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And I wanted the rest.

I brought the blade down again. And again. Everywhere I could reach. Red splashed across my face and painted the screens, streaking across a dozen glowing images of my kitchen. Rhett’s screams turned to gurgles. His bloodshot eye bulged down at me as his stumps bumped uselessly against his chest and throat, trying to stop the bleeding with hands he didn’t have.

Blood spilled from his mouth and dripped off his chin.

He tipped forward and I didn’t move to catch him. I shoved him aside, and he hit the floor and rolled onto his back, the chain rattling by his head. His eye was wild as he made incoherent noises. I watched the pool beneath him spread wider with every second.

Footsteps came up behind me.

I waited for the panic to set in, but it never came.

A rough hand cupped my cheek.

I should’ve been afraid. I should’ve screamed and shoved him aside, not leaned into it.

I’d just killed a man.

Before I could start spiraling over what I’d done, over prison time, warmth wrapped around my hand. My fingers were still locked on the knife, and they were trembling. Not from fear or because I was alone with a masked man in a room full of screens. Because blood was dripping off the blade, and I liked it.

He tugged, and I didn’t fight him—I let it go. He set it on the desk. Then his hands moved to my waist, and a shudder ripped through me.

The heat came roaring back so hard I gasped, my belly clenching, fever rolling out from my core with a vengeance. My heart pounded double time, and every inch of skin ached to be touched.

It didn’t matter that this was the wrong time and place.

My Omega didn’t care.

She—I felt more like myself than I had in a long time. For once, our thoughts, our instincts were one. I wasn’t fighting her anymore.

He drew me toward him, and I resisted. Instead, I grabbed his arm and pulled him down. I wasn’t strong enough to move him—no Omega could overpower an Alpha—but he dropped to his knees anyway, right into the blood.

Now that I wanted him to touch me, he didn’t. He was so dang still I wondered if he was even breathing.

He was waiting. For me.

Proving, once again, that he wasn’t like Rhett.

I’d just killed a man, and even though this was all backwards, all I could think about was the man in front of me.

I felt delirious. I had to be.

Because I didn’t just want him to touch me—I needed him to take me.

I needed him to erase Rhett’s touch from my body.

I had to stop being the girl things happened to.

I had to become the one who chose.

And Ghost would let me.

I grabbed the hem of his shirt with bloody hands and dragged it up. He lifted his arms, and I pulled it over his head and threw it.

My breath caught.

Ink everywhere. Broad shoulders, chest and abs carved by the gods. And there, over his heart, a wolf with a lamb cradled in its jaws. Beneath it, two letters.

Ru.