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Mine.

Not neutral. Not bland.

Not the quiet, invisible nothing I’ve spent half my adult life perfecting.

This is sharp and heady, honeyed and wild.

Thick with nerves and something worse.

Need.

Dark and syrupy and absolutelyscreamingomega.

There’s no hiding it. No turning this off, no shutting it down in time.

I’m exposed and unmasked; and not just in front of four very different, veryalphaproblems - but in a ballroom that contains the Omega Management Board.

Fuck.

I am one breath, one step, one flicker of recognition away from becoming a case file, a cautionary tale -

A friggingheadline.

Happy-fucking-birthday to me.

My pulse slams behind my ribs, relentless and aggressively unhelpful.

A drumbeat ofwrong, wrong, abort mission, wrong.

The sound of the room warps around me. Laughter turns into static. The scent-neutralizers start wheezing.

The ceiling tilts. The lights go full interrogation mode. Shadows stretch across the floor like they’ve got beef with me personally.

“You sure you’re okay?” Theo's voice comes again, cutting through the sensory overload.

I try to respond. I do.

But before I can summon a single syllable, it happens.

A ripple slices through the air.

Conversations stutter. Laughter glitches.

Heads turn. Noses twitch.

And somewhere nearby, someone inhales audibly; sharp and startled, like their instincts just slapped them across the face.

Lucian moves first, slow and deliberate - the kind of slow that makes your skin crawl, because it means the predator isn’t in a hurry.

He looks at me -really looks.

Gray eyes glinting with something cold and unbothered.

The kind of gaze that saysI could kill you, or I could buy you. Depends on my mood.

A predator recognizing opportunity.

Kai follows.

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