Outside, the muffled roar of paparazzi echoed.
The Silver Rose had been found.
Cait Agneau, poverty-raised, poison-scarred, and mated to a CEO who’d rewrite the world for her,was their new obsession.
Owen looked out the window port, he felt nervous, he had spoken at many of these events.
He felt ease when addressing the press, his employees or a battalion of workers on cleanup duty.
This was the first time he had to speak on someone else’s behalf.
Cait looked at Owen, he had been accompanying her in the hospital a lot, maybe too much for a person who barely knew her.
It was intimidating to be treasured by the most wealthy man in the traverse.
His last name was on the trains she rode everywhere, the freight trains and supply barrels.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
As one of the women who worked in the accounting department of Thorne Incorporated in the past, she had heard them say her boss; Owen was handsome.
Handsome did not cover it, especially without his clothes on.
He sat talking on his comms, with a slate working in her room.
This was her new normal, her boss was her some kind of ‘mate’ to her and she had branded him apparently.
The geometric rose pattern sat on his neck, it looked like it was seared, the flesh had a pinkish hue that had been fading since their first time together.
It was embarrassing that she was still lusting after him, would this weird omega heat that drove her into his arms repeatedly stop?
It was not that she did not like it and he did not.
It was the fact that her body was so tired.
“You.” Owen said and grinned at her, he felt the warmth she had felt looking at him.
The feelings were getting a little bit clearer.
Cait blushed and busied herself as Owen grinned at her in a way that made her body warm.
She opened the tray table in front of herself.
Someone had put more supplies in the tray’s compartments.
Expensive lotions, brushes, soaps, cosmetics, hair ties, a mirror, and a brush.
The hand held mirror was the size of her palm and embellished with glittery stones that would belong on jewelry.
She opened it up and flinched as it illuminated.
Cait stared into the handheld vanity mirror, the harsh LED lights around its edge casting unforgiving shadows across her gaunt face.
‘Gods, how is he even attracted to me?’ Cait thought, suddenly feeling really self conscious.
His hair was scraggly and messy.
Her mercury-silver eyes, usually striking, looked dull and sunken in a complexion that still held a sickly yellow undertone despite days of detox.
She looked like she was dying.
Fingertips traced the hollows beneath her cheekbones.
‘I look like a corpse dipped in cheap gold paint,’ she thought bitterly, watching her own reflection frown back.
A faint tremor ran through her hand holding the mirror.
Her fingers traced the sharp line of her jaw,too sharp now.
She pinched the loose skin near her collarbone, hard enough to leave a crescent of white that flushed angry red.
“Don’t. What are you doing?” Owen said as his hand closed over hers, gentle but unyielding.
He’d been meticulously brushing her tangled silver blonde hair when he saw it,the vicious little nips she’d been inflicting on her arms, her ribs, anywhere flesh yielded.
Cait looked at him puzzled, “It is a mindfulness technique I use to ground myself.” she explained.
“Pinching yourself like this? Look your almost bleeding.” Owen frowned.
“It’s self-harm when it leaves bruises. Stop hurting yourself,” he murmured, his voice low.
The mirror clattered onto the hospital tray.
She crossed her arms defensively.
He noticed that she did this when she was confronted by something and sometimes after a meal.
“It’s none of your business.” Cait jerked her hand away, irritation flaring.
“It’s nothing.” It was a trick for her to calm down.
It was going to get better.
Wasn’t it?
She would go home soon, and she would be with another man, which both bothered and did not bother Owen.
“It’s not nothing.” Ice-blue eyes locked onto hers, the CEO’s usual cool detachment fractured by something raw.
He caught her wrist again, thumb brushing the fresh red mark beneath her sleeve.
“Why are you hurting yourself?”
The sterile air of the ABO hospital room thickened.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, Normund’s skyline glittered,a world of polished steel and ambition she’d been thrust into, a world her mother had fled.
“My mom taught me to use it when my feelings are too intense.” Cait’s throat tightened.
Gardenia, her own pheromones, clashed with the antiseptic sting of the room.
“Does it help?” Owen pressed, his aristocratic features tense.
“Holding everything back like this? Pretending you’re not terrified?”
She stared at the mirror again.
‘Pathetic, ‘ Ben’s sneering voice echoed in her skull.
‘Weak little meg.’ Her knuckles whitened around the compact.
“I look like death warmed over. My mom.” she whispered, the words scraping out.
“Like… like ‘her’ at the end.”
Owen went very still.
He knew about Yvette wasting away from cancer, about the thirteen-year-old girl left with a man who’d recoiled at her biology, but kept her in the dark.
He must have tormented her, and she did not know why he had tormented her for all those years.
She was raised by someone who hated her.
“Nah.” Owen said.
“What is even in this for you?” Cait asked, it had been bothering her.
She was an outlier as an omega.
She was a wreck.
“I saw the movie, and I have seen people give up.” Owen paused, thinking of the dead look in his own mother’s eyes the day he said he could rescue her.
Cait wanted to fight, she had not given up.
Owen’s fingers slid from her wrist to cradle her cheek, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“You look like a survivor,” he said, each word deliberate.
“We will get you healed so you look like how you are supposed to look. Not something they tried to smother to death.”
A tear escaped, tracing a hot path down her sallow skin.
She didn’t wipe it away.
Owen’s thumb caught it instead, his touch lingering.
The silence stretched, filled only by the soft hum of medical equipment and the frantic drumbeat of her own heart.
“How can you talk like that?” she asked.
“Have you seen you? Cait Rose.” Owen said.
Her back straightened; Henry would often start with that very line.
She tried to shake the hurt off.
“Yes, I have,” she retorted, opening up the mirror.
“You are pretty.” Owen reassured her.
“I look like an old shut-in,” Cait whispered, her voice thick and raw.
“I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve looked in a mirror since last week.” She swallowed hard, the compact trembling slightly in her grip.
“I can’t believe how much… how much ‘denial’ I was swimming in.” The words felt jagged, scraping her throat.
Henry’s dismissive sneer flashed in her mind, ‘too needy, too much trouble’, followed by Ben’s cold, detached eyes masking something darker.
Her gaze drifted past Owen to the door.
Albert Rose hadn’t visited too much; he did today.
She knew he was pacing the halls downstairs, radiating a coiled, agonized tension she could almost feel through the walls.
He was giving her space, respecting boundaries she hadn’t even known she needed.
His restraint felt instinctual, primal, a wounded predator holding back.
‘Here I am, already disappointing another parent.
How wonderful.’ Cait thought.
“You are getting way to good at that,” she snickered.
“Who would have thought that Owen Thorne could braid so well.”
Owen shifted behind her, his fingers returning to her hair.
He gathered the silvery strands, surprisingly deft now after days of practice.
The brush of his knuckles against her scalp was soothing as he began weaving a simple braid.
“My aunt says I am going with hair.” Owen smiled softly, “I think it’s soothing.”
Cait was surprised, he had been very serious about taking care of her since he talked about the mark.
“I think it looks broken. A lot of it has fallen out.” Cait said.
“It’ll grow back.” Owen said, it felt like something stabbed him whenever he thought about how Dubois would be the catalyst behind that.
It would take up months of her time.
He was a gifted healer, but she was so sick.
“You know, Kieran insists your hair looks like spun moonlight,” Owen murmured, his tone deliberately light, a counterpoint to the storm inside her.
“He’s been researching conditioning serums. Apparently, mercury silver requires… specialized care.”
“Oh, well his hair is really nice. It is a bit darker than mine. But I will trust him. But he’s my brother.” Cait responded flatly.
It was hard getting to know someone who has had completely opposite life experiences than you.
Owen Thorne was raised in privilege and she was raised in the gutter.
“So being a survivor, and this bond we have aren’t exactly solid footing for a relationship. What are we even? We don’t know much about each other.”
Owen paused and answered, “Legal Mates.” A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through his own hands as he worked.
“Relationships,” he continued softly, securing the end of the braid with a velvet tie, “are rarely simple equations, Cait. Especially when trust is the variable poisoned from the start. Get to know me. I am more than my work biography.”
Cait closed her eyes, leaning back slightly into his touch.
The sterile scent of disinfectant suddenly sharpened, overlaying a fragmented memory: the sharp sting of a needle, Ben’s unnerving stillness in that cramped corner of their old flat, staring at the peeling wallpaper for hours, days.
Bette’s frantic whispers, her mother’s hands trembling as she wiped Cait’s face afterward, her eyes filled with a sudden, chilling mix of loathing and fear.
“I get that we are mates and bonded, but I am a mess. I might be the heir to the tunnel. But if you ever want out of this ‘arrangement’, don’t let my father scare you into staying. There’s things wrong with me, stuff a ‘healer’ won’t be able to fix.”
“I am not planning on leaving you. Faults are okay. Do you think I am some perfect person?” Owen said, his voice shaking on the end.
He had problems of his own.
A deep self-loathing, abandonment issues, attachment problems, intermittent rage issues that Elias had kept a disciplined hand upon.
Then there was his childhood of growing up as heir to the family under Martha, Elias’s and his grandfather’s hand.
He wished for a warmth, they probably both wished for warmth and love from their parents.
“There are… gaps,” she confessed, the words tumbling out in a rush.
“Whole chunks missing. Moments that felt foggy even then. I think… I think he drugged me. Did things.” She shuddered violently.
“He’d just… stand there. And Mom… she’d look at me afterward like I was something vile.”
‘The damage to her pheromone glands.
Was it to stop her scent or something else.’ Owen’s hands stilled on her shoulders as he thought.
His breath hitched, a sharp, controlled intake.
He remembered Kieran’s clinical, detached report delivered late one night over a bottle of wine: ‘Unusual puncture scarring.
Neck, inner thigh.
Consistent patterns.
Every month he would bet.
“You are not a reflection of their response to you.” Owen said.
“You are not something vile or bad. They were.” He placed a cautious kiss at her temple.
He was working on being affectionate.
He’d seen the newsfeeds.
It was low-key.
Wanted posters.
Albert’s icy fury had been unleashed, the chilling hunt for Benjamin Agneau was under way.
The comment responses and tips were a cesspool that had made Owen physically ill.
He forced calm into his voice, wrapping his arms around her from behind, anchoring her trembling frame.
“Listen to me,” Owen said, his voice low and fierce against her ear.
“You trusted them because you were just a child. It’s not your fault. The insignificance you felt then was their crime, not yours. Survival isn’t hindsight.”
“It’s not just my parents or the memories. Henry really fucked my head up.” Cait turned within his embrace, burying her face against his charcoal suit jacket.
The scent of his alpha musk: lemons, honey, chamomile, and a sweetness.
It was a lifeline.
“I should have seen it all for what it was. Henry for what he was, I can ‘now’, but it is far too late.” she choked out, muffled against the fabric.
“The possessiveness, the jealousy, the lack of care about my needs… the way he’d withdraw. I saw the flaws. My parents were gone. Maria worked hard.. He was ‘there’. He paid just enough attention.” Loneliness, vast and echoing, resonated in her words.
Owen tilted her chin up, his ice-blue eyes holding hers with unwavering intensity.
“Cait,” he said, his thumb brushing her cheekbone where the tear had dried.
“You are not a reflection of the people who failed to love you. You deserve love. Not because you’re Albert Rose’s daughter, or an Omega Princess, but because you are ‘you’. Forgiving to a fault. Fiercely committed. Protective. Hard-working.” His gaze hardened.
“He exploited every vulnerability. His ego consumed everything else. When he discarded you? That was cowardice. Remember your place now…above him.”
He stepped back slightly, admiring the finished braid.
The silver plait gleamed against her hospital gown, a stark contrast to her pallor but undeniably elegant.
“There,” he murmured, a flicker of pride softening his stern features.
“Much better. You look…” He paused, searching for the right word as the IV pump beside them suddenly erupted in a series of sharp, insistent beeps, signaling the empty bags.
“…like someone fighting her way back,” he finished firmly, reaching for the call button.
Dr.
Jameson arrived moments later, his cedarwood scent a welcome counterpoint to the sterile air.
He moved with practiced efficiency, his expression professionally neutral.
Still, his eyes lingered a fraction too long on the constellation of bruises mottling Cait’s inner arms; purple, yellow, and angry green blossoms against her jaundiced skin.
“Alright, Cait,” he said softly, his calming skills radiating outward.
“These two are done. Just the central line and the hydration drip to go after the press conference.” His fingers were deft as he detached the IV lines, flushing each port meticulously before taping them securely against her skin.
He carefully tucked the loose tubing into a soft, mesh net sleeve fastened around her upper arm.
“You’re almost there,” he added, his gaze sweeping over her sallow complexion and the visible fragility.
A fleeting, uncharacteristic sadness tightened the corners of his eyes.
‘Remy Dubois needs to be almost skin-to-skin,’ Dr.
Jameson thought grimly.
‘She’s too depleted physically.’ He kept this observation to himself.
Remy Dubois had the same skill set as him but operated at the Saint level.
His calming pheromones were an asset here in Sector 17.
“You can bathe now. I’ll be back shortly with the wheelchair.”
Owen offered his arm immediately as Cait swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Her knees buckled instantly, a tremor running through her weakened muscles.
He caught her effortlessly, his arm wrapping securely around her waist, pulling her close against his side.
She leaned heavily into him, her breath hitching with the effort.
The short walk to the ensuite shower felt like a marathon.
Inside the sleek, steam-ready cubicle, Owen eased her onto the built-in bench.
He reached for the shower controls, then paused, turning to face her fully.
“How?” Cait’s voice was small, echoing slightly in the tiled space.
She gestured vaguely at her own body – the gaunt frame, the yellowed skin, the bruises.
“How can you even look at me like… like that? Like you still want me?” Her mercury eyes searched his face, raw vulnerability laid bare.
Owen didn’t hesitate.
He shrugged off his charcoal suit jacket, then began unbuttoning his crisp white shirt.
“Good bones,” he stated matter-of-factly, his gaze tracing the elegant line of her collarbone, the sharp angle of her jaw beneath the pallor.
“Shared interests. Flowers. Painting. The satisfying precision of solving complex equations… I saw how you handled the Thorne Industries supply chain bottleneck last month.” He stepped closer, the discarded shirt joining the jacket on the floor.
His bare torso was lean and defined, a stark contrast to her frailty.
A faint, playful smirk touched his lips.
“And mostly… You told me I smelled delicious. Like your favorite things.”
He knelt before her, his hands gentle as he helped her slide the gown off her shoulders.
His ice-blue eyes darkened, the playful smirk fading into something far more intense, primal.
His voice dropped to a husky murmur, thick with yearning.
“Even now, Cait… especially now… it takes everything I have not to devour you whole. The scent of you…” He inhaled deeply, the Gardenia mingling with steam and antiseptic.
“It pulls at me. When I’m in the boardroom, drafting contracts… It’s a constant ache.” His fingers brushed her cheek, tracing the path of a long-dried tear.
“This hunger… It’s inconveniently fierce.”
He turned, adjusting the gleaming chrome controls.
A hiss filled the small space as water cascaded down, quickly warming the air.
Owen held his hand under the spray, testing the temperature with careful precision before guiding it towards her.
The first drops hit Cait’s shoulders, startlingly warm against her chilled skin.
She gasped, leaning into the sensation, the steam already curling her newly braided hair at the temples.
Owen took the handheld showerhead, his movements efficient yet tender.
He started at her neck, careful to avoid the PIC line port Dr.
Jameson had secured.
The water sluiced away the lingering hospital smell, revealing the delicate, bruised landscape beneath.
His soapy hands moved over her arms, her back, skimming the sharp ridges of her shoulder blades.
He worked methodically, clinically almost, until his palm brushed the swell of her small breast.
A low, involuntary grunt escaped him – rough, primal.
His fingers jerked back as if burned.
He cleared his throat sharply, focusing intently on rinsing her forearm instead.
The air crackled.
Cait watched his jaw tighten, the muscles in his neck corded with restraint.
His knuckles whitened around the shower head.
‘Gods,’ he thought, the scent of her blooming faintly beneath the steam and soap, mingling with his own sharpening musk.
‘If she’s this potent now, broken… what will she be like healed?
What will she do to me?’ He finished rinsing her legs quickly, the water swirling pink-tinged around the drain from the fading bruises on her shins.
He shut off the water with a decisive click.
The sudden silence was heavy, thick with unsaid things and the frantic drumming of his own pulse.
Owen wrapped her instantly in a thick, heated towel, cocooning her trembling body.
He rubbed briskly, efficiently, soaking up the moisture from her sskin, her spine, her fragile limbs.
His touch was firm, grounding, yet his breath came faster.
He guided her back to the bench, kneeling again.
From the shelf, he grabbed the specialized moisturizer Dr.
Jameson had prescribed – unscented, intensely hydrating.
He squeezed a generous amount onto his palm, warming it slightly before smoothing it over her shoulders, down her arms.
His fingers traced the constellation of bruises on her inner arm – the puncture scars Kieran had noted.
A muscle ticked violently in his jaw.
He moved lower, applying the lotion to her legs with careful strokes.
His hands skimmed her inner thigh, dangerously close.
He froze.
A harsh, ragged breath tore from him.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, fighting for control.
When he opened them, his gaze was molten, locked onto hers.
A strained, humorless laugh escaped him.
“You have no idea,” he rasped, his voice thick with desire and frustration, “how excruciatingly hard this is.” His thumb brushed the sensitive skin just above her knee.
He leaned in, his lips grazing her damp temple, his whisper a raw confession against her skin.
“Every instinct screams to kiss you. To taste you until you forget your own name. To and remind you… viscerally… exactly why I am yours.”
The possessive growl vibrated deep in his chest.
“The restraint required… it feels like tearing out my own spine.” He pulled back slightly, his ice-blue eyes blazing, demanding her understanding.
“Tell me you feel it too. This… madness.”
Cait stared at him, her mercury eyes wide, pupils dilated.
The warmth of his hands, the intensity of his gaze, the raw hunger radiating off him – it ignited a low, answering thrum deep within her own battered body.
It wasn’t just arousal.
It was a profound, aching ‘lack’.
A hollow space echoed despite Owen’s overwhelming presence.
She swallowed, her voice a fragile thread.
“I do,” she breathed.
“God, Owen, I do feel it.” She looked down at her hands, clenched in the towel.
“But it’s… more. Like something vital is missing. An emptiness gnawing at the edges, even when you’re touching me.” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“It feels like… like my body wants more than it can possibly hold. More than ‘you’ can give.” She met his gaze again, a flicker of fear in her own.
“It eats at the back of my mind. Like I’m incomplete.”
Owen stilled.
The raw need in his eyes didn’t vanish, but it was overlaid by a sudden, chilling clarity.
He understood.
The genetic dice roll.
The evolutionary wiring buried deep within her Omega biology, surfacing now, amplified by the trauma and the detox.
His jaw tightened.
He’d studied the rare cases.
The dominant Omegas whose drives demanded polyamorous bonds – not out of promiscuity, but out of a biological imperative for stability, protection, resources… ‘more’.
One Alpha, no matter how potent, how devoted, couldn’t saturate that profound void.
He saw the flicker of panic in her eyes – the fear of being too much, broken, unlovable.
He cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone.
“It’s not you,” he said, his voice low and fiercely certain.
“It’s coded into us, Cait. Deeper than anything. A survival mechanism we barely understand.” He leaned his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling.
“One man,” he admitted, the words heavy with reluctant acceptance, “even me… will never be enough. Your biology demands a constellation.”
Cait’s head hung, her cheeks blazing.
She had seen some of the propaganda holos.
One woman, being served by men.
Painted as something very shameful.
Imagining herself being subject to the same ire was not a pleasant feeling.
His hand captured her chin forcing him to look at her.
The truth hung between them, stark and terrifying.
Evolution had dealt her a hand that would shatter the fragile world they were just beginning to build.
He pulled back, forcing a semblance of calm as he reached for the soft white ribbed cotton sleep dress.
He was ashamed about how hard he had to hold himself back.
The back of his brain seemed to be boiling with a rut that he knew had long been satiated by her, it was definitely coming
“Don’t feel ashamed. It’s natural to us, not only because of the gender imbalance. It is the way nature works for our part of the population,” he murmured, helping her slide her arms into the sleeves with meticulous care.
His fingers brushed her bruised skin as he fastened the tiny pearl buttons at the neckline.
He lifted the lavender silk kimono robe next, its royal purple accents shimmering faintly under the harsh bathroom light.
He draped it over her shoulders, tying the sash loosely.
His ice-blue eyes met hers, holding her gaze with unwavering intensity.
“Trust me,” he commanded softly, his voice thick with emotion.
“No matter what unfolds… You will ‘always’ have my heart.
So please,” he pleaded, his thumb tracing her jawline, “do not feel guilty when you follow yours.
I will be there.
Okay?” He tucked a stray silver strand behind her ear.
“You are stronger than you know.”
A firm knock echoed on the ensuite door.
Dr.
Jameson’s cedarwood scent preceded him as he entered, his gaze immediately assessing Cait’s damp hair, the clean lines of the robe.
His eyes flicked to Owen, noting the Alpha’s rigid posture, the barely contained storm in his expression.
A small, knowing sigh escaped the doctor.
“So,” Dr.
Jameson stated, his tone deliberately neutral, “you behaved yourself, good.” He gestured towards the wheelchair waiting just outside the bathroom door.
” Press conference prep is complete for this.
They’re waiting downstairs.”
“Stress accelerates toxin absorption.” His gaze flicked to the window.
“So try to stay calm. The circus downstairs is not more important than your health. Lord Rose’s legal team is shredding Henry Thwaites as we speak. They’ve… unearthed things.” He didn’t elaborate.
He didn’t need to.
Cait saw it, Henry’s drunken rants, the loader shifts, ‘she covered while he faked illness.
The obscenities hurled when she collapsed mid-rut in public.
Fury, cold and sharp, cut through her fatigue.
Cait met the doctor’s cedarwood-scented stare.
Over days of detox, delirium, and whispered confessions, she’d learned his rhythms,the dry sarcasm masking fierce protectiveness, the way his scent sharpened like splintered wood when he was furious.
“Calm?” Her laugh rasped, brittle.
“What was ‘cute’ poverty enduring grit when we were struggling… died when he abandoned me mid-collapse. I owe him nothing but rage.” Her knuckles whitened against the sheet.
Owen shifted beside her, his ice-blue eyes darkening.
The possessive tension radiating off him thickened the air.
He felt the rage in her body.
They had studied the mark in the other room.
Imaged it on medical scanners to figure it out, they did not appear often and he was a man of science.
They did not know why he could feel her emotions.
Dr.
Jameson sighed, pulling a pre-filled syringe from his coat.
“Then I’m dosing you with something stronger than rage suppressants.” He injected the clear liquid into her IV port.
“Call it… strategic serenity. You powered through a marathon rut detox ‘and’ Owen’s… attention two days ago.” He arched an eyebrow pointedly.
Owen flushed crimson, the blush stark against his aristocratic pallor.
She rode him with desperate, rage-fueled strength.
Her Gardenia scent had clung stubbornly.
Owen looked away, jaw clenched.
‘His fault.’ He’d craved her touch too much to deny her anything.
The medication hit Cait’s bloodstream like liquid ice.
The jagged edges of her fury smoothed, replaced by a chilling, crystalline focus.
Owen didn’t take his eyes off Cait.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice rough-edged.
She took a shaky breath, the scent of her own clean skin mingling with the lingering traces of her own floral scent and Owen’s sharp musk.
She nodded, once.
“Ready.”
Owen guided her wheelchair into the private hospital suite’s main room.
Albert Rose stood waiting near the door, silhouetted against the panoramic window showcasing Sector Gamma’s biodome twilight – artificial stars winking above geometric fields of glowing crops.
He turned as they approached.
Gone was the pacing patriarch.
In his place stood the Lord, composed, immaculate in a charcoal suit that seemed to absorb the low light.
In his hand, he held not jewels or documents, but a small, fragrant bundle: sprigs of deep purple lavender, their scent earthy and calming – the signature bloom of Gamma Sector’s agricultural dome.
His silver-gray eyes, identical to Cait’s but infinitely colder, softened minutely as they landed on her.
“Caitriona,” he began, his voice a low, resonant baritone that filled the quiet room.
He stepped forward, extending the lavender towards her.
She hesitantly reached out, her fingers brushing his as she took the fragrant offering.
A faint tremor ran through his hand.
“I imagined,” Albert continued, his gaze sweeping over her fragile form in the wheelchair, the stark hospital setting, “presenting you to the public at a proper debutante ball. Orchestrating every detail. Not…” His lips thinned into a hard line, aristocratic features tightening with suppressed fury.
“…dragged out to rebuke baseless rumors spun by gutter-feeding parasites.”
The venom in his voice was icy, absolute.
He straightened his shoulders, the Lord in him resurfacing, radiating command.
He met her mercury eyes, a flicker of fierce pride igniting in his own eyes.
“That being said,” he declared, his voice hardening into steel, “let’s give them hell for it.”
A cold, predatory smile touched her lips.
“I want my piece. My pound of flesh.” She took Owen’s arm, her grip surprisingly strong.
“Lead the way, Owen. And try not to kill him.” The dry sarcasm was pure Cait, a shield wielded with lethal precision.
Owen inhaled sharply, her sweet floral scent flooding his senses, and obeyed.
He walked slowly beside her chair outside.
A myriad of scents hit Cait’s nostrils as Dr.
Jameson wheeled her chair forward.
Her mercury-silver eyes scanned the ABO hospital hallway,a stark contrast to the crumbling, damp-walled infirmary where her mother had gasped her last breaths.
Here, sleek chrome panels lined the walls, humming with embedded diagnostics tech, yet the air held the same oppressive weight of sickness and dread that had haunted her childhood.
As they entered, whispered murmurs rippled through the corridor like a shockwave.
“Is that really her?” a nurse gasped, her voice barely above a whisper, the disbelief palpable.
The clatter of equipment seemed to fall silent, the bustling presence of the hospital constricted into a tense stillness.
Hands froze mid-motion as staff pivoted, their faces alight with surprise and reverence.
“The Silver Rose?” another voice trembled, a hint of awe lacing the words.
The soft hiss of breath caught as heads turned; wide eyes reflected the flickering fluorescent lights, all drawn to the princess among them.
Transfixed alphas towered in their scrubs, their expressions shifting from professional detachment to astonished admiration.
They leaned closer, caught in the magnetism of her pheromones, their hearts racing under the weight of her reputation.
“I never thought she’d be here,” one murmured, a mix of incredulity and excitement threading through the air.
Cait felt their gaze envelop her, each stare a lingering touch, while inside her, a storm brewed, equal parts anxiety and defiance.
As she wheeled further down the hall, the murmurs continued, an unbroken chorus of surging emotions: admiration, curiosity, and a hint of longing.
A fleeting sense of power washed over her; she was not just a figure in a story anymore.
Here, amid a sea of expectations and whispers, Cait was alive, undeniably real, an emblem of resilience.
Albert Rose strode beside Cait’s wheelchair, his silver-blond hair glimmering under the sterile lights of the hospital, his presence felt like a blade slicing through the thrumming anxiety of the crowd.
Kieran matched Albert’s pace on the other side, his smoke-gray hair impeccably tousled as if the chaos was merely an aesthetic choice.
Green eyes flicked toward the clustered orderlies, calculating their every move.
Owen Thorne walked just behind Cait, his charcoal suit immaculate, an aura of authority radiating from his ice-blue gaze as it remained fixed ahead like a sentinel guarding their approach.
The guards flanked them , Axel, Sage, Caspian, Beckett, Orion, moving in perfect unison, their scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves momentarily piercing through the hospital’s overpowering chemical fog.
An unwanted reminder of her situation, Cait’s own floral pheromones felt stifled, trapped under the scrutinizing gaze of onlookers.
The scent that once commanded respect and attention now felt like a suffocating shroud.
As the elevator doors slid open, the muted hum of machinery filled the air.
Inside, Albert’s voice turned low and taut.
“Journalists are clustered near the atrium exits. Kieran, ensure the evidence holos are untraceable.”
Kieran nodded, his fingers tapping nervously at his wrist’s comm.
“Already encrypted. But Father, the Beta Daily crew,”
Owen cut in, his tone sharp like a knife.
“They’ll swarm her. We need cordons.”
Cait felt her hands tighten on the wheelchair armrests, a surge of old instincts rising to the surface.
Once, she had commanded attention and respect, navigating the world with the confidence of her status.
Now, she fought against the different narrative being woven around her, a mere figure in a wheelchair, the very sight that once would have drawn admiration now masked her true power.
The doors closed, sealing them in a mirrored silence, a reflection of their heightened tension.
“I said I will speak,” she asserted, her voice clipped, tinged with the remnants of her previous authority.
Kieran blinked, taken aback by her sudden determination.
“I can stick up for myself. I know how they think.”
Memories flooded back.
A muted battle now raged within her.
She wouldn’t let them define her, not again.
She might not be a Beta now; she was calloused by her past, but she was still a force,a force they would have to reckon with, no matter the circumstances.
Albert’s jaw tightened, a muscle pulsing under his skin.
“Caitriona, they’re vultures hunting for weakness.”
“Let them see how weak I really am.” Cait lifted her chin defiantly, embodying a fierce resolve.
An elevator chime cut through the tension, and the doors slid open to reveal a scene of utter chaos.
“They’re people,” Cait said, her gaze unwavering as it locked onto his silver-gray eyes, which flickered with concern.
“Betas I worked alongside, who couldn’t tell the difference between us. I, who toiled for the same meager wages, starved and scraped by just like they did. They don’t realize that the heart of this misery is Beta-made, not Omega or Alpha. I earned triple outside of manufacturing, beyond the Traverses’ oppressive systems. That’s what they’ll listen to.”
Albert looked shocked; Kieran could only grin at his sister.
For someone who was raised in poverty, without the finer things in life, she sure was one natural leader.
Her oration skills sometimes sent a little shiver down his spine.
His baby sister was full of surprises.
Owen’s hand brushed her shoulder, a fleeting touch that felt both possessive and grounding.
“I’ll push you out there, doctor?” He looked to Dr.
Jameson, who relinquished the chair handles.