Novel-novel oleh Tianli Xiao

"Long-term. High-concentration. The surface is riddled with hardened knots. A healthy Omega gland is soft. Elastic. Yours has already shriveled. It's a piece of dead meat, pickled by drugs."I bit my lip.Bit until it blanched white, the taste of rust filling my mouth."Keep taking those drugs, and your heat will disappear completely. You'll be a barren, sexless husk."Everything he said was true.Suppressants bought on the black market. Three times the concentration of hospital prescriptions. I split one vial into three doses, adjusted the dosage myself, and injected them into my gland in the alley behind the laundry room. Sometimes I miscalculated the dose. I'd seize up afterward, hug a trash can and vomit, then get

"Why were you in the laundry room?" I asked. "You're the Wolf King.""My clothes get washed there." He set the kit on the coffee table. "And I left something behind.""A pendant.""Two."My hand went to the hidden pocket on the left side of my skirt. The red pendant was still there, pressed against the wet fabric, warm from my body heat. I pulled it out and held it up.The blood-red stone hung in the air. The firelight pierced through it, casting a small patch of red light onto his face, landing right on the faint scar beneath his left eye."Your royal crest. There's only one in all of Alpha City. You put it around the neck of an Omega you knew absolutely nothing about

我身后的铁门发出骨头摩擦的低沉湿润的嘎吱声，仿佛野兽在猎杀后紧紧闭上了嘴。该隐背着我穿过了三道栅栏门。我的双臂环绕着他的脖子，指尖抵着他腺体边缘上方的皮肤。滚烫。异常的热度。一个阿尔法王的体温不应该这么高。除非他正在竭尽全力地压制着什么。值班的卫兵低着头靠在墙上。他的目光扫过我湿透的裙子，扫过我膝盖上还在渗出的鲜血。他喉咙哽咽了一下，随即垂下眼帘，一句话也没问。第二道门。铁栅栏发出刺耳的锈蚀金属摩擦声，尖锐的金属气味弥漫在空气中。第三

Cain looked down at her.He lowered himself into a crouch, stopping halfway, leaving a gap between his knee and the ground. His face hovered close to Vivian's. The muscles of his back pulled taut under his uniform, carving out several harsh lines from his shoulder blades down to his lumbar spine, the curve sharp as the spine of a blade. His palm had withdrawn from my neck, but the residual heat of it was still there, and my gland was still throbbing in place, like a heart carved out and left pulsing outside my body."The engagement." His voice was very quiet now. "Was a lie your father spread himself. I never agreed to it. Not once."He extended his right index finger and touched the back of it to Vivian's chin, tilting her face up. That finger was still caked with dried blood."You stepped on her hand today. You ruined my coat. You tried to frame her with that cheap piece of rock. And you told her to crawl between your legs."He withdrew his finger. Vivian's chin dropped like a sever

The iron door flew off its hinges.Not an exaggeration. The sheet metal door was ripped clean from the frame and hurled across the laundry room, bouncing twice before skidding to a stop. The impact shattered two washbasins by the water trough, dirty water sloshing up three walls. The remaining hinges on the doorframe kept swinging, screeching out a metallic wail.The cold wind knifed in, and with it came a wave of Alpha pheromones so potent it could trigger every Omega on the premises into a forced heat. Cedarwood. Gunpowder smoke. The sharp, sweet tang of fresh human blood. This wasn't diluted pheromone residue. This was the raw, dominant presence of a male fresh off the battlefield, adrenaline still surging, his scent gland still pumping at full capacity. The instant that pheromone flood hit the laundry room, the back of my neck ignited, my gland bulging outward so violently I nearly let a muffled moan slip from my throat.Cain stood in the doorway.His black combat uniform was dren

Winter in the Wolf Territory could kill.The laundry room was a box of corrugated steel. When the wind shoved through the seams, it whistled—a low, guttural sound, like the noise a male wolf makes deep in his throat just before he mounts. I had been crouched beside the washbasin for so long that my kneecaps had gone numb, my fingers buried in water that was barely above freezing. My knuckles were swollen, purple as dead beans, and packed under the nails was a crust of dried blood.Not my blood.It belonged to Cain's war coat.The Wolf King had ripped a traitor apart with his bare hands the night before. They said he tore the man's scent gland clean out of his throat, trachea and all, and the blood had sprayed across the floor in a three-foot arc. This coat was the proof. Clotted shreds of tissue were still snarled deep in the fur. I had washed it five times, and the water I wrung out was still pink.The smell drove straight into my sinuses. It wasn't just the ordinary reek of blood. I