Eyes as hot as the sun took in everything I had, now on display, my dress pooling at my feet. I sucked oxygen in greedily, but that just made his smile turn positively feral, his eyes lingering where my breasts now heaved.

“Take them off,” he said, but with no alpha bark, so it was as much a suggestion as a command. I could refuse and keep my hands by my sides, where they had now formed balls. “Take them off and show me that beautiful fucking body that makes mine ache. I’m so fucking hard, Sloane. Take them off, if this is what you want. If you want me.”

He stepped back, away from me, and I swayed a little like I’d forgotten how to stand without his support. There I was, caught on the horns of a dilemma. My arms shook with the effort of holding myself still, my mind racing, but why? What did I want? My mind and body warred over that. What had I said? That I wanted him to… I swallowed hard, then a weird little whine escaped my throat.

“Omega…”

His voice was deep, warm, and felt like dropping into a hot bath, and that was what I liked to tell myself to excuse what came next. My fingers shook as I reached behind, flicking open my bra clasp.

“Fuck, yes…” he purred, pacing exactly like a wild animal, wanting to come closer but refusing to do so, not until my fingers went to my underwear. I shimmied the sodden fabric down and felt the lace drag on my skin, coated with my slick, when he decided he’d had enough. His fist tightened around the scrap of cloth, wrenching it free before dragging it up to his nose.

I watched his eyelids flutter slightly as he took a deep breath, and for a second, he stood there, wavering, a boyish smile on his face, before his eyes flicked open, the dark colour there gone almost completely black.

“I need to taste that pretty pussy that smells so sweet, need to fucking gorge myself on you. I want you running down my chin and my throat, saturating me with your pleasure. And when you’re screaming for me, that’s when you’ll get what you need, what you’ve always needed deep down.”

“No…” I hissed, some of the old Sloane, not wholly colonised by whatever his touch had done to me, coming through.

Head cocked to the side, he studied me. “You asked for me, Sloane. Said you needed me.” I stumbled back. He watched me kick off my heels, standing there buck fucking naked, turning away from him.

“You want to run,” he said, like he could see right through me. “It’s instinctual for an omega to want to test her chosen alpha. I’ll still rut you. That’s a given, and you fucking know it. You run, and I’ll make you wait. The dumb bastards have conditioned you to think like a beta, but I’ll make you realise that civility is only a façade. You’re an omega, and you need an alpha deep inside you. You need me.”

He felt too calm, too in control, while I felt like I was on the verge of madness.

“No!” I cried, stumbling back, doing exactly as he said I would but unable to quiet the thrashing of my heart inside my chest. Adrenalin pumped through me, screaming at me, telling me I was in danger and I needed to get the hell out, every limb quivering.

Or were they?

My mind and my body were fighting what was happening to it and what was about to, then a knife-like twist of vicious pleasure inside me confused the issue, cutting deep and letting me know that would only get deeper if I went down this path.

But I couldn’t bloody stop, could I?

I turned around—my first mistake, putting my back to a predator—as I scanned the room, the elevator, him standing resolutely before that, arms crossed, a knowing smile on his face. I took three steps towards the kitchen, thinking I could grab a knife and hold him off. Yeah, that lasted as long as the next wet gush went sliding down my thighs. The bedroom. I could run into there, slam the door shut, lock it, and call for help. There were services, people who could get me out of here if I just—

“This is still your choice, Sloane. You can tell me to stop at any time, and even though it’ll fucking kill me, I will. But I’m telling you now, if you run, that’s a big green fucking light. Get it out of your system now, because it’s my turn later.”

Choice? I could tell him no… I eyed him warily. I’d asked for this, begging him, causing him to bring me here, my body aching so badly.

“Run little omega, and I will rut you how you need. Say no, and I’m gonna walk away.”

His words lit a bomb underneath me, muscles I didn’t know I had firing as I ran through the living area, curling around the couch, and into the warm, woody scented haven of the bedroom. I was gasping for air, despite only having run a short distance, and slammed the door behind me, swallowed now by all the comforting gloom of the room. Hands shaking, I felt for the lock, engaging it, and then slid down the door, hoping to jam it closed with my body weight.

A small sob escaped me then, my whole body shaking, but not from fear like I imagined a sane beta would. Whatever part of me resisted this, what I was, what he was, it was dying a slow, horrible death because when I felt his presence outside the door, scenting him, hearing the creak of the wood as his weight pressed against it, the knife inside me cut deeper. I ached, that was what the adrenalin had been masking, my hand sliding through my slick, my palm cupping my pubic mound at the sudden sharp stab of agony.

“I’m not gonna kick this door down,” he said, seeming to know the moment when my body went into revolt against me. “I’m not gonna smash the lock, or any fucking lock in this place that you might think to use against me. I could, without a fucking thought. You think you can fight this, hide from this? Hide from me?” I heard the pain in his voice, even if I couldn’t see it. “You can’t. I’m your alpha, baby, and you want and need me. Do you feel it now—a pleasure so sharp, it feels like your insides are turning out?”

I nodded, panting rapidly now as another wave came, pleasure and pain mixing so intensely, it was hard to make out which was winning, my whole face screwing up to try and bear it.

“You could decide before to let some fucking unworthy bastard between your thighs. Let him pierce you with a few unspectacular thrusts, completely ignoring your clit. Let him blow his pathetic little bolt inside you, leaving you unhappy and unsatisfied. That’s the privilege of a beta—you decide when, where, and with whom to have sex. But that’s not you anymore, baby. You’ve only got one choice, omega, and that’s when. How much pain are you going to put yourself through, pretending what I’m saying isn’t true?”

As if summoned by his words, the knife twisted sharply inside me now—not pleasure, just pain.

“How much time are you going to waste sitting there on the floor, smearing your slick all over it, while your cunt throbs for what only I can give you?”

I didn’t want to let out a whine, but it forced its way out from between my teeth as I moved now, onto my hands and knees, the position soothing the ache, if only for a second. I heard the wood of the door creak as he pressed harder against it, the slight groan of the hinges.

“Open the door, omega. You don’t hurt yourself, aching for me, and you don’t fucking lock me out, away from what’s mine. Open the door.”

His voice was a heavy hand on the back of my neck, clearing all the chaos inside my head and redirecting it.

“Open the door. Choose to accept what you are while you still can. Choose to alleviate a pain that will only grow the longer you hold out. Choose me, omega.”

It was that, that slight break in all those fatalistic words, where the alpha façade cracked for a second and then there was only this—an answering need, pain, desire, a twin of my own. One that would sweep in and take us over, make us one. That was what I knew would happen, as my trembling hand slid up the door, what had me running earlier. Betas made love and broke love with seeming incomprehensible ease, but us? We were dragged together by instincts we didn’t understand and welded tight, for better or worse.