جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 18

Dean returns with two men behind him, and Finn’s body reacts before his mind understands why.They smell wrong.Not like Everett, not even like the violent Alphas in the hallway. These men carry the sharp scent of antiseptic, club perfume, and something bitter beneath it, something Finn’s instincts reject so violently that his hand curls in the blanket. The fever inside him twists toward panic. His skin goes cold and hot at once, and the room narrows around the open doorway.Everett rises from the chair before Finn can speak.He does not move like a man standing. He moves like a threat unfolding.The two men stop at the threshold.Dean’s jaw tightens. “They say they are medical staff.”“They are not coming in,” Everett says.One of the men lifts a small silver case. “Mr. Stone, the Omega needs immediate stabilization. The club has emergency protocols for heat reactions.”

Everett does not move after Finn grabs his wrist.For one suspended second, Finn feels everything through that single point of contact. Everett’s pulse is steady beneath his fingers, slower than Finn’s frantic heartbeat, but not calm. There is tension under his skin, power held too tightly, instincts forced into stillness by discipline alone. The heat in Finn’s body recognizes that strength and reaches for it with a hunger that makes shame burn up his throat.He should let go.He does not.Everett lowers his gaze to Finn’s hand around his wrist, then lifts it back to Finn’s face. His eyes are dark, focused, and strained in a way that tells Finn this costs him more than he wants to show.“I am here,” Everett says quietly.Finn’s grip tightens. “Do not say it like that.”“Like what?”“Like it is easy.”Something flickers across Everett&rsqu

Finn wakes before dawn with Everett’s scent still on his skin.For a moment, he does not know where he is. The room is dark except for the thin gray light pressing around the edges of the heavy curtains. The air smells of melted ice, clean towels, leather, blood from his wounded palm, and Everett. That last scent is everywhere, deep in the sheets, wrapped around his throat, caught beneath every breath.His body remembers before his mind does.Heat. Hands. Permission whispered so many times it became something Finn held on to instead of something forced from him. Everett’s mouth was careful against his. Everett stopped when Finn trembled, waiting for Finn could not speak, giving back control even when Finn barely knew how to use it.Finn closes his eyes.The shame comes first because shame is familiar. It crawls under his skin and tries to turn every memory ugly. He was drugged. Feverish. Terrified. He reached for an Alpha who should hav

Finn does not know how far he walks before the walls stop looking like walls and start looking like a throat closing around him.The service passage behind Everett’s suite is narrow, unpainted, and cold enough to make his bare skin prickle beneath the clothes he managed to straighten with shaking hands. Pipes run along the ceiling. Old dust clings to the corners. Somewhere inside the walls, water moves with a hollow sound, and every step Finn takes seems too loud.He keeps one hand on the wall because his legs are not steady.The forced heat has faded from its worst edge, but it has not left him clean. It sits beneath his skin in a dull fever, turning his body weak and too aware. Every breath hurts. Every movement reminds him of the night he is trying not to remember. His muscles ache, his wounded hand throbs, and Everett’s scent still clings faintly to him even after he left the jacket folded on the chair.That frightens him most.He s