All Chapters of The Hybrid’s Forced Bond: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Margot POVThe suit was expensive and tailored; of course, it looked good. For the next twenty minutes, everyone in the room would watch me, including Rhett Vanderbilt.The man who barely glanced my way on a normal day. Maybe today he’d look longer. Perhaps he’d notice. My pulse kicked harder at the thought.Under the suppressants, my skin still felt too tight, every nerve ending tuned a fraction higher than it should have been.I could smell the faint cedar and smoke of my own carefully neutralized scent and, beneath it, the restless shift of something older.Lisa paced once under my ribs, claws flexing against the inside of my sternum as if she wanted out. Elena stood and waved me toward the middle seat.“Margot, sit.” “Edge is fine. Easier exit.” I dropped into the chair and flipped the laptop open. She twisted the cap off a water bottle and set it beside me. “Do you eat anything? I can grab you something.” “Already did. You guys? “Cafeteria’s new burger. Actually

Margot POVRhett saw it first. He pulled his scent back instantly, the pressure easing a fraction.Arian followed a beat later, voice smooth with manufactured concern. “Apologies. Didn’t mean to affect Margot.”A shareholder somewhere to the left sounded startled. “Margot’s an omega? Never would have guessed.”“There are omegas in the research institute?”Murmurs rippled through the room like spilled water.Pride and humiliation tangled so tightly in my chest that I couldn’t separate them.Three years ago I had sworn I would never again be the omega who lost control in a professional space. The memory flashed—cold tile, the smell of lab solvent, and the way my body had betrayed me—and then it was gone, drowned under the rising heat.I forced a brief bow.“Excuse me.” My legs felt like water.I made it off the stage and out the side door on pure will, heading straight for the nearest restroom.Every step sent a fresh pulse of heat low in my abdomen.My skin felt too tight.My pulse ham

Rhett POVI shook my head once. A car like this, an omega in full heat, and any stranger with a phone—and by morning the story would be everywhere that mattered. John had been waiting for exactly this kind of mistake. One clip and the board and the stock price—everything would take a hit. I wasn’t giving him the weapon.I leaned down, slid my arms under her, and lifted her off the floor mats onto my lap. Tears kept slipping down her temples. I thumbed them away, slower than I meant to.“You’re not usually the crying type.”She stared up at me, dazed, pupils blown wide, as if she couldn’t decide if I was real or something the heat had conjured to torture her.My hand moved to her damp hair, then lower, settling at the back of her neck. My palm covered the entire nape easily. The second I touched the gland there, her whole body jolted

Margot POVHis hand locked around my throat so tight I couldn’t rock forward with the force of him.Every hard thrust slammed straight into me with nowhere to go.The pressure was exact, enough to steal air, not enough to break me.I heard myself broken: broken moans, ragged pleas, and the wet, helpless sounds of a body that had stopped negotiating.Pain and pleasure twisted until nothing else existed.I was only the place he entered, the heat that took him, and the shaking that answered every drive of his hips.Somewhere under the haze, I knew that begging for his mark had set him off.His alpha. But this man was not mine.Not really. The knowledge sat cold and small behind my ribs while the rest of me burned.Tears soaked the sheets beneath my cheek.Even as the next orgasm crashed through me, a quiet, wordless grief sat in my chest. My heart sank as my body climbed.Wet sounds filled the room every time he drove in—obscene, rhythmic, impossible to ignore. I came again around him

 Margot POVIn the days after the heat, Rhett Vanderbilt and I didn’t see each other.Didn’t text.From days of intense, skin-to-skin everything to radio silence, like strangers.The drop felt brutal.Worst part: I had no right to feel hurt about it.Worse still, the second I knew I’d see him again, something in me lit up, anyway.I hurried out of the elevator and straight to his reserved spot in the upper levels. Quiet up there. I kept my head down anyway.Inside the car, Rhett was already watching me, relaxed, that faint almost-smile on his face.No phone, no papers. Just waiting.My pulse jumped.“Come here.” He held out a hand.I hesitated, then put mine in his.He tugged me across the seat and onto his lap in one smooth motion.His nose found the side of my neck, and he inhaled slow.Heat flooded my face.