Page 222 of Unmarked

Ifeel it snap into place like a gunshot in my chest.

Kai’s knot, locking inside her.

And just like that, my brain short-circuits intorage.exe.

I see red. Not poetic red, butliteralred. Blood-in-the-eyes, furniture-smashing,someone’s-about-to-diered.

My pulse is thunder. My jaw is doing its best impression of a hydraulic press. I don’t just feel the bond; I feel it screaming, stretching, warping like someone’s dragging it over broken glass while Kai moans into her cunt like he’s hosting a goddamn spiritual retreat.

I don’t move. Because if I move, I will absolutely kill something. And unfortunately, this house is full of things I’m technically not allowed to kill.

Yet.

Her moans hit next - not hazy with heat, not dimmed by instinct, but clear and sharp, aimed like a dagger straight through the middle of my goddamn restraint.

She's enjoying it. Reveling in it. Coming on his knot like she was made for him, like she isn’t mine first. Mine foremost.

Mine always.

My fist slams into the wall so hard the drywall splits like cheap icing. A crater blooms. Dust falls like confetti.

I don’t even flinch.

Theo’s going to ask if I need a meditation app again.

I stand there, shoulders squared, chest heaving, trying not to commit an actual felony as Kai grunts and groans and fills her with every fucking drop of alpha bravado he owns. It's not jealousy. It's not insecurity. It’s something deeper.Older.

It’smine, echoing through the hollow of my ribs like a war drum.

It’s instinct pulling me toward her while pride roots me to the spot.

This is what I agreed to. This is what Iallowed.

Lucian Vale: proud, composed, borderline sociopathic executive of his own emotions.

Lucian Vale: now reduced to drywall abuse and standing in the hallway like a rejected prom date.

I rake a hand through my hair. No. No, no,no.This isn’t a breakdown. This is a pause. A controlled recalibration.

I’m not pacing. I’m...assessing.

Because I don’t break. I don’t beg.

And I sure as hell don’t lose.

The bond pulses again - hot, slick, filthy - and my whole spine locks up like I’ve taken a bullet to the chest. The electric crack of her pleasure arcs straight through me, so visceral it’s like I’m the one inside her.

Like it’smyknot stretching her open,mycock anchoring her in place.

The omega I bonded is currently giggling her way through an orgasm with another alpha’s cock locked inside her, and I am pacing the floor, covered in drywall dust with blood on my knuckles.

Like a metaphor for male failure.

FuckingKai. Fucking reckless, grinning, disaster of an alpha.

I should be the one making her scream, not that himbo chaos goblin who thinks leather pants count as a personality. I should rip his throat out. Tear him limb from limb until the house reeks of blood instead of slick.

I punch the wall again. It caves in.

---