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But the bond tightens, like someone’s yanking a leash I didn’t agree to wear, like a fishhook dragging through bone.
I’m not crying. I want to make that clear. I am not sobbing in the dark like some emotionally fragile paperback omega.
I amlivid. I am vibrating with rage. I am sweating pure spite.
“You don’t get todo this to me!”I shout it at the ceiling, the wall, the universe. “You don’t get to fuck me and then reject me like it was a clerical error!”
The bond pulses.
I pulse.
Everythingpulses.
I punch a pillow, which is mostly unsatisfying. It makes a weakpoofnoise, like even the furniture is too emotionally exhausted to argue.
I don’t even realize I’m reaching for him through the bond until Ifeel it- that thread tighten, react.
“You chose this!” I yell, loud enough that if the security system is still working, someone’s probably watching this on a silent camera feed while eating popcorn. “Youchose me! Youbondedme! You did it with full knowledge, and now you wanna pretend like that wasn’t real?!”
The scream goes deeper this time, not through my throat, but through somethingolder. More feral.
“How dare you. How fuckingdareyou.”
I’m not some broken thing wailing in the dark.
I’m on fire, andhelit the match.
I claw at the bond like it’s something I can rip out with my bare hands, but it holds fast.
And then, it yanks.
Hard.
Not kindly. Not with apology, either.
I double over like someone punched me in the ovaries. It’s not heat. It’s not lust. It’s compulsion. Raw, ancient, and completely unfair. It isn’t a gentle call. It’s a demand.
It’s Lucian Vale being exactly who he is: power and ego and control and all-consuming alpha need, apparently rearranging the world just to tilt me toward him.
“No,” I hiss out loud, as if he can hear me. And who knows - maybe he can. “No - fuck you. I’m not coming.”
But my legs move.
One step. Then another.
“I’m not coming!” I repeat as I stomp toward the door - already coming. “This is just a casual walk. I am coincidentally walking in your direction withnoemotional relevance at all!”
I grip the doorframe, panting as I try to ground myself. My whole body is humming now, desperate and wired andachingin the worst way.
Not with want. Withrage. With betrayal.
With...him.
I swing into the hallway, bare feet slapping tile, muttering curses like I’m possessed. The house layout makes no sense, but I don’t even hesitate. I just move, because the bond knows. My blood knows.
My whole dumb, traitorous body knows.
The bond doesn’t tug - itdrags. I try to hold on to anger, to hate. I reach for it like armor, but it slips through my hands, drowned out by something primal and wrong and too deep for me to fight against.
