Page 70 of The Drama King

But as I finally stood up and gathered my things for my work shift, that cold determination solidified into something harder, sharper. Dorian thought he'd demonstrated his power over me, that he'd proven I was helpless against his pursuit.

He was wrong.

I might be biologically programmed to respond to Alpha dominance. I might be trapped in a system designed to favor predators over prey. But I still had a mind, still had will, still had the capacity to document everything and find a way to fight back.

And I was going to use every weapon at my disposal to make sure he learned that even cornered prey could bite back hard enough to draw blood.

twenty-six

Dorian

Snowcontinuedtofalloutside the windows, the thick flakes creating a curtain of white that obscured the campus beyond. I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, bourbon in hand, but my attention wasn't on the winter landscape or the expensive view that had cost my family a fortune to secure.

My thoughts were consumed entirely by her.

Vespera Levine. The scholarship Omega who had somehow burrowed under my skin like a parasite, consuming more of my mental energy with each passing day. Even now, hours after our confrontation in the studio, I could still smell traces of her scent on my clothes, could still feel the phantom warmth of her skin under my fingertips.

But it was what I couldn't smell that was driving me to the edge of madness.

Three days she'd been in heat, broadcasting the most intoxicating scent an Alpha could experience, and I'd beendenied even a trace of it. Whatever industrial-grade scent blockers she'd used—and I suspected that male Omega Gao had supplied them through his family's pharmaceutical connections—had been thorough to the point of insult. Not even the faintest whisper of her natural heat scent had escaped her dormitory.

I'd stood outside McArthur Hall for hours each night, breathing deeply, searching for even the smallest leak in her defenses. Nothing. Just sterile air and the maddening knowledge that mere floors above me, she was burning with need, her body producing the exact scent designed to drive Alphas into claiming frenzy, and I was being systematically denied access to it.

"You're pacing again," Corvus observed from his position on my leather sofa, laptop open as he reviewed files for his political science final. "It's distracting."

I wasn't aware I'd been pacing, but sure enough, I'd worn a path in the expensive Persian rug between the windows and the wet bar. The restless energy had been building for days—the biological frustration of being denied what my Alpha instincts recognized as rightfully mine.

"She blocked me," I said, the words tasting bitter. "Completely. For three solid days, I couldn't catch even a trace of her heat scent."

Corvus looked up from his screen, dark eyebrows rising with interest. "Scent blockers? Industrial grade, presumably."

"Had to be." I moved to the wet bar, pouring bourbon with more violence than the action warranted. "No over-the-counter blocker could have been that effective. Someone with serious pharmaceutical connections supplied her."

"The Gao boy," Corvus said immediately. "His family's company produces military-grade scent suppressants for covert operations. If he wanted to help her hide from Alpha attention during heat..."

"He gave her the chemical equivalent of a fucking bunker," I snarled, downing the bourbon in one burning gulp. "Do you understand what that means? What she denied me?"

Corvus closed his laptop entirely, recognizing that this conversation required his full attention. "You're describing deliberate avoidance of biological imperative. She actively prevented you from experiencing her heat cycle."

"She denied me something that should have been mine by right," I said, pouring another bourbon despite knowing alcohol wouldn't touch the deeper frustration eating at me. "An Omega in heat—especially one I'd already marked as my target—doesn't get to hide behind chemical barriers. It's unnatural. Perverse."

"It's also remarkably strategic," Corvus observed with that clinical detachment that could be infuriating. "If she suspected you were monitoring her cycle patterns, preventing Alpha exposure during her most vulnerable state shows significant foresight."

I slammed the glass down hard enough to make the crystal ring against marble. "I don't give a shit about her strategy. She could have been claimed properly, could have experienced heat the way evolution intended, with an appropriate Alpha to satisfy her biological needs. Instead, she chose to suffer alone with inadequate artificial substitutes."

"How do you know she suffered?" he asked quietly.

The question stopped me cold. How did I know? Because the thought of her in heat, burning with need, using cold silicon toys instead of accepting the claiming she was biologically designed to crave, made something possessive and protective snarl in my chest. Because imagining her alone, desperate, denying herself the satisfaction of proper Alpha attention, was almost physically painful.

"Because heat without claiming is torture," I said finally. "She put herself through three days of agony rather than accept what I could have given her."

"Is she winning?" Corvus finally looked up, his dark eyes studying me with that analytical intensity that made him both valuable and occasionally infuriating. "Because from my perspective, she's a scholarship student who should have been broken and expelled months ago. Yet here we are, approaching finals week, and she's not only still here but seems to have gained rather than lost confidence."

I drained the bourbon in one swallow, the burn doing nothing to settle the restless energy coursing through me. "She's more resilient than anticipated."

"Or your methodology has been compromised by factors you're not acknowledging," he suggested, closing the laptop with a decisive click. "Tell me, Dorian—when was the last time you went this long without claiming an Omega during their heat?"

The question hit like a physical blow, though I tried to hide my reaction behind another pour of bourbon. "That's irrelevant."