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“Your pupils are gone, babe.” She squints. “And your thighs are doing something...weird.It's like you’re trying to hold in the apocalypse, or something.”

“I think I am,” I croak.

Kai takes another step forward, and I snarl; a low, unfamiliar sound that comes from low in my belly and surprises myselfandLexi.

“Easy, now,” Kai murmurs, eyes raking over me like I’m already on my knees. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lexi snaps, positioning herself between us with all the effectiveness of a sequined sandbag. “You take one more step and I will break you with my eyelash curler.”

Kai blinks. “...Do you carry that around?”

“I’m a woman at a gala. I carryeverything.”

Meanwhile, my teeth are grinding so hard I’m amazed they haven’t turned into glitter, my whole body tight and vibrating.

But I will not surrender. I will not submit.

I will not let Kai hot-gremlin Reed smirk me into a puddle.

“Shit,” Kai says, voice low, eyes gleaming. His boots echo against the floor, and I flinch at the sound. “You’re shaking.”

“No, she’s vibrating,” Lexi mutters, then waves a hand. “Omega buffering. Or rage. Honestly, it’s fifty-fifty.”

I clamp my thighs together like they’re guarding the crown jewels, but the heat pulses low and deep anyway. My skin is slick, my breath short, and Kai iswaytoo into it.

“Those eyes,” he muses, head tilted like I’m a fun science experiment. “All wide and wild. You always look like that when you panic? Or is it just me?”

“She always looks like that when she’s near cats,” Lexi offers helpfully. “Also traffic. And commitment.”

“I’ll add myself to the list, then,” Kai says, grin lazy. “Definitely the dangerous one.”

I want to tell him to shut up. I want tomove.

But my mouth is too dry, and my brain has packed a bag and left me alone with nothing but instinct and Lexi’s emotional support chaos.

“Bambi,” Kai says softly, eyes gleaming with something sharp and smug. “That’s what you are. All legs and fear and big, wide eyes.”

The word sticks like a burr under my skin.

“Are you nicknaming her while she’s going feral?” Lexi chokes. “Are you trying to imprint on her, or something?”

Before I can process that or fire back with something scathing, Kai reaches out and cups my chin.

His touch is rough and calloused, and it detonates under my skin.

I freeze.

First touch.Firstalphatouch.

The air is gone. My knees threaten mutiny as the heat snarls inside me, and Lexi stands frozen in place, clearly torn at what to do.

Kai tilts my chin up, forcing me to look straight into blue eyes, noting the way that they glint with amusement and hunger.

"Pretty little thing," he murmurs. "Bet you don’t even know how sweet you smell right now."

My stomach twists - panic and something darker coiling low.

Behind us, Lucian growls.

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