Chapter 4 What's wrong with me??
The hallway feels colder after his door closes behind me—colder than anything I felt in that office, colder than the hospital waiting room where I learned my mother was dying. The air bites at my skin, sharp and metallic, as if the tower itself resents letting me leave him.
For a moment, I just stand there.
Still.
Shaking.
Not just from fear.
From the echo of him.
His voice.
His power.
The way he held himself back with a ferocity that should not have been possible.
I press a trembling hand to my throat, feeling the ghost of his breath there. The spot feels marked. Branded.
Owned.
No.
Not owned.
Not yet.
But claimed?
The thought sends another tremor through me.
Darren is still in the hallway. He stiffens when he sees my face—noticing the flushed skin, the dilated pupils, the way my magic blooms unevenly under my skin like startled fire.
“Elara,” he mutters, quiet, cautious. “You alright?”
“No,” I whisper.
He seems ready to reach for me, then stops. Smart. Anything close to Alpha-scent this strong would be dangerous to touch.
He simply nods and steps aside.
He doesn’t speak again.
He doesn’t have to.
He looks at me like someone watching a person walk away from a ledge she has already jumped from.
The elevator ride feels like sinking underwater, every floor sweeping by like heavy currents dragging me down.
My knees finally give out around floor 40.
I sink to the mirrored wall, breathing shallow, too fast. My reflection stares back—haunted, shaken, lips still tingling from where his breath touched them. My magic flickers violently, torn between fear and a pull I don’t want to understand.
“He said you don’t belong to him,” I whisper to my reflection.
The mirror-Elara doesn’t believe it either.
When the doors open, the garage air hits me harshly—cold, unwelcoming, grounding. I stumble to my car and barely make it inside before I break again, sobbing into the steering wheel. Not just from fear this time.
From the terrible relief that he kept his control.
From the terror of how thin that control was.
From the unbearable truth that part of me… doesn’t want him to control himself.
“Gods,” I choke, wiping my eyes. “What is wrong with me?”
But I know.
Magic recognizes magic.
Power answers power.
And mine, traitorous thing, reached for him like a dying star grasping at gravity.
I drive home in a haze.
Night falls too soon—sooner than it should, like the sky itself is rushing me toward what comes next. I pace. Shower. Change clothes three times. None of it removes his scent from my senses.
Iron. Heat.
A storm on the cusp of breaking.
My phone lights up close to midnight.
One message.
PRIVATE WING. TOP-LEVEL CARE. DONE.
A gasp escapes me.
A sob.
A laugh.
Some broken hybrid of all three.
My mother is safe. For now.
Then another message appears.
SLEEP.
Then, after a beat:
TOMORROW YOU COME TO ME.
I stare at the words until they blur.
My magic hums, warm and frightened.
I don’t sleep long.
When I do, I dream of gold eyes in darkness.
Of a voice saying stay, stay, stay.
Of hands that could crush me—but didn’t.
Morning comes with a numb sort of clarity.
Tonight is the first night.
Food sits untouched on my counter. I force myself to eat anyway—his voice echoing: You’ll need your strength. I hate that I’m already listening.
By late afternoon, my phone buzzes again.
BE READY AT DUSK.
CAR WILL COME FOR YOU.
I grip the counter, breath stuttering. “This is real. This is happening.”
At dusk, the black SUV pulls up like an omen. The driver opens the door silently. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.
The tower feels different this time.
Heavier.
Darker.
Hungrier.
The lights seem dimmer, the air thicker, humming with the invisible pressure of Alpha rut rising like a tide. Guards look tighter, tenser. The elevator doors open slower, as if even the machinery dreads what waits above.
Darren meets me halfway to the top floor.
His expression is grim.
“He’s sealed the level,” he murmurs, almost a whisper. “Only you can enter.”
My stomach drops. “Already?”
“Already.” He swallows hard. “He’s… holding on. Barely. He asked for you by name.”
A shiver runs down my spine so sharp it’s painful.
“Last chance to leave,” Darren says, but his eyes already read the answer.
“I’m staying,” I whisper.
He nods. “Good luck, Hale.”
The private quarters door opens for me without my touching it.
The lights inside are low, golden, casting the room in warmth that feels deceptive—calm before a wildfire. The space is vast: polished black wood, deep shadows, sharp lines. Strength carved into architecture.
The bed is enormous.
Built for an Alpha in rut.
And he’s there.
Sitting on its edge, torso bare, head bowed, breathing heavy. Fresh bandages wrap his ribs, already tinted pink.
His aura is a storm.
Thick.
Electric.
Suffocating.
It slams into me like a wall.
“Alpha,” I whisper without meaning to—because the title is instinct now, not choice.
He lifts his head slowly.
Golden eyes.
Blown pupils.
A predator locked in his own body.
“You came,” he growls, voice sandpaper-dark.
“I said I would.”
His gaze flickers. Relief? No. Something darker.
He stands.
The room gets smaller.
“I warned you,” he rasps. “Tonight will be different.”
I nod, because words have abandoned me.
“Close the door.”
My hand shakes, but I obey. The soft click seals us in—and seals my fate.
“This is your last chance,” he says again, quieter this time, raw. “If you leave now, I won’t come after you.”
I step forward.
“I’m a healer,” I say, breath trembling. “Tell me what you need.”
His jaw flexes.
His hands curl into fists at his sides.
His control—ragged.
“Sit,” he orders.
I sit.
“Hands on your knees. Breathe slow.”
I do.
His eyes track every breath, tension coiling tighter in his massive frame.
“Closer.”
I slide nearer, pulse hammering.
“Closer.”
Our knees brush. I shiver.
“Now,” he whispers, voice low and dangerous, “tell me your name.”
“Elara.”
“Again.”
“Elara.”
His breath stutters. His eyes flutter shut for half a second. The rut roars beneath his skin, barely restrained.
His hand lifts, hovering near my knee—not touching.
“May I?”
My heart stops.
“Yes.”
His palm wraps around my wrist.
Magic explodes.
Golden light surges into him—my healing instinct reaching, soothing, anchoring. His dark magic surges back, overwhelming, coiling around mine like a storm latching onto sunlight.
He groans low, a sound both pained and hungry.
“That’s enough,” he grits. “Don’t move.”
I don’t.
But the rut doesn’t listen to him.
It builds slowly at first—a tremor in his grip, a hitch in his breath, a faint growl rumbling in his chest like distant thunder. His eyes snap open, pupils swallowing the gold, turning his gaze into twin voids ringed with fire. Sweat beads on his forehead, trickling down his temple, his muscles bunching under skin that's suddenly too tight, as if the beast inside is pressing against the seams, testing for weakness.
“Elara,” he rasps, voice fracturing, “it’s coming. The first wave.”
I feel it then—his magic spiking, wild and untamed, slamming into mine like a battering ram. Heat floods the room, thick and primal, his scent intensifying until it coats my lungs, my skin, stirring something deep and forbidden in my core. My own magic flares brighter, golden threads weaving desperately into his darkness, trying to bind it, to ground it.
But he’s losing the fight.