All Chapters of His Stripper Mate: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

Zosia’s POV Two hundred and twelve dollars. That was the number burned into the back of my eyelids. It was the exact cost of Nyx’s dialysis this Friday. It was the price of my sister’s very next breath. I gripped the cold brass of the pole, my palms slick with a desperate, suffocating sweat. I couldn't look at the crowd; I couldn't bear to see them. If I looked, I’d see the predatory hunger in the Alphas' eyes and the cruel, mocking smirks of the Betas. To them, I was nothing more than a spectacle—the plus-size Omega who moved with a heavy, sluggish grace, a body to be judged and a soul to be consumed. I wasn't always this way. Sometimes, in the quiet moments before dawn, I remembered a girl who was fast, lean, and powerful. A girl who was born to lead. But that girl had died a long time ago, along with my parents in the car accident that had left me an orphan at age seven. Ever since that night, it had been just me and Nyx, my twin sister. But while I had emerged from the wreck

Damien lunged, his fingers clawing for the phone, his face a mask of desperate greed. I pulled back, my heels catching on the plush carpet, nearly sending me tumbling. I steadied myself, holding the evidence of my own stupidity to my chest. "Give it to me, Zosia! Now!" he hissed, his Alpha aura flared—a sharp, stinging pressure that usually made me bow. I shook my head, tears finally spilling over. "How could you? Nyx... you said you were saving her." Damien’s eyes went cold, the last of his facade falling away like dead skin. He stopped lunging and simply stood over me, utilizing his height to make me feel as small as the Hippo he called me. "I was saving us a lifestyle, Zo. Nyx was always a lost cause. You’re the one who kept her on life support while I did the actual work of making us relevant." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a cruel, intimate whisper. "Be smart. Give me the phone. I’ll tell the followers it was a skit for our anniversary. I’ll keep paying the clinic

ZO’s POV The first thing I felt was the cold—not the biting winter of the Hollows, but a deep, clinical chill that seemed to have settled into my bones. When I opened my eyes, the ceiling was a blur of gray and yellow water stains. I tried to lift my head, but the world tilted violently, the cracked plaster spinning like a carousel. “Don’t try to sit up yet.” Roxanne’s voice was like gravel. I ignored her, my hand fumbling for the edge of the leather couch. My fingers brushed against something soft and heavy. I looked down. A man’s coat was draped over me—thick black wool, smelling of vetiver and pine. The scent hit me like a physical blow. Images flashed: Damien’s sneering face behind the velvet curtain. The rough pain of the bond snapping. The terrifying, golden fire that had erupted from my skin. And then, the floor. I remembered the sensation of falling, the certainty that I was about to break, and the sudden, impossible strength of the arms that had closed around me. ‘I’v