1

Flash back

Kai's arms wouldn't work.

He pushed. He actually pushed hard. Nothing happened. The man behind him didn't even budge.

The smell hit him next  sharp, heavy, suffocating. It filled his lungs and scrambled his brain. He couldn't think straight. Couldn't focus on anything except the fact that he couldn't breathe right.

His heart was losing it.

Something's wrong.

Kai had turned seventeen last month without performing. Most kids got their secondary gender at sixteen. Some waited longer. But not him. Not yet. His parents had started the whispers  maybe he'd be a beta. Kai had hated that idea.

Now he was bent over a bathroom sink with a masked stranger holding him down.

The man shifted. Kai's stomach lurched.

"Stop," Kai managed. His voice came out broken. Desperate.

He heard himself make a sound he didn't recognize.

His whole body lit up on fire.

What the hell 

His skin felt raw. Every nerve ending screamed. His throat was dry. Even breathing felt like drowning.

Kai's fingers scraped the marble counter, trying to find leverage. Trying to push back.

His strength was gone.

How'd he even get here?

The Moonbeam day party. Right. He came with his best friend. They drank. There was music. People. Then... nothing. His memories just cut off.

Panic exploded in his chest.

He was trapped with an alpha.

And that alpha's scent was making him collapse.

The masked man leaned down to his ear. "Easy."

Kai's entire body froze.

"Won't last much longer."

"What won't?" Kai's voice shattered.

The alpha's grip tightened. "Your presentation."

The words slammed into Kai like a truck.

Presentation.

No. Absolutely not. He'd never 

But his body was burning. Heat was spreading everywhere. His skin was tight and sensitive and he was 

The alpha behind him laughed.

Pleased. Satisfied.

Like he'd just won something.

Kai realized the truth then, and it destroyed him.

This wasn't natural.

This was being forced.

The words left Kai's mouth before he could think.

"I've never gone into heat."

A quiet laugh came from behind him.

"Look at yourself right now. What does that tell you?"

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Heat was crawling under his skin. His mind kept slipping. Every weird thing his body had been doing tonight the dizziness, the sensitivity, the way his pulse jumped at nothing it all lined up now, and the conclusion made his stomach drop.

This couldn't be happening.

Not here. Not now.

The man closed the distance between them, boxing him in against the counter.

"Your body already knows what it needs," he said. "Fighting it only makes you suffer longer."

Kai's back went rigid. "Needs it for what?"

The answer pressed against him, solid and unmistakable.

A sound tore out of his throat. Humiliating. Involuntary.

"You're in your first heat," the alpha said, utterly unbothered. "My pheromones are the only thing keeping you upright right now. Pull me away and you'll collapse inside of a minute."

The heaviness hanging in the air. The overwhelming smell that had been suffocating him since he walked in.

That was him. That was all him.

"I don't want this," Kai gritted out. "Not from you."

A beat of quiet.

"Then name someone."

The answer came without hesitation.

"There's already someone."

"You're admitting you're an omega, then."

"Why does that make you sound satisfied?"

The man's hand pressed flat against him. "Because your heat started the moment I walked into this room. I caused it."

The air went out of Kai's lungs.

Triggering another person's heat was one of the few crimes that carried an automatic sentence. No exceptions. No appeals.

Except for the people the law was never written to touch.

"That's a criminal act," Kai said sharply.

"When ordinary people do it yes."

Something about his certainty was worse than any threat.

"My bloodline puts me above that charge. An Chen. You know what that means."

Kai knew.

The Weber twins. Gabriel and Felix. Royal blood on their mother's side, Chen blood on their father's. Famous for moving through the world like rules were suggestions written for other people.

Was he really trapped in a bathroom with one of them?

It didn't track. Those two had never once looked at Kai like he existed. And Alex Alex was always somewhere nearby, always between Kai and anything that could go wrong.

But even Alex's reach had a ceiling. Royal privilege sat above personal protection. Above most things.

"Claiming a bloodline you don't have carries its own charges," Kai said, hunting for steadiness in his voice.

"I'm not claiming anything false."

The heat in Kai's gut flared. Traitorous. Unbearable.

He looked down.

His pants were gone. He genuinely could not recall when that had happened.

Something close to terror moved through him.

"You don't have the right  " His voice cracked. He steadied it. "I belong to someone. An alpha. So back off."

The man went still.

One full second of silence.

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

"Who." Not a question. A demand, stripped of any patience.

One name. The only name that had ever made Kai feel safe. The only name he'd been carrying quietly for longer than he wanted to admit.

"Alex Kim is my alpha."

Nothing.

No movement. No response. Just a silence so total it swallowed the sound of the music downstairs.

Then the man started laughing. Really laughing the kind that bounced off the tiles and had no warmth anywhere inside it.

Kai's heartbeat turned ragged.

The laughter cut off like a switch flipped.

The man's mouth moved to his ear.

"Funny thing about that name."

His voice came out soft. Almost gentle. More threatening for it.

"What would you do if Alex Kim was already here?"

Kai's body had betrayed him completely.

He stood there shaking, and the masked man found it funny.

"You still don't get it," the stranger said, almost gently. "Sweet little omega."

Kai opened his mouth to fire back.

Then the heat hit.

Not warmth a full-body crash, like being pulled underwater. Every thought he was holding onto dissolved. The anger, the plan, the reasons he'd been fighting gone. His own instincts shoved him aside and took the wheel.

He stopped being Kai.

He became something that only knew want.

After that, the night broke apart.

Voices. Music bleeding up through the floor. Hands. A black mask. Darkness swallowing everything in between.

He didn't know how many hours passed.

He didn't know much of anything until the cold morning air hit his face outside.

His legs were unsteady. His head felt cracked open. The walk to the street took more effort than it should have.

Kai tried to piece the night back together.

A mask. Black.

A voice he almost recognized but couldn't place.

Arms that had held him like they had every right to.

That was it. That was all that was left.

He told himself the gaps were a mercy.

He didn't believe it for a second.

Because underneath the missing hours, one thing had followed him home clean and sharp and inescapable

Shame.

Not the vague, embarrassed kind.

The kind that sits in your chest and tells you the truth is worse than what you can remember.

And Kai was terrified it was right.