"Please what? Please let you go? Please let you run away and potentially die? Or please give you what your body is screaming for?"
Another wave of heat crashed through me, so intense I cried out. My legs gave out, but Knox caught me, lifting me easily.
"That's what I thought," he said, carrying me back to his bed.
"I still want to leave," I said weakly as he laid me down.
"After," he promised, already pulling at my clothes. "After your heat is fully over, if you still want to leave, I won't stop you."
"You promise?" I asked, even as I helped him remove my shirt.
"I promise," he said, then his mouth was on mine, and I couldn't think about leaving anymore.
The heat consumed me again, worse than before, and I understood with crushing clarity that he'd been right. Leaving would have killed me. The biological need was too strong, the bond too new.
"I still hate you," I gasped as he moved down my body.
"I know," he said against my skin.
"This doesn't change anything," I insisted.
"We'll see," he murmured.
But as my body submitted to his, as the omega in me recognized and accepted its Alpha, I knew it changed everything. The way my neck bared without my permission when he growled. The way my body positioned itself for him without conscious thought. The complete surrender that felt like coming home.
I was scent-drunk, heat-lost, completely at the mercy of biology I couldn't control.
"Mine," Knox growled as he claimed me again.
And the worst part? The part that made me want to cry?
My body sang in agreement.
"Yours," I whispered, hating myself for the truth of it.
The door remained closed. My suitcase sat abandoned. And I surrendered to the inevitable, even as I promised myself this was the last time.
But we both knew I was lying.
Chapter 12
Knox
The nightmare woke me at 4 AM. Same one I'd had since I was twelve. My father's hands around my mother's throat, her omega whimpers, the sick sound of dominance taken too far.
Harper stirred beside me, her warmth a reminder of what I'd done. What I'd become.
I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her. The hotel bathroom was too small, too confined, but I needed distance. Needed to think without her scent clouding my judgment.
The mirror showed me exactly what I feared. Wild eyes. Bruised knuckles. The same violent hands that had claimed an Omega in heat. Just like him.
"Knox?" Harper's voice, soft and concerned.
"Go back to sleep," I said without turning.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just needed space."
