We dry off and I treat his wounds properly, bandaging his knuckles and checking his vitals. His fever is still too high, his weight loss concerning, but he's stable for now. The sex helped, gave him a few minutes of peace from the rejection sickness.
"You should try to sleep," I tell him as he pulls on clean clothes.
"Can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see her leaving." He moves to his closet, to the shrine of her things. "This helps. Her scent, even fading. It helps."
I watch him breathe in her sweater, his whole body shuddering with need, and I make a decision.
"We'll need supplies for the lake house," I say. "In case her rejection sickness gets worse. And we'll need a clean vehicle, something that can't be traced."
His head snaps up, hope flaring in his eyes. "You're really going to help?"
"I'm really going to help." God help me, but I am. "We bring her to the lake house, we keep her safe and healthy, and we try to convince her that the bond is worth accepting. If she still wants to leave after that—"
"She won't." The conviction in his voice is absolute. "Give it time. Proximity, the bonds reinforcing, showing her what we should have shown her from the beginning? She'll stay."
I'm not so sure, but I don't voice my doubts. Right now, he needs hope more than reality. And maybe, just maybe, if we can show her who we really are instead of the monsters we pretended to be, she might find something worth staying for.
"Get some rest," I tell him again. "I'll talk to Corvus in the morning about logistics."
"Oak?" He calls as I'm leaving. "Thank you. For everything. For letting me knot you even though it's not... even though you're not what my body actually needs."
"I'll never give up on you," I say, and mean it. "That's the problem."
Back in my own room, I can still feel the phantom stretch of his knot, my body sore in that familiar way. I stare at the ceiling and try to reconcile what we're planning to do.
Kidnapping. That's what it is, no matter how we justify it.
We're going to take an omega who rejected us, hold her captive, and hope that proximity breaks down her resistance.
Every ethical bone in my body screams this is wrong.
But watching Dorian destroy himself, feeling the pack bonds weaken until they snap, losing everything we've built together—that feels worse.
We've got time. Time to either fix this or destroy it completely.
Either way, at least the waiting will be over.
four
Vespera
I'meightyearsoldagain, standing in the wings of Franklin Community Theater, my red dress itching where Mom safety-pinned the hem an hour before curtain.
"You're going to be amazing, little star," she whispers, her jasmine perfume wrapping around me like armor. Her hands smooth my unruly hair one more time—I notice they're shaking slightly, the way they've been shaking a lot lately. Her omega scent calm and steady despite the chaos backstage, though there's something underneath it I don't have words for yet. Something that smells like sadness. "Remember what we practiced. Big breath, chin up, and sing like you're telling the whole world a secret."
She winces, her hand going to her neck for just a second before she catches herself. I've seen her do that more and more—touch her neck like something hurts there, though she always smiles and says it's nothing when I ask.
The lights beyond the curtain glow like magic. The audience settling, programs rustling, whispers dying down. Three hundred people out there, and I'm about to walk onto that stage and sing "Tomorrow" like my life depends on it.
"But what if I forget the words?" My eight-year-old self asks, even though I know them backward and forward, even though I've been singing them in my sleep.
"Then you make new ones up," Mom says, her green eyes—exactly like mine—sparkling with mischief. "The audience doesn't know what Annie's supposed to sing. They only know what you choose to give them."
The stage manager calls places, and Mom gives me one last hug. "Own that stage, Vespera. It's yours the moment you step onto it."
I walk out, the lights blinding, the audience a breathing darkness beyond the footlights. The music starts, and I open my mouth to sing—
But what comes out is a scream, because I'm not eight anymore. I'm eighteen and burning with fever, and Mom's been gone for years, and my throat bears the marks of Alphas who think they own me. The red dress becomes blood on my hands from clawing at Dorian's face. The audience becomes three sets of golden eyes, watching, waiting, hunting.
