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My inner walls pulse around Orien’s length, and he shudders in response, his hands gripping my hips hard to hold me still through our release.

When the last pulse fades, I remain seated on his cock, breathing hard, sweat cooling on my back. My thighs ache, the inside of them slick and tender, and the fresh Mark throbs at the nape of my neck.

Orien’s hands slide up my back, gentle now, fingers tracing the knobs of my spine with careful pressure. “You okay?”

I rub my cheek against his chest. “Yeah. I’m good.”

I don’t tell him how good. How everything settles into place when I’m here, in his bed, with his Marks on my skin and his cum inside me. How the heaviness in my limbs isn’t just exhaustion but contentment.

How I don’t regret a single second of what we’ve done, even as I doubt that it will be enough to save us.

After a moment, when my breathing steadies, I start to move again. Not frantic this time, but rocking in a slow circle that has Orien’s cock hitting new spots inside me.

“That’s it,” he murmurs as I find the rhythm. “Take what you need.”

And I do, over and over, until the darkness outside the window begins to lighten with the first hints of dawn.

When the second Heat ends, I’m trembling, my thighs slick and tender, the rest of me limp as exhaustion finally claims me.

Orien strokes the hair back from my forehead, the gentle touch barely registering through the fog in my brain. My whole body throbs, skin oversensitive, nerves firing random signals that make me twitch when the sheets brush my back.

“Water,” Orien urges. “You need to hydrate.”

He holds a glass to my lips, the rim cool on my swollen flesh, and I drink in small sips, not trusting my coordination enough to take the glass from him. Each swallow produces an uncomfortable click in my throat.

“One more,” he murmurs when I start to protest after emptying half the glass.

I take another sip, then turn my head away when my stomach protests the sudden influx. Orien sets the glass on the nightstand and settles against the headboard, his arm coming around my shoulders, guiding me to lean back on his chest.

Our combined scents saturate the apartment now, layered with Heat pheromones. No one who walked in now would mistake this for anything but a place where a mated pair has been living.

The thought sends a complicated shiver through me, part pride and part terror that I now have someone important to lose.

I rest my head on Orien’s chest, my ear pressed to the steady rhythm of his heart. The sound of it offers comfort, a counterpoint to the panic trying to swamp me. A pleasant heaviness settles through my limbs, as if gravity has doubled its pull, and I let myself drift in the quiet for a moment.

When I open them again, the nightstand swims into view, along with the third vial of Inductis waiting there. Not just another dose, but the last one, the one that will set the changes permanently in place.

I tip my head back to study Orien. He returns my stare, waiting in the same way he waited for me to come to the Blue Note, the same way he waited for me to choose him over my family.

For a heartbeat, I let myself think of the compound, the council chamber with its dark wood and heavy silence, the expectation of generations of Vartanians staring down from the portraits on the walls.

I think of Alexei, of the trust he’s given me, the space he carved out for me in a family that had no reason to want an Omega in their ranks.

I think of the anonymous message that engineered this entire collision, the false warning that sent me to the Blue Note to begin with, that pushed me into Orien’s orbit and set us on this path.

Grief rises for the life I’m leaving, for the brother I’m betraying, for the certainty I’m trading for a future I can’t predict. But no regret for what I’ve done or what I’m about to do.

My arm shakes as I reach for it before it falls back to the bed, far short of its mark.

I sag against Orien. “I don’t think I can do it.”

He stills beneath me. “No?”

“No. Do it for me.” And I open my mouth wide.

Orien uncaps the vial with a single twist, the seal breaking with a soft pop, and brings it to my lips.

I drink the sickly-sweet drug in one swallow, my body anticipating the flood of Heat that will follow.