“Don’t worry about it.” Gently, lovingly, he pushes a few locks back from my forehead. I feel clammy and uneasy, but when I take a calming breath, his scent is like a narcotic, instantly comforting.

Mine must do the same for him because he inhales deeply against my hairline, then says, “Perfect.” He presses a lingering kiss against my temple. “Everything about you is perfect. And that son of a bitch took it away from me. You see now why I’m considering killing him?”

“Gabriel, I⁠—”

“I know. You’re a healer. Do no harm, and all that.” His cheek, scratchy with his stubble, rubs against mine. Dips down to my neck and catches against one of my glands, making me shudder. Lara must have been on to something, because the itch is becoming hard to ignore. “But you agree with me that he has to pay for what he’s done?”

I swallow. “If I say yes, you’re going to kill him.”

He seems to ponder the matter. “Not necessarily, no. Let me ask again: should he pay for what he has done to you?”

“Promise me that you won’t⁠—”

“Answer the question, Sofia.”

I glance at Lennart. His entire body is quaking. He’s looking at me like I’m the only thing standing between him and death, and…

Rage surges through me, blinding, brutal. For years, I thought I would never have what I wanted. For years, he stole from me. Voice shaking, I say, “Yes. Yes, he deserves to pay for what did to me. I hate him. He’s a monster, and I want to watch him suffer as much as I have, and I want him to feel like he’s lost everything.” A pause. “But I don’t want him to die.”

Gabriel makes a disappointed face, something that on anyone but him I would call a pout, something that in any other situation would make me laugh. So his plan was to slaughter Lennart, here and now. Good to know. And good to know that he seems to be willing to recalibrate. “If I don’t kill him, I’ll have to punish him in other ways. You understand?”

My “yes” is full of breathless relief. I feel victorious—until Gabriel tugs me to my feet and forces me to stand in front of him, between his parted legs. I’m giving my back to Lennart, and that’s when I realize my mistake.

If Gabriel intended to kill Lennart, he would have gotten it done long before I woke up. Which means that what he really planned is something else, and…

“You are stunning in this dress,” he murmurs. “Then again, you look beautiful in anything. But it pleases me that he’s going to have to watch me take your mating dress off you.” His smile is predatory. What he’s implying, what he means to do, starts sinking in, and my heart pounds in my chest. In my ears.

In my lower belly.

“Have you ever taken your clothes off for him?” he asks me.

I hesitate. When I open my mouth, my lips are trembling, and no sound comes out.

“Sofia. Have you ever taken your clothes off for him?” he repeats.

“No,” I say, low. So low, it’s nearly drowned out by the obscenities Lennart is screaming.

“Don’t you fucking dare! Let her go!”

“I’m sorry, love,” Gabriel tells me with a soft kiss to my cheek. “I need just a minute.” Gently, he moves me aside. Then he walks to the chair and violently jostles the blade in Lennart’s shoulder until he wails with what must be a breathtaking kind of pain. Once Gabriel has forced Lennart to repeat his lesson—“Only s-speak when—fuck, fuck—spoken t-to—ah!”—he reclaims his seat on the bed and pulls me close again.

“Where were we?”

“Gabriel,” I whisper, closing one hand around his wrist and forcing his gaze to meet mine. I find nothing more than determined, relaxed anticipation in his eyes. When I’m sure that what he’s doing to me is not just fueled by hatred or violence, I let my arm fall to my side and watch him take off my dress. He’s good at it, nearly as good as I am at unlatching an armor. And even now, in this fucked-up situation, my stomach squeezes with insecurity when I think about who could have taught him.

I don’t fully comprehend this bond thrumming and straining between us, but it might allow Gabriel to read my mind. And vice versa. “I’ve had a lot of Omegas, Sofia,” he says against my ear. “Some of them, very lovely.”

The words stab through me just as the bodice pools at my hips, leaving my upper half bare. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask between clenched teeth.

“Because I wish it weren’t true. Because none of them ever had me questioning my sanity the way you do. Because now that I’ve found you, I regret every second I spent not searching for you.” My skirt is a puddle on the floor, soon joined by my underwear. “Look at you,” he murmurs once I’m naked, hushed enough to be only for me and not for Lennart’s benefit. He turns me around between his legs, studies my breasts and my ass, traces my hips and even the curve of my knees, and hums approvingly. “Out of this world. All the men I killed today? I’d kill them again, and then twice more. Just for this. Just to look.” And then, louder, but never averting his eyes from my body: “Lennart, is she not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

Silence. My breath is so loud, I can’t even make out the sound of the environmental controls.

“Lennart,” Gabriel repeats. The back of his finger brushes against the side of my breast, and a shudder rolls up my spine. “Do I have to teach you another lesson about the timeliness of your responses?”

“No! No, please, I— Yes. Yes, she is!”

A pleased smile. “And no one else has seen her this way, except for me.”

“You know he’s seeing me now, right?” I ask, but it’s hard to sound sullen when Gabriel can tell how slick the insides of my thighs are. The heat whites out my head, addles me. I find myself hiding my face in his neck despite my best judgment, and he laughs.

I want the floor to open and swallow me. This may be the most mortifying moment of my life, and Gabriel is the one who’s putting me through it. I shouldn’t seek comfort in him, but…

“There’s a difference between Lennart seeing you naked and Lennart watching me fuck his mate. Don’t you think so?”

I close my eyes. Scalding, humiliating, aroused tears slip down the sides of my cheeks.

I wonder what Gabriel would do if I asked him to stop.

Then I wonder why I’m not asking.

And then all I want is to know one thing: “Why?”

Gabriel pulls back. His head tilts, questioning.

“Lennart,” I whisper. “The suppressants, all these years. We were friends for so long, and I thought he cared and… Why did he do something so vile?”

It’s ludicrous that I’m asking Gabriel when Lennart is right behind me—when Lady Larsen already told me. But I cannot wrap my mind around the cruelty of it, and Gabriel… Gabriel has yet to tell me a lie. “Because he was smart enough to recognize what he had on his hands. Because he wanted you, and he decided to have you. Because this is what nobles do. They take with no regard for others’ wishes.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “What about you, Gabriel?”

“What about me?”

“You did the same. You wanted me, and so you’re taking me.”

I expect a denial, or for him to twist the events that led to this, but neither comes. “Yes,” he admits with simplicity. “But that’s not the end of it.”

“Why?”

He shakes his head. “Because I am going to give you anything you want, Sofia. I am going to put you before anything and anyone else. I am going to live and die by your hand, and you will dictate the tides of my life. You already own me.” I can smell the sincerity in everything he’s saying. “All I ask in return is for you to be kind to my bound heart. Will you?”

More tears flow down my cheeks. But I’m nodding eagerly, even as I sniffle, and his elated, widening smile short-circuits my brain. I cannot think, but it doesn’t matter because he kisses my breasts and licks and bites my tender nipples until large shivers shake my body. Then he’s taking my wrist and putting my hand on his erection. “Take my cock out,” he orders.