But it’s not smooth.
I press down, and a jolt of sensitivity zings down my arm. Under the bandage, the skin feels rigid. Raised. The texture isdistinct—a perfect, jagged ring of puncture marks that haven't flattened out. They feel hard, like welts. Like a brand.
A cold drop of sweat slides down my temple.
My fingers tremble as I hook a nail under the edge of the waterproof bandage.Don’t look. Just leave it.
I rip it off.
The sound is loud in the tiled room. I twist my neck, straining to see the reflection in the mirror, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush.
It’s not healing.
The bite isn't an angry purple anymore. It’s turning a silvery, pearlescent white. It’s scarring over, but not in the messy, chaotic way of an injury. It looks deliberate. The teeth marks are defined, raised against my tan skin like a relief map. It looks ancient. It looks permanent.
My brain stops. The world tilts on its axis.
I stare at the mark, and the pieces of the last hour—the last three days—start to slam into place with the force of a car crash.
Piece one:The girls. The omegas. Their scent didn't just smell bad; it made me physically ill. My body rejected it like a bad organ transplant. It treated their pheromones like a foreign contaminant.
Piece two:The guy in the leather jacket. An Alpha. His scent didn't make me aggressive. It didn't make me want to fight. It made me... receptive. It soothed the nausea.
Piece three:The bite. The knot.
The blood drains from my face so fast I actually get dizzy. I clutch the sink to keep from hitting the floor.
"No," I whisper. The word sounds small, terrified. "No, no, no. That’s impossible."
Bites don't scar like this. Not on Alphas. We fight, we bite, we heal. It’s just roughhousing. It’s just dominance.
Unless...
Unless there was a knot involved. Unless there was a biological override. Unless the pheromone compatibility was so high, so catastrophic, that the bite didn't just break skin—it broke the code.
A bond.
The term floats up from the depths of my high school biology class, a concept I always ignored because it didn't apply to me. Bonds are for Alphas and Omegas. Bonds are for soulmates and romance novels. Bonds are what happen when you find your "perfect match" and lock it down.
You don't bond with your rival. You don't bond with a guy you were trying to beat up. You definitely, absolutely do not bond with another Dominant Alpha.
But the evidence is stamped right there on my shoulder.
I didn't just get fucked. I gotclaimed.
My body isn't rejecting the omegas because I ate bad shrimp. It’s rejecting them because it thinks I’m taken. It thinks I belong to someone else. My biology has re-wired itself to recognize only one specific scent signature as acceptable, and everything else is just noise.
Winter air. Ink. Ginseng.
"Oh my god," I choke out, staring at my reflection with wide, horrified eyes.
I’m bonded.
I am biologically, chemically, and permanently tethered to Kang Donghwa.
The freshman. The guy who wears turtlenecks and looks at me like I’m a particularly noisy insect. The guy I swore to destroy.
I’m not just his rival anymore. I’m his... what? His mate?
