3

Kai went still.

He turned the words over slowly.

An alpha announcing his intentions. Asking, essentially, without asking. Giving Kai room to say no before anything started.

Emma Rossi checked every box. Objectively. Silver hair, green eyes, the kind of easy confidence that didn't need to announce itself. Not overbearing. Not the type to corner someone. Good-looking enough that half the room had tracked him when he walked in.

Everything Kai had told himself he wanted.

So why did looking at him feeling like settling?

He drank. Long and hard. Let it burn.

Because you're an idiot, he told himself. Because you've been holding a door open for someone who lost your address years ago.

He'd read every article. Searched every forum at 5am with the lights off like the answers were something to be ashamed of. They all said the same thing the first time leaves a mark. His first time as an omega had been confusion and heat and something he still didn't have a clean word for.

His body had learned the wrong lesson.

He wanted to unlearn it.

A real partner. Somewhere quiet to come home to. A version of himself that didn't flinch at his own memories.

Alex didn't have to be part of that picture.

He told himself that firmly.

Then Emma smiled at him open, unhurried and Kai made himself smile back.

This works. Make it work.

That's when it registered.

Prime Alpha.

Emma's designation had been in the back of his mind all night, but it hit different now. Same rank as Alex. Same pull in the air, subtle but unmistakable.

Kai had spent four years steering around Prime Alphas. Told himself it was a type thing. Personal preference. Nothing deeper.

He'd been lying.

He'd been waiting.

His jaw tightened. He took another drink, longer this time.

Done waiting. Starting now.

Emma was saying something. Kai nodded, held eye contact, stayed present

And then his body stopped.

Not a thought. Not a decision. Every muscle just locked.

The scent reached him a half-second later.

His fingers lost feeling around the bottle.

That's not possible.

His heartbeat turned loud and slow, like the moment before a fall.

He turned toward the door without choosing to.

Alex Kim stood in the doorway.

Eyes already on him.

Emma probably wasn't forever.

But he showed up. He listened. He didn't push. And he wanted Kai openly, without games.

That was enough to work with.

Maybe not just a rebound, Kai thought. Maybe actually something.

The dangerous thoughts tried to creep in anyway a mask, large hands, a body that had made him lose his mind and he killed them before they could form.

No.

He was done chasing that. Done replaying it. Done leaving a light on for Alex Kim like some fool who hadn't learned his lesson.

He didn't need intensity. He didn't need obsession dressed up as desire.

He needed someone who would simply stay.

Kai hooked one finger through Emma's belt loop and tugged just slightly, just enough.

"I can hold my liquor," he said. "But if tonight goes the way I think it will, I should probably stop now."

Emma stared at him.

The surprise on his face was genuinely funny.

"...Really?"

"Really."

"I thought you weren't into it." Emma laughed, short and disbelieving. "I was going to try one more time and then leave you alone."

Something in Kai's chest unclenched.

A man who could accept rejection without making it a whole thing. Who had a limit and respected it.

God, that was rare.

"Lucky for you," Kai said, "I'm not turning you down."

Emma's entire face shifted. "Somewhere quieter?"

Kai looked at the wall of bodies around them. "Please."

Emma reached for his hand. Kai gave it.

They cut through the hallway together, people knocking into them from every direction, bass from the speakers vibrating through the floor. Kai lifted the bottle with his free hand and finished what was left in a few hard swallows.

He needed it.

Because underneath everything underneath the decision and the forward momentum and the hand in his he was terrified.

He'd never actually done this. Not properly. Not with someone who wanted him back, someone he'd chosen.

What happened years ago didn't count? There was nothing to learn from that night except how fast everything could go wrong. No gentleness. No choice. Just heat and shock and the kind of memory that embedded itself somewhere you couldn't reach.

Kai exhaled slowly.

Stop.

They were almost at the stairs.

He looked up out of habit just a glance, completely automatic, scanning the living room the way you do when a crowd shifts

And stopped breathing.

Across the room, half-swallowed by the crowd, stood a man in a metallic blue mask.

The bottle almost hit the floor.

Kai knew that mask.

Not vaguely. Not maybe. He knew it the exact shade, the exact line of it across the face, the width of the shoulders underneath.

His memories didn't need an invitation. They were already there.

A locked door. Arms that wouldn't let him move. A voice that had never left him alone.

The masked man didn't move.

Neither did Kai.

They looked at each other or Kai looked, and felt looked at, even through the dark mask, even across a room full of people.

"Kai."

He flinched.

Emma. Right. Emma was here.

"What?"

"I've been talking to you. Are you okay?"

Kai turned back toward the living room.

The man was gone.

He scanned every corner. Every cluster of people. Nothing. Just strangers. Just noise.

Vanished.

Maybe the alcohol had hit faster than expected. Maybe four years of obsessing over a face he never got to see had finally broken something in his brain.

It didn't matter.

He was not doing this tonight.

Kai squeezed Emma's hand and made himself smile. "Sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew."

Emma watched him a beat too long. "You sure?"

"Yeah." His voice came out clean. Steady. "Come on."

Emma turned toward the stairs.

Kai followed.

One step up. Two.

Then a scent wrapped around him from behind and his whole body locked like a switch had flipped.

A voice came low and close, just above his ear.

"Leaving so soon, Kai?"

His blood went cold.

Four years.

He had spent years trying to forget that voice.

And it was right behind him.