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Like ice water down my spine.

What am I doing?

Grams’ voice slices through the haze, cruel and cold and unforgiving:Alphas are bad. All alphas are evil. They want to do bad things to omegas.

“No—” I whisper, but it’s not a command. It’s a plea. A panic.

Grams’ voice echoes in my mind again, but this time my omega purrs loud enough to drown her out. She doesn’t see Xar’s alpha as dangerous at all. She’s practically rolled over and presented her belly to him in submission – begging for tummy rubs and pets.

“Evie?” Xar’s voice is instantly softer, his touch loosening. “Are you okay?”

I blink up at him, breathless and shaking. My body is still singing, throbbing,wanting– but my mind is spinning out of control. Too much. Too fast.

“I—I need to stop,” I whisper.

I’m overwhelmed. Shamed. By what I’ve done. What I’velethim do. What else Iwantedhim to do.

He pulls back immediately, arms loosening but still cradling me carefully. “Okay. Of course. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

But I can’t breathe. I’mdrenchedin scent, in need, in the overwhelming fear that I’ve lost control.

My cheeks burn with shame, with confusion, with a panic that’s rising like a tide.

Panic seizes my lungs.

Xar’s gaze locks onto mine, his expression dark and resolute. “You’re mine, Eviana. Ours. You always have been. You just didn’t know it yet. And now that I’ve scented you…well, it’s irrefutable, love. You’re our omega.”

My mind reels at his words, but my omega is already purring in agreement, her satisfaction vibrating through me like a siren’s song.

I jerk back, panting, blinking up at him with wide, startled eyes. He’s still holding me, still breathing like I’ve wrecked him, and Ihave. The look in his eyes – hazed with lust, confusion, and somethingachingly tender– almost pulls me back in.

But I can’t.

I grab the clothes I dropped when I came up here and shove them hard against his chest.

“I—I have to go.”

“Eviana, wait?—”

But I’m already gone, bolting for the exit like I’m on fire. Because Iam. I’m still pulsing between my thighs, still wet with release, still echoing with his growl in my bones.

It’s all so alien to me. Terrifying. I don’t know how to survivewantinglike that. I don’t know how I’m supposed to look him in the eye now.

I stumble down the attic stairs like my body doesn’t belong to me anymore, every nerve still singing, every inch of me burning with where he touched me – where Ilethim.

And I don’t know if I’m running because I regret it…

Or because I don’t trust myself not to turn around and beg him tokeep going.

DANE

The tension in the air is suffocating.

I’ve been standing in the hallway downstairs, waiting, trying to give them space, but I can feel it now – the crackling energy that surrounds Xar and Eviana the moment they come back down the stairs.

Eviana’s eyes snap to mine, and for a second, I think she’s going to say something. But then her gaze darts away, her whole body going rigid. Xar steps forward, but she raises her hands, cutting him off before he can even speak.

“No.” The word is sharp, jagged, and it catches me off guard. I know we’ve pushed her too far. I know we’ve been too much, but the look in her eyes – it’sraw. Wild. She’s terrified. “You need to leave. Right now. All of you.”