigid, too stunned to even flinch back.

I didn’t think. I lunged forward and grabbed the blade with my bare hand, right below where it curved toward the tip, and shoved it sideways with everything I had.

Pain seared across my palm instantly, hot and sharp. I felt the edge bite into skin, felt something warm and wet start to slide down my wrist.

But the knife veered off course, missing Aldric’s face by inches, and that was all that mattered in that moment.

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