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Apparently, she doesn’t feel great about it, either.

“We agreed on Dr. Trinity. Let me know if she comes back,” Aurora says, and I can tell she’s doing her best to sound authoritative.

A large man steps seemingly out of nowhere the moment Aurora moves for the door, crossing his arms and shaking his head. This man is an alpha, and I feel the rush of my biology urging me to obey.

He’s trying to compel us.

Anger and fury rise up following that feeling, and I allow them to take hold, hoping it will keep him from influencing me at all. Aurora also stays standing tall, not letting the man intimidate her at all. It feels good to stand up to an alpha.

Just like I stood up to Augustus.

Despite everything, I have the stupid, weak thought that I wish he was here with me right now. That he could stand even taller than this other alpha, show him how it feels to be compelled. What it’s like to have someone bigger and stronger try to make you feel unsafe.

“Move,” Aurora says, jutting out her jaw and taking another step toward the man, though it’s clear that even together, she and I would not be able to make him budge. “Right now.”

“Don’t think so,” the man at the door says.

The “doctor” moves to the side, holding his hand out again. “Don’t be fickle. I can do the operation just as well as Trinity, if not better. Give me the money like we agreed—I’m not losing out because I blocked out time for this and turned down other customers.”

“Do you know my connection to the king?” Aurora seethes, and my blood turns cold.

I imagine operating under a code name had something to do with them not knowing who she was. If she’s willing to admit Augustus is her brother now, then we must really be in trouble.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the doctor says, grinning as the man at the door lunges forward and grabs Aurora, yanking her hand from her pocket so a stack of folded bills falls to the floor.

I twitch to pick it up, to protect her money, but the doctor is faster, pushing me to the side and scooping the bills up off the floor.

Aurora screams, kicking out at the big man, and two more of them enter the room.

We were outnumbered before. Now, it feels like drowning, turning and looking at them, crowding in. Realizing what a mistake it was to come here at all.

“Take her into the operating room,” the Beta says, as he counts the bills. “Strap her down—I hate when they fight.”

My mouth fills with battery acid. I try to scream as two beefy betas grab me, but one of them claps a hand over my mouth. It’s just like the night I was kidnapped all over again.

“Stop!” Aurora gets free from the man at the door for a second—honestly, an amazing feat—and screams, “You have your money! You don’t have to do the operation! Just let us go!”

The “doctor” pauses, readjusting his gloves, snapping them as he sets the money down on the table. Finally, he says, “Nah. I need the practice.”

I scream against the hand over my mouth as I’m lifted off my feet and carried into a different room. The smell of blood gets stronger, and I try to reach for the doorway, try to do anything to delay the inevitable. The men carrying me nearly break my arm, so I let go, crying out, tears already running down my face.

He needs the practice.

Why would a doctor “better than Trinity” need the practice?

I continue crying as they force me down onto a table, pulling a thick leather strap over my chest, then two more over my wrists. I thrash and wiggle, nearly kicking one of them as they force my legs into stirrups.

Once I’m in, I can’t move at all. Not even to rock the table—which must be bolted to the ground. Which means they’ve done this before, strapping an omega down like this.

“Don’t cry,” the beta says, walking in with the same gloves and—now that we’re in better light, I can see—blood-spattered white coat. He sits down on a rolling stool and smiles at me, rolling right up between my legs like I’m not sobbing. “This is what you wanted, remember? You didn’t want a heat. I’ll make sure you never have one again.”

“No, no, that’s not—” I start to scream, to cry, when he reaches up to grab the hem of my dress, pulling it up hard enough that I hear a few of the seams pop. One of the men who strapped me down onto the table slaps his hand over my mouth roughly, so I bite my tongue.

The tears are hot and fast.

Maybe this will just kill me, and I can be done with the whole thing. Maybe the operation will go badly, and I’ll lose a lot of blood, and I won’t have to go through this anymore.

Living as an omega. Being manhandled and pushed around and forced to places I don’t want to go. Locked into rooms and strapped down onto tables and tied up with weights.