Every word carved deeper.Elizabeth drove her nails into flesh until pain bloomed.Netherfield shrank into the distance.How desperately she wished to correct them—Darcy was everything good, everything honorable, everything kind.Instead she sat mute, suffering through each false accusation.
Soon, Elizabeth was staring at the worn coverlet on her childhood bed.The room felt smaller than she remembered, its faded wallpaper closing in like a cage.But a cage meant safety now—safety from herself, from what she'd become, from the shame that clung to her skin despite scrubbing herself raw in the copper tub.
"For your own protection," Papa had said, turning the key in the lock.The click echoed like a judgment.
She'd nodded, grateful for the excuse to hide.
The first hours passed peacefully enough.Elizabeth forced herself to eat the cold meat and bread Hill left outside her door, though every bite tasted like ash.She picked at the pages ofMansfield's Guide to Omega Physiology, a slim volume her father had procured from somewhere.
The omega's heat follows the moon's pull, typically lasting three to five days during first presentation...
Three to five days.This was day four.Soon it would end.Soon she could pretend those nights at Netherfield never happened.
She wouldn't think about dark chocolate and autumn leaves.Wouldn't remember gentle hands and desperate control.Wouldn't—
The book slipped from her fingers as afternoon shadows lengthened across the floor.That familiar ache began low in her belly, spreading like spilled ink through her limbs.No.Not yet.She had hours before sundown, before—
But her body knew better.The moon pulled at her blood like the tide, and she was drowning.
When the sun touched the horizon, Elizabeth pressed her face into her pillow to muffle her sobs.This was worse—so much worse—than anything at Netherfield.Her body remembered his touch with vicious clarity.Every nerve screamed for what it had tasted and lost.She clawed at the sheets, at her own skin, trying to find some echo of relief.
Nothing helped.Nothing could help.Not without—
Better this way,she told herself through gritted teeth.Better to burn alone than destroy him.
Because that's what she'd done, wasn't it?Forced a good man to compromise his principles.Made him touch her when duty alone compelled him.She'd begged—God, she'd actually begged—for his bite, his claim.As if Fitzwilliam Darcy would ever willingly bind himself to a nobody from Hertfordshire who'd rejected him, insulted him, then thrown herself at him in heat like some common—
The thought cut off as another wave crashed over her.She bit her hand to keep from screaming.
Hours bled together.Time lost meaning beyond the rhythm of need and denial, fever and brief respite.When dawn came, Elizabeth lay limp as wet paper, barely able to lift her head when Hill knocked with breakfast.
Day five arrived with cruel mockery.The primer said her heat should be ending.Her body disagreed.She dozed fitfully through the afternoon, too exhausted to read, too uncomfortable to properly sleep.Every time she closed her eyes, she felt phantom touches—his hands on her throat, his mouth on her skin, his weight pressing her into expensive sheets that smelled like him.
At least he was free.Whatever gossip Caroline spread, whatever speculation arose from their sudden departure, Darcy's reputation would survive intact.No one would ever know how she'd degraded herself, degraded him.He could marry some proper omega who wouldn't assault his control, who wouldn't make him hate himself for helping her.
She was contemplating whether she could manage to read when voices erupted downstairs.The front door, raised voices, her mother's shrill protests mixing with—
Jane.
Elizabeth forced herself upright as footsteps approached up the stairs.The lock clicked, and Jane eased through the doorway.
"Oh, Lizzy."Jane's gaze swept the disordered room—the twisted sheets, the untouched breakfast tray, the primer fallen beneath the bed.She crossed to Elizabeth in three quick strides, settling beside her on the mattress."My dear, how are you managing?What can I do?"
"Seeing you helps immensely," Elizabeth said, forcing a smile.
Jane wasn't convinced."Tell me really—how is it?"
The gentle concern in Jane's voice nearly undid her.Elizabeth's forced smile crumbled, and she turned her face into her sister's shoulder, breathing in that familiar scent of berries and maple that had surrounded her since childhood.How many times had Jane held her like this?After scraped knees, after arguments with Mama, after disappointments both small and large?
"It's bearable," Elizabeth whispered against Jane's sleeve."It should end soon."
Jane's arms tightened around her."That's not what I asked."
Elizabeth pulled back, meeting those kind blue eyes that never held judgment, never held censure.The guilt rose thick in her throat.
"Jane, I—" Her voice cracked."I've behaved so abominably.Under your roof.During your first days as mistress of Netherfield."
"Whatever do you mean?"
