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His expression didn’t change. Stone. Ice. Rage simmering behind his gaze like a fire kept barely caged.

“But not two,” I added, more breath than voice now. “Not for long. You don’t understand… I’m not strong enough for this. I—I’m not.”

The words slipped out like blood from a wound. Bitter. Exposed. Andros rose from the edge of the bed, slow and deadly, towering over me like judgment made flesh.

“Don’t you fucking make me tie you to this bed,” he growled, low and venomous. “Because gods knowI will, Lexa.”

His voice sent a tremor through my bones.

“You think I’m playing with you? You think I’ll watch you drag yourself through another carving? Another spell that eats you from the inside out while you lie to yourself and call it freedom?”

My chest heaved, panic clawing at my throat. “You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like—”

“No,”His voice cracked like a whip across the room.“Don’t you dare throw that at me. You came here like you were better than all of us. Judging this pack. Judging me. Calling this life twisted and violent and wrong. But it’s time someone judged you,stray.”

That word. That damn word.Stray. He said it like it meant filth. Like it meant truth.

“You want to talk about cruelty?” he said, his blue eyes burning straight into mine. “Let’s fucking talk about it.Yes,I get it. You were raised in some gods-forsaken hellhole. Wherever the fuck you came from, they carved your fate into your bones and told you to smile through it. And on some pathetic, twisted level, I canunderstandwhy you ran. Why you wanted to burn it all down.”

He leaned closer, and I flinched—not from fear, but from the weight of what he was about to say.

“But don’t you dare pretend you didn’t spiral so deep down that hole you didn’t just burn your own future—you started setting fire to that boy’s, too.”

“Leave Dain out of this—”

I didn’t want to cry. I swore I wouldn’t. But there wassomething about the way he spoke—like every word was a verdict—that made the edges of me start to bleed. I clenched my jaw, blinked up at the ceiling, desperate to hold the tears back. I’d survived too much to break in front of him.

But Andros didn’t relent.

“You told me to stay away from the boy,” he said, stepping closer, voice low and thunderous with restrained fury. “Like I was the danger. Like I was the monster lurking in the dark.”

He stood over me now, eyes locked onto mine like they could drag the truth straight out of my spine.

“But you tell me, Lexa… who’s the real fucking monster here?”

My chest heaved. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

“Was it me who let him go to bed hungry while you scraped silver together to pay a witch to carve your shame into your back?” His voice dropped further, a quiet thing full of wrath. “Was it me who watched him walk through a blizzard in broken shoes because every coin went to keep your precious wolf gutted and mute?”

“Stop it—” I choked, voice trembling.

“How many times did he suffer,” he pushed on, unforgiving, relentless, “because you chose your fear over his safety? How many times did that dark fucking magic cost him warmth? Food? A future?”

I tried to shove him when he reached for the cold compress again, tried to fight, but my limbs were weak, shaking, uncooperative.

And he caught my wrist with ease. Iron and finality.

“I am done,” he growled, voice barely human, “done playing with you, stray. You are in my territory now. And while you’re under my roof, you obey.”

“You think I’ll bow to you?” I spat, fury bubbling up like bile, rising to cover the truth he’d shoved in my face. “You are not myAlpha. This isnotmy pack. This shithole is not my home. And I am not—will never be—yours to command.”

His blue eyes darkened like the sky before a storm—silent, deadly, inevitable. And then, softly, like the warning before an execution:

“You are now.”

He moved before I could breathe. In one violent, final motion, Andros surged forward, grabbed me by the throat and shoulder, and bit.

His teeth sank into the hollow of my neck—right over the place I’d sworn no one would ever touch. The pain was instant, vicious, searing through every nerve like fire wrapped in ice. My back arched off the bed with a cry that wasn’t human, wasn’t mine.