Oakley sits in the living room, book in hand. He looks up as I pass. Opens his mouth like he wants to say something—what? Sorry? It'll be okay? This is for your own good?
Whatever it is dies unsaid. The guilt on his face is almost satisfying.
Almost.
The study door is closed. Heavy wood. Ornate handle. I stare at it for a long moment, hand raised to knock.
This is the threshold. Last chance to run, even though there's nowhere to go.
My knuckles rap twice. Sharp. Precise.
"Come in."
Corvus has converted the study into something between an office and a lab. Multiple monitors on the desk. Papers scattered with charts and graphs. A shelf of medical texts. The smell of coffee and antiseptic.
He's waiting. Tablet in hand. Looking like he's about to give a quarterly report to shareholders instead of explain why I'm his prisoner.
"Sit." He gestures to the chair across from the desk.
"I'll stand."
"This will take a while. You should sit."
"I said I'll stand."
He regards me with those calculating eyes. A beat. Two. Then he shrugs. "As you wish."
The monitors flicker to life.
Data floods the screens. Charts. Graphs. Genetic sequences that look like abstract art. Numbers and percentages and technical terms that mean nothing to me but probably mean everything.
My heart starts to pound. Slow and heavy. Wrong rhythm.
"Do you know what fated mates are?" His voice is clinical. Detached. Like we're discussing weather.
"Fantasy." The word comes out steady. Good. "Biological essentialism. An excuse."
"Science." He taps the tablet. One screen zooms in on what looks like a DNA helix. "Rare, but documented. A genetic compatibility so precise—"
"I took presentation biology." My nails dig into my palms. "I know the theory."
"Theory." He almost smiles. "Then you know the phenomenon occurs in approximately point-zero-one percent of Alpha-Omega pairings."
The helix on screen is beautiful. Two strands wrapped around each other. Inseparable.
I want to vomit.
"Usually one Alpha, one Omega," he continues, swiping to another screen. "Perfect biological matches. Enhanced pheromone sensitivity, accelerated bonding—"
"Why are you telling me this?" I cut him off. "I'm already dying from rejection sickness. I get it. Biology wins."
"Not quite." He swipes again, and this time his fingers hesitate for just a moment. The scientist showing a crack. "We ran your bloodwork. From when you had the seizure."
The room tilts. "You had no right—"
"You were dying. We needed to understand why the symptoms were so severe." He turns the tablet toward me. "The results were... unprecedented."
The screen changes.
