Page 119 of Psycho Alphas: Part One

None of this was adding up. Thatwasn’thow biology worked. Yet… it wasn’t impossible. There were drugs that could induce heats, make them stronger or worse. I’d seen them abused within the trafficking ring more than once. “They’d give you injections after you misbehaved?”

She shrugged. “I think they were scared of my instincts.”

“And then you’d go into heat?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose, acting.“Every time you fuck up, you go into heat again.Youknow, little whore, this is all you’re good for…”She trailed off, though, eyes darting up to me quickly, brows drawn as she considered what I’d just said properly. “I…” She didn’t look sure though, and I could practically see her running back over what she thought she knew. She might be a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but she was far from stupid.

A protective rumble of a purr rolled through my chest as I held her against me, lifting the pad and pressing the pencil into her hand. “Keep going, Doll, it’s just starting to come together,” I told her.

Her body relaxed and trembling fingers shook graphite along the sky of the craggy landscape she was shading. “I don’t…” Her voice was shaky. “I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

My heart cracked in two at the edge of panic in her moonflower scent as she so clearly tried not to connect the dots I’d just laid before her. “We don’t have to,” I said quietly.

I was trying to keep my distance so I wouldn’t lose every last brain cell, but now I felt like shit.

She’d had enough Alphas in her life mistreating her, lying, or withdrawing affection as a form of punishment. I never wanted to leave her alone for another night of her life.

And that was the most frightening thing I’d ever considered, because a thousand promises I couldn’t keep kept trying to fight their way to my lips.

“I’m not sure why things are different now,” she said, pulling me from my thoughts.

“What things?”

“I don’t know. Like… maybe after Ace, I’m not the same kind of Omega as I used to be. You didn’t even notice.”

I refrained, again, from saying that might be because it was a lie told by a cowardly Alpha whose only way to feel strong was to make her small.

She shrugged, glancing up at me with a shifty look. “You’re different.”

“How?”

“You don’t want what other Alphas want.”

“I don’t?” I thought to every encounter I’d had with her.

She shook her head, continuing on with her drawing. “Don’t you know that?”

I felt a stiff smile on my face. “Always been odd.”

I thought back to our first night together, and how it had blindsided her. To the constant instincts that had warned me from claiming her fully. One last thing I could have taken—wantedto take, and hadn’t.

It had turned to dust since she’d chained me up, mounted me, and fucked me like she had, but then… maybe that was the point.

She’d claimed that, not me.

And suddenly, the meaning of it changed.

That offer of claim amidst the razor-sharp brutality she’d been subjected to since she’d arrived was not only a miracle onits own merit, but a bud of green in a wasteland that stretched far further than even I’d known.

She’d offered me trust in a world that had turned its back on her.

Ace—her ownscent matchhad turned his back on her.

This, I realised, was everything I’d wanted. I’d played the game I’d set out to win, and now I had.

This Omega curled up in my arms, trusted me—and that made her easy to break. There were a thousand ways, now, to deliver Rogue a death blow.

And yet the thought of doing that made it feel like someone had just pressed hot coals into my chest.

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