Page 31 of The Forgery Mate (Taken by His Alpha #6)

I harden the line of his jaw and sharpen his eyes, capturing the predatory assessment always lurking there.

The distinctive silver in his hair becomes less a mark of an accident and more a badge of survival.

His mouth curves in the slight, knowing smile he wore in the gallery bathroom when he said, “You’re finally starting to understand. ”

My fingers smudge charcoal across the paper, building depth from shadow, creating dimension from flat space. This isn’t the boy I thought I knew. This is the Ezra Rockford who never stopped hunting me.

Coffee cups accumulate around me as the day slips away into night again, the bitter scent replacing the Earl Grey Tobias preferred. Each sip clarifies another truth. I’ve never actually liked tea, its subtle flavors lost on a palate that craves stronger stimulation.

The realization seems small, but it sits heavy in my chest. How many other preferences have I adopted for the sake of a persona? How many of my own desires have I buried beneath my disguises?

The charcoal breaks on the paper, and I use the jagged edge to build texture in Ezra’s hair and the shadow of his throat. There’s violence in my strokes now, not born of anger but of recognition of the dangerous man I crave in my bones.

Dawn breaks as I place the final strokes, the rising sun casting warm light across the finished portrait. Ezra stares back at me from the paper, neither demon nor angel.

My perfect Alpha.

Who else could have captured me so completely? Forced me to stop running, to tear open my heart and scrounge around in its bloody depths for anything worthy to offer him?

My fingers leave black prints on my phone as I photograph the drawing. Without giving myself time to reconsider, I send it to Ezra, a silent acknowledgment of what I now understand.

His response comes right away, the phone vibrating on my charcoal-stained palm.

Unknown Number

That’s my truth, not yours.

Four words that cut through my revelation, reminding me that seeing him clearly isn’t the same as seeing myself.

My footprints map a chaotic path across the loft floor, charcoal smudges trailing behind me, a map without a destination.

Daylight bleeds into evening, the shadows lengthening as I pace between easel and window, window and bed, bed and bathroom.

Each surface of my home is littered with the corpses of failed attempts, portraits torn in frustration, landscapes that melt into abstraction, and studies of hands that could belong to anyone.

None of them answers the question throbbing deep in my gut.

Who is Ren Mercier?

I kick aside a crumpled drawing, sending it skittering across the wooden planks. My reflection catches in the window pane, hair wild from constant tugging, chest still speckled with dried paint and fading bruises, the collar a perfect metallic circle interrupting my silhouette.

Three days since Ezra locked it around my neck, and the weight of it hasn’t lessened.

My phone sits on the windowsill, repaired enough to function despite its spider-webbed screen. I snatch it up, fingers typing before my brain can intervene.

Ren

Why are you doing this to me?

I drop the phone onto my workbench, not expecting an immediate reply. Ezra’s previous silence taught me that much.

But the vibration comes, the screen illuminating with an incoming message. Not text this time, but an image.

A white ceramic bowl, broken into jagged pieces and meticulously reassembled.

Gold fills the cracks between fragments, the metallic seams catching light and transforming the bowl’s destruction into its most beautiful feature.

Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, treats breakage as an object’s history rather than something to hide.

The message couldn’t be clearer if Ezra had spelled it out. He wants to break me to rebuild me more beautifully.

My fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms. The bowl in the image is stunning, its golden fault lines highlighting rather than hiding its fractures. But it’s still a broken thing, reshaped by an outside hand, its original form sacrificed for someone else’s vision of beauty.

Yet beneath the rage bubbles a treacherous understanding. What if the cracks were always there, masked by the personas I’ve wrapped around myself like armor? What if Ezra isn’t breaking me but revealing the fault lines I’ve spent a lifetime plastering over?

I slam the phone face-down, unable to stare at the metaphor for another second.

My eyes sweep the loft, catching on every sketch, every painting, every charcoal study I’ve ever made of Ezra.

They’re everywhere, tucked into portfolios, pinned to corkboards, stacked on shelves.

His face watches me from dozens of angles, in multitudes of mediums, as a visual record of my obsession.

A hum of electricity moves through me as I stride through the space, gathering every image of Ezra I can find. The soft charcoal sketch from his bed at Rockford Manor. The oil study of his hands. The quick ink drawing of his profile.

The stack grows, heavier in my arms than mere paper should be.

I carry them to the bathroom, where shards of mirror still glitter in the sink, where broken bottles of perfume fill the bathroom with cloying fumes, my earlier rage untouched.

The bathtub gleams white and empty, a cast-iron canvas waiting for a new destruction.

I arrange the drawings with careful precision, layering them in the tub as kindling.

Some curl at the edges, others lie flat, Ezra’s face repeated in an endless gallery of captured moments.

My fingers linger on a particular sketch of his eyes closed in sleep, lashes dark fans on his cheekbones, his hair falling across his forehead.

This was the Ezra I thought I loved. The illusion he cultivated to lure me in.

My breath comes faster as I retrieve my phone and the lighter from the kitchen drawer.

The metal is cool in my grasp, the flint rough beneath my thumb.

I prop my phone against the bathroom wall, angling it to capture the bathtub and its paper contents.

The record button glows red under my touch, capturing what comes next.

The first drawing catches flame with a whisper, the paper curling as orange fingers consume Ezra’s sketched face. I add another sheet, then another, the fire growing with each contribution. Heat blooms in the small bathroom, warming my skin as drawing after drawing feeds the blaze.

Ezra’s face distorts in the flames, eyes melting, jawline dissolving, the silver streak in his hair vanishing into ash. The fire devours almost two years of observation, of study, of the careful cataloging of a man I never truly knew.

Smoke curls toward the ceiling, setting off the detector with a shrill cry. I get a step ladder and disconnect it with a sharp twist, the battery clattering into the sink to join the broken mirror and knives.

Paper blackens and curls, sketches becoming ghosts before disappearing. The flames reflect in what remains of the bathroom mirror, doubling the destruction. I watch until the fire consumes the last drawing, until nothing remains but ash and charred paper edges, Ezra’s face erased.

I stop the recording and send the video without hesitation, without text. Let him see his collected images turning to smoke. Let him understand that whatever power those drawings held is gone now, reduced to carbon smudges in my bathtub.

His response comes as I stir the ashes to make sure all the embers die.

Unknown Number

Not nearly as hot as how the real me burns for you.

A laugh bursts from my throat, unexpected and genuine. Even now, with his images turned to ash, Ezra refuses to surrender an inch of ground. His persistence infuriates me, yet the same stubborn certainty draws me like gravity.

What must it be like to want something so single-mindedly, to pursue it across years with unwavering focus?

I splash water on my face, the cool shock grounding me.

I still feel too warm trapped in the bathroom, but when I step out, the burn doesn’t fade. My muscles feel achy, from lack of sleep, I assumed earlier, but now the warmth gathers in my hips, and my skin prickles, my clothes too tight.

I wipe sweat from my brow and pull out my phone, locating my Heat app. The interface is clinical, designed for Omegas to share their cycle data with medical providers, family members, or most commonly, potential mates.

The calendar confirms what I thought. It’s a week too soon, but the early signs are there.

My Heat is coming.

I look back toward the medicine cabinet where my suppressants wait, consider the candles on the hot plates by the doors, waiting to be lit to obscure my scent.

But I don’t go to them.

Then the sound of a car door closing outside draws me to the window, and I peer down into the street to see a luxury sedan parked at the curb, and my pulse quickens.

Ezra came. Of course, he did. He probably knew my Heat was coming before I even realized.

Grabbing a cardigan, I slip it over my bare torso, the worn wool itchy on skin growing oversensitive by the second.

But I don’t care. I need to go downstairs. Need to meet my Alpha.

After so much wasted time, I won’t give up a second more.