Page 231 of His Drama Queen

Finally, Dorian. My first mark. My primary bond. The one who started all of this.

I straddle him and don't sink down immediately. Just hover there, letting him feel how close he is to what he wants.

"You chose me over your mother," I say. "Over the family fortune. Over everything you were raised to value."

"Best choice I ever made," he grits out.

"You walked away from Northwood. Watched me mark you in front of everyone. Let me claim you publicly."

"I'd do it again." His ice-blue eyes are desperate. "Vespera, please—"

"Tell me you're mine," I say, still not letting him inside.

"I'm yours." No hesitation. "Completely. Forever. Your Alpha. Your pack. Yours."

I sink down onto him in one hard thrust and his back arches off the bed.

"This is what choosing looks like," I tell him, riding him hard. "This is what freedom feels like. You inside me because I want you there. Not because biology demands it. Not because heat makes me need it. Because I choose you."

"Choose me," he begs. "Choose us. Every fucking day."

"I do," I promise, and lean down to bite his throat again. Right over the silvered mark from two years ago. "You're mine. All of you. Not because you claimed me. Because I claimed you back."

He comes with a shout, hands fisting in my hair, pulling me down for a kiss that tastes like possession and surrender and everything we've built.

This time I let his knot catch. Feel it swell inside me, locking us together for the next twenty minutes while his come fills me.

"This is my kingdom," I say, looking at all three of them—marked, claimed, mine. "Built on fire and choosing and refusing to break."

"Our kingdom," Dorian corrects, still locked inside me. "Built together."

"Fine," I concede. "Our kingdom. Built on being difficult and loud and transcendent."

They laugh, and I feel it through all our bonds—the connection that tried to trap me and became freedom instead.

Later, after Dorian's knot releases, after we've rearranged ourselves into the complicated pile we've perfected over two years, my phone buzzes with the first review.

New York Times: "Vespera Levine is a force of nature. In a theater landscape crowded with careful performances, she brings raw fury and unflinching honesty. This is star-making work from an actress who understands that the most powerful choice is refusing to be manageable."

I show it to the pack. Dorian whoops. Oakley grins. Corvus nods like he predicted this outcome all along.

More reviews come in over the next hour, each more effusive than the last. They love the show. They love me. They love the character's rage and refusal and the way I inhabit her like she's been living under my skin all along.

"You did it," Oakley says sleepily. "Broadway success. Critical acclaim. Everything you said you'd do."

"We did it," I correct. "All of us."

Because it's true. I couldn't have survived Northwood without choosing to fight back. Couldn't have made it to Broadway without the pack choosing to be better. Couldn't have built this life without all of us deciding that being difficult was worth more than being safe.

I fall asleep between three Alphas who started as my tormentors and became my partners. Three men who learned that claiming someone means choosing them every day, not just marking them once.

Three people who understand that the Drama Queen didn't win by being manageable.

She won by refusing to break.

And this kingdom, built on teeth and blood and stubborn choice, is ours. Not because biology demanded it. Not because society expected it.

Because we chose it. Every single day.

That's the real power. The real freedom.

Choosing loud. Choosing difficult. Choosing ours.

And never, ever apologizing for it.

THE END