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RIN POV

Another extremely boring party.

Ugh.

Standing beneath the glittering chandeliers of the Imperial Hotel ballroom, I swirled the wine in my glass and tried to hide two things at once: my growing irritation… and the inconvenient bulge straining against my trousers.

Not sure why that second one was happening.

The room buzzed with laughter and polite conversation. Every smile looked like it could cut someone the second their back was turned.

Omegas drifted through the crowd like brightly dressed butterflies, their soft, slightly higher voices lifting the moment an alpha passed. Alphas in designer suits shook hands and traded empty compliments, their expressions practiced and hollow.

None of them were here for me.

They were here for my father.

Perfect. I couldn’t stand their lying tongues or their deceitful hearts anyway.

Every guest hoped to win favour from the Rin family—some contract, some deal, some golden opportunity. To them I was only an accessory. Young Master Rin. The god-like beautiful but temperamental son of the most powerful alpha in the city. Pretty to look at. Ultimately irrelevant.

I hated these events. The fakeness of it all made my skin crawl.

I was already calculating the earliest moment I could slip out without drawing attention when a murmur rippled through the crowd. Heads turned toward the grand entrance.

Ugh.

One name rose above the rest before I even saw his face.

Thorne.

The air in the ballroom shifted the second he stepped inside. He wasn’t merely tall; something about him carried an aura I couldn’t place—cold, absolute, and fucking unreal. The black suit hugged his broad shoulders like it had been made for him alone. Dark blond hair rested perfectly against them. He moved through the room as if he already owned every person in it.

Every omega straightened. They adjusted jackets and hair, eyes tracking him the way prey tracks a predator they desperately want to catch.

He wasn’t the prey.

He was the predator.

And everyone felt it.

Thorne Brown. Heir to the Brown Group—the only family that rivalled my own in wealth and influence. The city called him the perfect alpha. Smart. Charming. Successful. He had proven himself inside his father’s empire before he turned twenty-five. Spotless reputation. No scandals. No visible weakness.

And I despised him.

Not because he was my enemy.

Because no matter where I went, people compared us. Whenever my name was mentioned, his followed like a shadow. Two alphas. Two heirs. The city’s golden future. His path gleamed with perfection. Mine was filled with whispers.

Reckless. Wild. Unpredictable.

Behind closed doors they called me the Rin family’s disgrace.

I was tired of it.

Tonight, everything would change.

My fingers slipped into the pocket of my suit jacket and brushed the small plastic capsule tucked there. White. Round. Deceptively harmless. A friend who worked at one of the top pharmaceutical companies had given it to me last week.

“If you want to level the playing field,” he’d said with a smirk, “slip this into his drink. He won’t be your rival anymore.”

When I asked what it would actually do, he refused to say.

“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt him. Physically.”

That was enough for me.

Tonight Thorne’s reign ended. No more perfection. No more comparisons. I would finally step out from under his shadow.

A waiter passed with a tray of wine glasses. I took two, quickly and discreetly dropping the pill into the one on the left. It dissolved without a trace.

I straightened my shoulders and walked toward him, forcing confidence I didn’t feel. Underneath, I was terrified.

Thorne’s attention shifted the moment he saw me approaching. A polite smile spread across his mouth. When I reached him I caught the amusement—or maybe annoyance—in his eyes. We hadn’t spoken in weeks, not since the last business gala where I’d made the mistake of calling him out in public.

“Rin,” he greeted, voice deep and warm. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Hardly.” I forced a smile of my own. “These events are exhausting.”

He chuckled lightly. “We both know our fathers wouldn’t forgive us if we skipped.”

“I suppose not.” I extended the glass in my left hand. “A toast, then?”

Before he could take it, a clumsy waiter bumped into me from behind. I lost my balance. Thorne’s hand shot out, gripping my arm with surprising strength and steadying me.

“You alright?” Genuine concern coloured his voice.

“Fine,” I muttered, flustered.

Without hesitation he took the glass from my hand—the one that held the pill—and pressed the glass he’d been holding into my fingers.

“Here. Take mine.”

Panic spiked through me. My heart skipped. In the confusion I had lost track of which glass was which.

I hesitated.

His sharp eyes narrowed slightly. “Something wrong?”

“No.” The lie came easily. I raised the glass.

“Cheers.”

I drank everything in one swallow, praying I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.

We exchanged a few more empty words before I excused myself. My stomach twisted into knots. I could feel his gaze following me as I climbed the stairs to the balcony, desperate for air.

Five minutes passed.

Then it hit.

A slow, creeping warmth spread through my chest and settled low in my belly—heat unlike anything I had ever felt. My skin flushed hotter by the second. Breath came short and shallow. An ache bloomed sharp and insistent in my abdomen.

No.

This wasn’t happening.

My vision blurred. My legs threatened to give out. I grabbed the balcony railing, but there was almost no strength left in my hands.

A voice called my name behind me.

“Rin?”

I turned, barely able to focus. Thorne stood there, expression shifting from confusion to alarm in a heartbeat.

“What’s wrong? You look like hell.”

I tried to answer. My voice was barely a whisper.

Heat.

An unnatural, impossible heat was swallowing me whole.

Thorne reached me just as my knees buckled, catching me effortlessly in his arms.

“Call an ambulance!”

I heard him shout to someone nearby.

Then everything went black.