Page 110 of The Drama King
Hope bloomed in my chest, the first genuine emotion I'd felt since waking that wasn't tangled up in confusion. There might be a way out of this. It wouldn't be easy, wouldn't be safe, but it might be possible.
"You're awake."
I startled, clutching the phone tighter as I turned to find Dorian leaning against the doorframe. His ice-blue eyes tracked over me with intensity that was both familiar and new. The same predatory focus I'd endured for months, but now tempered with something that looked almost like concern.
"Heat's broken," I said, quickly closing the browser and setting the phone aside. My heart hammered with fear that he might have seen what I was researching, but his expression remained unchanged.
"I can smell it." He stepped closer, his sandalwood scent wrapping around me despite the shower. It triggered an immediate response. My body leaning toward himwithout conscious direction, some newly installed imperative recognizing my Alpha and seeking proximity.
I forced myself to step back, maintaining distance despite what my treacherous body wanted. "Don't."
He stopped, something like uncertainty flickering across his face before his usual confidence reasserted itself. "We need to talk about what happens next."
"What happens next?" I laughed, the sound bitter even to my own ears. "You mean after you and your pack spent months breaking me down, triggered an early heat, and claimed me without consent? That 'next'?"
The bathroom door was ajar, showing an empty shower stall beyond. I could hear low voices from the common area of my dorm suite, the rumble of Alpha tones discussing something in hushed consultation. My captors turned protectors, my tormentors transformed overnight into "fated mates" by a quirk none of us had anticipated.
"The claiming was necessity once the heat started," Dorian said, his voice carrying that maddening Alpha certainty. "You know that."
"The heat you helped trigger through months of systematic torment."
He didn't deny it, which was something at least. "We didn't know you were a fated mate. Couldn't have known until the claiming took place."
"And that makes it better?" I clutched my arms around myself, using anger to mask the confusion and vulnerability threatening to overwhelm me. "It was okay to torture random Omegas, but not ones who turn out to be your perfect match?"
"No." The admission surprised me, his usual arrogance giving way to something that might have been genuine regret. "It wasn't okay. None of it was okay. But it happened, and now we have to deal with what comes next."
I needed to process this conversation, needed time to think through the implications of everything I'd read. But first, I needed clothes and space and some semblance of control over my own environment.
"I need clothes," I said, changing the subject because I couldn't process his apparent remorse while feeling so exposed.
He nodded, retreating to the bedroom and returning with a stack of neatly folded items that I recognized as mine, though the scent was wrong. Laundered but carrying traces of his handling. Even my clothes belonged to them now, marked with their scent.
"I'll give you privacy," he said, setting them on the counter before backing toward the door. "When you're ready, we're all in the common room. Oakley made breakfast."
The domesticity of it was jarring after everything that had happened, but I nodded acknowledgment, waiting until he closed the door before dressing with mechanical precision. Every movement was a reminder of what had happened. Muscles protesting activities they weren't accustomed to, skin sensitive where they'd marked me, the constant awareness of how fundamentally my body had changed in the space of three days.
When I finally emerged from the bathroom, three pairs of eyes tracked my movement with predatory focus that wasn't entirely predatory anymore. Dorian sat in the armchair closest to the door, his posture rigid with restraint that hadn't been present before the claiming. Oakley hovered near the small kitchenette, a spatula in one hand, his cedar scent carrying notes of concern. Corvus was positioned near the window, those calculating dark eyes missing nothing as he assessed my condition with clinical precision.
"How are you feeling?" Oakley asked, breaking the tense silence first. His voice carried that guilty pleading I was learningto recognize. The Alpha who knew he'd done wrong and desperately wanted absolution.
"Like I've been claimed by three Alphas during a heat cycle they helped trigger," I replied, the sarcasm automatic despite the genuine concern in his expression. "So... complex."
Corvus's mouth quirked in what might have been appreciation of the honesty. "The heat has fully broken. Your scent is stabilizing with the claiming markers. The bonds appear to have taken successfully."
Leave it to Corvus to reduce the most traumatic experience of my life to clinical observations. Biology is destiny. Wasn't that his favorite phrase? As if the chemical reactions in my body negated any possibility of choice or free will.
"We made breakfast," Oakley offered, gesturing to the small table where plates had been set out with careful precision. "You need to refuel after... everything."
The thoughtfulness was almost more disorienting than their earlier cruelty had been. I was prepared for torment, for manipulation, for the systematic breaking they'd subjected me to for months. This careful concern felt like another form of manipulation. Making me question my memories of what they'd done, what they were capable of.
I moved to the table and sat, keeping as much distance between myself and the Alphas as the small space allowed. The food was elaborate. Eggs Benedict, fresh fruit, coffee that smelled expensive. As if they were trying to court me after the fact.
"You have questions," Dorian said, settling across from me with that perfect Alpha confidence that had once made me want to scream with frustration. Now it triggered something else. A sense of security I hadn't asked for and didn't want to acknowledge.
He was treating this like an acquisition, I realized. Like I was a hostile takeover they needed to manage carefully until I accepted my new position in their corporate structure.
"A few thousand," I admitted, staring down at the plate Oakley placed before me. "Starting with what the hell happens now."