"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I can't—I can't do this."
Then I run. My feet carry me down the sidewalk, weaving between startled pedestrians, moving faster than I've moved in years. Behind me, I hear him call out—a wordless sound of confusion and loss—but I don't look back. Can't look back. If I look back, I'll stop. If I stop, the bond will win.
I will not be my mother. I will not drown. My mark throbs with every step, the newly colored flower burning against my skin like a reminder of what just happened, what I just fled from. I press my hand against it as I run.
I don't slow down until I reach my studio building, punching in my code with shaking fingers and slamming through the door like something's chasing me. The stairs blur beneath my feet, three flights passing in a heartbeat, and then I'm at my apartment door, fumbling with the lock, finally spilling inside and slamming it shut behind me.
I collapse against the door, sliding down until I'm sitting on the cold floor, knees drawn to my chest, breath coming in ragged gasps.
The mark pulses.
One flower bloomed. Four still gray.
One soulmate found. Four still waiting.
Somewhere in the city behind me, a man I just ran from is probably standing on that sidewalk, hand pressed to his own mark, wondering why his soulmate fled like he was something to be afraid of. He's not something to be afraid of, I think, and then immediately: Yes, he is. He's the beginning of the end. The first step on a path that leads to either consumption or destruction.
My mother's voice echoes in my memory, weak and fading: "Love leaves its mark, baby. One way or another."
She was right. I just wish she'd told me how much it would hurt.
Chapter Four
KEIRA
I don't remember the walk home.
One moment I was running, feet pounding against pavement, lungs burning, the ghost of sunshine and citrus clinging to my skin like a brand, and the next I was fumbling with my apartment keys, hands shaking so badly it took three tries to get the door open. I stumbled inside and slammed it behind me, pressing my back against the solid wood like it could protect me from what had just happened. Like it could protect me from him.
My legs gave out.
I slid down the door until I was sitting on the cold floor of my entryway, knees drawn up to my chest, trying to remember how to breathe. The teal strands of hair that framed my face fell forward, mixing with the black in a curtain that hid my expression from no one. I was alone, after all. I was always alone.
That's what I wanted, I reminded myself viciously. Safe. Small. Invisible.
I didn't feel invisible anymore.
I felt seen.
The bond pulsed beneath my skin, warm and insistent, like a second heartbeat that had taken up residence in my chest without permission. It wanted something. It wanted him. The alpha with the platinum blonde hair that glowed like white-gold in the afternoon light. The one with the smile that could stop traffic and eyes that sparkled with warmth even behind his disguise. The one whose scent had wrapped around me like an embrace I never asked for.
Go back.
The thought rose up from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere ancient and instinctive and terrifyingly other.
Find him. Let him hold us. He smelled so good. Like sunshine and citrus. Like summer. Like?—
"No." The word came out broken, barely a whisper. "No, no, no."
I knew what that voice was. I'd spent seven years suppressing it, drowning it in medication and willpower and sheer stubborn denial. My omega, the part of my biology that I'd never wanted, never asked for, that had felt like a curse from the moment I'd presented at sixteen and understood what it meant.
It meant I was soft. Vulnerable. Needy. It meant I was like my mother… and my mother had died.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars, trying to push the omega voice back into the cage where it belonged. But… she wouldn't go. For the first time in years, she was awake, truly awake, and she was pressing against the walls I'd built like a wild thing testing the bars of its prison.
Alpha, she crooned inside my mind.Our alpha. So bright. So warm. His smile was like the sun breaking through clouds. Did you see how he looked at us? Like we were everything. Like we were?—
"He's not ours." I said it out loud, my voice echoing in the empty apartment. "He's not anything."
