Page 34 of The Forgery Mate (Taken by His Alpha #6)

T he thin fabric of my boxers chafes like sandpaper, but taking them off would mean admitting how far gone I already am. My flannel pants and cardigan lie discarded on the floor, stripped away hours ago.

The Rockford cleanup team has already come and gone, Harcourt’s body and vehicle disappearing as if they had never been there. There’s nothing left to give testimony to the violence that took place earlier in my shop.

Hours have passed since I sent the tracker invitation, and my body betrays me with each passing minute. Heat creeps beneath my skin, turning simple sensations into torment and thickening the air in my lungs.

I pace the length of my loft, bare feet slapping on hardwood floors strewn with charcoal dust and flecks of dried paint. My steps falter near the window, muscles trembling from exertion that shouldn’t be taxing.

When was the last time I ate? The kitchen counters hold evidence of a bowl with dried cereal dregs, an apple with two bites taken before my stomach revolted. Food turns to ash in my mouth, appetite buried beneath the body’s more primal hunger.

The clock on my nightstand announces another hour has passed, the numbers blurring as I stare.

My phone sits on the windowsill, screen dark and silent. I snatch it up, fumbling with the cracked surface, heart pounding as I check for notifications.

Nothing.

The Heat tracker app shows my invitation sent, received, but not accepted. Not rejected, either.

Did I not try hard enough to find myself? Did my capitulation end our game?

I rest my forehead against the cool glass of the window, searching the street below for any sign of him. The pavement remains empty save for strangers who hurry past.

“Come on,” I whisper, breath fogging the glass. “Don’t leave me like this.”

My legs can’t support me for long stretches anymore, so I slide down the wall, phone clutched to my chest. From this angle, I can see what remains of my frantic attempts to find myself amid the wreckage of discarded personas.

A painting pinned to the wall catches afternoon sunlight, not Ezra this time, but the Valenne. Anatomy of a Ghost . The real one, forgotten in my car for the months it sat in the Rockford Manor’s garage, brought up here the third time I ran from Ezra.

I had crawled across the floor two hours ago to retrieve it from its forgotten tube, needing to see if it still spoke to me. The canvas curls at the corners, yellowed with age, but the lines remain bold. Honest. A ghost captured in strokes that blur the line between presence and absence.

Beneath it sits a half-finished canvas, the beginnings of a self-portrait abandoned when I couldn’t capture what stared back from the mirror. Too many faces overlaid, too many years spent becoming others.

With effort, I push up from the floor and stagger toward my workstation.

My fingers find my grandfather’s brushes, arranged in perfect order by size just as he kept them.

The bristles are worn from decades of painting masterpieces no one knew were his.

I lift one to my nose, inhaling the lingering scent of linseed oil and turpentine that clings to the wood despite countless cleanings.

“What would you think of me now?” I ask the empty air, throat dry from thirst.

The brushes represent a different part of me than Knox’s glasses or Lorenzo’s scarves. They’re not masks to hide behind, but tools that shaped me. They taught me to see beauty in precision and patience. I set them down with care, having realized not everything from my past deserves the trash bin.

But what remains when the disguises are stripped away? I’ve spent days tearing down the structure of my existence, burning bridges to personas I’ve worn for years and building nothing in their place.

The loft echoes with emptiness, shelves bare where collections once stood, walls stripped of art that didn’t emerge from my hand alone.

Heat pulses through my body, the rush of warmth traveling down my spine to pool in my groin. I grip the workbench, knuckles white as my stomach cramps, the emptiness in my body aching. My boxers stick to my skin, damp with the slick my body produces in desperate preparation for an Alpha.

I need to be touched. To be filled. To be seen.

Stumbling to the bathroom, I avoid the tub where I turned Ezra’s sketches to ash. I had scooped out the remains and stuffed them into a jar that now sits on the windowsill by my easel. The floor, too, I swept, though the broom with the shattered glass still leans against the wall.

The tap runs cold over my wrists, but the relief lasts only seconds before my temperature rises again. When I lift my head, fragments of the mirror reflect flushed cheeks and pupils blown wide with need.

Is this Ren Mercier? This hollow-cheeked, fevered creature with desperation written across his features? Can anyone be whole when pieces are missing? Or does wholeness come from accepting the gaps, the empty spaces where future growth might take root?

My phone vibrates in my hand, and my heart lurches. The screen illuminates with a notification, but it’s only a weather alert of an approaching storm.

Not Ezra.

Not yet.

The disappointment cuts deeper than it should. I’ve spent years alone during my Heat, suffering through symptoms with suppressants and isolation. I should be stronger than this bone-deep yearning for someone else to fill the emptiness.

But that’s the truth I’ve been running from, isn’t it? The real ghost haunting every canvas and sketchbook, the fear that I’m not enough on my own. That without someone to witness me, I might as well be invisible.

Outside, the shadows lengthen as the afternoon bleeds toward evening. The air in the loft grows heavier with my pheromones, sweet and thick with my Heat. Soon it will be strong enough to reach the street below, to call to any Alpha passing by.

But I don’t want just any Alpha. I want my Alpha.

I drag myself back to the window, leaving damp footprints across the floor. Prickles of sweat bead across my skin, my body a furnace burning hotter with each passing hour. Soon I’ll be past coherent thought, past anything but animal need.

And Ezra will either come or he won’t. I’ve offered the one thing I’ve never given anyone, not because I’m healed or certain, but because I’m tired of being fragments, and I can’t be whole without him.

The lock clicks.

My body reacts before my mind processes the sound, spine straightening, muscles tensing, breath catching. No one has keys to this place. No one but me.

The door swings open without a knock. Ezra steps inside, the stairwell light framing him in gold for a breath before the door closes behind him.

His pheromones roll over me, the unmistakable musk of Alpha flooding my senses and setting my skin ablaze.

He stands in my entryway as if he belongs here, as if he’s walked through this door a hundred times before.

The casual certainty of his presence steals the air from my lungs.

He wears no suit today, just dark jeans and a black Henley pushed up to his elbows, revealing the tattoos that wind around his strong forearms.

My mouth dries, my pulse hammering at my throat, my wrists, my groin.

The fever I’ve been fighting all day spikes with his proximity, turning my blood to liquid fire.

The thin cotton boxers do nothing to hide the flush of my skin, the painful hardness of my dick, or the slick dampening the fabric where it sticks to my ass and thighs.

“What took you so long?” I demand breathlessly.

“I had to help with cleanup.” He takes in the chaos of my loft, the discarded identities piled in the trash bin, the scattered art supplies, and footprints tracing my restless pacing. “I trusted that you were safe.”

His nostrils flare as he inhales the concentrated pheromones of my Heat mixed with painting supplies and turpentine that fill the enclosed space, and his pupils dilate. “Your Heat is further along than I expected, though.”

“Didn’t your collar tell you how far gone I was? Why didn’t you come earlier?” I can’t stop myself from grinding the heel of my hand over my straining dick. “Why Aaiden and not you?”

“Because you didn’t ask me to come sooner.

” He catalogues my disheveled appearance, the dark circles beneath my eyes, and the tremor in my hands that I can’t suppress.

His attention lingers on my neck, where his collar guards my nape for him.

“Jade was already on his way and got to you faster than I could have.”

The floorboards creak beneath his weight as he crosses the room, each footfall bringing him closer. I expect him to reach for me and satisfy the desperate ache to be filled, and my body leans toward him without conscious command, drawn to his gravity.

Instead, Ezra reaches into his jacket pocket and produces the biometric key to the collar. “Turn around.”

I turn slowly, presenting my nape to him, a surrender more significant than anything I’ve offered before.

The floor sways beneath my feet, dizziness washing over me in waves.

Ezra’s hand catches my elbow, steadying me, and the warmth of his palm burns through my skin, igniting nerve endings already raw with need.

My pulse throbs as his breath warms the back of my neck, and my eyelashes flutter as a needy whine escapes me.

The key slides over the metal collar, and a soft click sounds through the thunder of my heartbeat. The light pressure around my throat eases as the titanium band parts.

Ezra catches it before it can fall, his fingers brushing my collarbone in the process.

The brief contact sends electricity racing across my skin, and I shiver despite the fever building beneath my flesh.

The absence of the collar leaves me feeling exposed, more aware of my nape than I was before I carried the weight of his possession for days.

His forehead rests on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry we didn’t track Harcourt faster. So sorry he made it as far as he did.”

My shoulders shake. “I was so scared.”