Page 235 of Unhinged Omega

"Sorry," he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. "Old habits."

"It's fine." I sit up, brushing invisible dust from my clothes with practiced nonchalance, as if my pulse isn't still racing, as if my skin doesn't still burn where he touched me. "Your fever broke. Looks like you'll live after all."

I try for ambivalence but miss by a mile. The relief in my voice is painfully obvious, even to my own ears.

"How long have you been here?" Nikolai asks, his voice rough from disuse. He's eyeing me with that penetrating gaze that always made me feel like he could see right through every wall I ever built.

"An hour or so." The lie slips out smoothly. "Figured someone should be around to call the coroner if you died. Geo would throw a fit if there was a corpse in his bed for long."

Nikolai's lips twist into a humorless smile. "Bullshit."

"Excuse me?"

"You've been here every time I've surfaced. Talking to that doctor. Keeping watch." His eyes narrow. "Why?"

I look away, unwilling to meet his gaze. "Don't flatter yourself, Vlakov. I was bored."

"Since when do you run out of ways to entertain yourself?" he presses. "You could be out there chasing our omega, but instead, you're sitting in a dark room watching me sleep like some kind of guardian angel."

The casual acknowledgment—ouromega—at once makes my heart flutter and my teeth grind. He's always been a possessive son of a bitch, and that's exactly the kind of thing that's going to send Cosima running for the hills sooner than later. I turn back to him, forcing a smile that doesn't reach my eyes.

"Maybe I just wanted to make sure you didn't die before I got the chance to kill you myself."

It's a weak deflection, and we both know it. But I can't let myself be vulnerable around him. Not again. I've made that mistake too many times—too recently, to my unending shame—and all it's ever earned me is heartbreak.

"Where is she?" Nikolai asks suddenly, his tone shifting to something almost panicked. "Cosima—where?—"

"Calm down," I cut him off. "She's still here. For now."

His shoulders slump with visible relief, but it's short lived. It doesn’t last. "For now? What does that mean?"

"It means she's agreed to stay for forty-eight hours while I gather information on her Surhiiran alpha. After that, she's leaving, with or without what she came for." I shrug as if it doesn't matter to me either way. Another lie. "That was our deal."

"You can't let her leave," Nikolai says, struggling to sit up. "It's not safe out there, especially not with an eight-foot-plus hell monster that could turn on her any second."

I bark out a laugh. "Oh, that's rich coming from you. What's your plan? Lock her in a tower again? Chain her up?"

"Don't be dramatic. I'm talking about protection?—"

"That's always the answer with you, isn't it?" Something inside me snaps, years of buried resentment bubbling to the surface. "A cage? You think that'll work with her any more than it did with me?"

His eyes flash dangerously. "That was different."

"Was it?" I move closer, beyond caring if I'm poking the bear. "You told me it was for my own good, too. That you wereprotectingme. But we both know what it was really about. Control. You couldn't stand the thought of me making my own choices, having my own life."

"That's not?—"

"Not what?" I snarl. "Not the same? Because it looks pretty fucking identical from where I'm standing. You see something you want, and you try to own it. Possess it. Like it's your gods-given right."

Nikolai's face darkens. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?" I laugh again, the sound bitter even to my own ears. "I know you better than anyone, Nikolai. Better than youknow yourself, apparently. Because you still haven't learned that you can't cage something and expect it to love you."

Even ifIwas stupid enough to.

But Cosima is different.

He's going to learn that the hard way.

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