I thought we would be together forever…

It was the truth I’d been running from since the moment Knox had brought me to this place: a missing piece the torn up plushie wasn’t strong enough to mask.

I was alone.

He wasn’t coming back.

Bunny was never coming back.

The storm was all a lie.

“I’m all out of patience, slut,” the Alpha growled above me. “My Omega wants a show. You’re going to give her one.”

I grit my teeth, trying to sort my brain out. His hand closed around my thigh, a punishing promise, his weight crushing me and easily pushing back the silk gown. But even this horrible heat wasn’t enough to make it feel right.

It doesn’t matter, Bunny…

But Bunny was gone.

I shoved back a sob, nails digging into his flesh as his weight crushed me.

It didn't matter what he did. I was one of those kinds of Omegas, anyway, left behind by anyone who should care.

Nothing had changed.

And if it mattered, I was soft, and soft things could be torn up as easily as Bunny had been.

But… I don’t think I’d ever stitched myself back up from the last time.

Knox was gonna see…

Maybe he’d realise, at last, how worthless I was.

That I was all paperclips and runny glue, and now Bunny wasn’t coming back and my pieces were all falling to the floor around me.

Ace had left me—bitten me and told me he didn’t want me. For an endless agony, I thought it was all over.

Untilshereturned.

Somehow, Glade had beaten him, and when she had, she had thought of me.

In my room, upon my bed she’d left my Alpha.

My Ace.

Still.

Immobile.

Drugged and trapped.

I’d entered my room to find him, the traces of her scent, dark cream cardamom, lingering in the air. She’d carved the symbol for an Omega into his back, fresh and glistening blood: a clear signal.

A gift for me.

He was mine.

That was a fate he’d never escape.