It doesn't work. I've seen scarier things. I've survived scarier things.
I've made coffee for scarier things at 6 AM before said scary things have had their first caffeine fix.
Tank before coffee is genuinely terrifying.
Then his hand is around my throat.
The pressure isn't immediate—it builds, slow and deliberate, his fingers pressing into the soft tissue just enough to make breathing a conscious effort. His scent overwhelms me now, cedar and bergamot gone sharp with dominance, trying to force submission through proximity alone.
It's thick and cloying, nothing like the scents I've grown to crave, to find safety in.
Nothing like smoked leather and amber.
Or like bergamot and sage.
I can’t dare forget my patchouli and vanilla.
Cute.
He thinks he can break me with a chokehold.
Like he didn't try for three years and fail. He’s clearly forgotten how I have built myself back up from the ashes he left behind.
I simply grin.
It's the smile that makes murderers look sane by comparison, all teeth and zero warmth. The expression of a smile that says, "I've already won, you just don't know it yet." This look has gotten me through society galas and family dinners.
Three years of pretending everything was fine…
I know it infuriates him.
That was always my superpower—finding exactly where to press to make him lose that precious control he guards so precariously.
We're locked in a staring match, his dark eyes boring into my hazel ones, and I refuse to blink even as my vision starts to sparkle at the edges. Stars bloom in my periphery, dancing like fireflies made of oxygen deprivation and spite.
This is fine.
I've survived worse.
I'll survive this...
Tank will come.
Elias will follow.
Julian wouldn’t dare to be left behind.
They’re the first pack who’ve proven to me that real Alphas do show up for those they love…and oddly enough, despite the pain these men before me have delivered in the past, I dare to be hopeful that the new set of men that have made these last 6 weeks the most wild fruitful rollercoaster of love, passion, and lust will stick to their words and actions.
That they’ll pull through yet again…
The room is tilting now, my lungs burning for air they can't quite catch. Black spots join the stars in my vision. Cadensays something in the background—Damien's name, a plea, something I can't quite make out over the rushing in my ears.
Finally, Damien makes a sound of disgust, a sharptskthat I feel as much as hear. His hand releases, and suddenly, there's blessed, beautifulairflooding my lungs.
I cough. Gasp. Wheeze in the most undignified way possible, doubling over as much as my restraints allow while my body remembers how breathing works. My throat burns, raw and abused, and I can already feel the bruises forming.
Glamorous. This is definitely how the night was supposed to go. Eating chocolate-covered strawberries and letting my Alphas worship every inch of skin…not wheezing in a warehouse like an asthmatic Victorian waif.
