His Drama Queen (The University Players Duet #2)

Chapter 1 Vespera

one

Vespera

The rejection sickness comes in waves.

Three weeks ago, they cornered me in my dorm. All three of them blocking the door, Dorian's ice-blue eyes burning with that possessive certainty, Oakley reaching for me with gentle hands that made it worse somehow, Corvus explaining in that clinical voice why fighting biology was irrational.

My nails caught Dorian's face when he stepped too close. Four crimson lines bloomed across his perfect cheekbone, and the shock in his expression gave me the half-second I needed.

I grabbed my purse and ran.

The chase through campus should've been humiliating—three powerful Alphas pursuing one omega across the quad while students stopped to stare.

But I was already too far gone with rejection sickness starting to burn through my veins, the marks on my neck screaming as I put distance between us.

Someone gasped. Phones came out. I heard Dorian shouting my name, felt the pull of the bonds trying to drag me back like invisible chains.

My vision tunneled. Blood was still wet under my fingernails.

The campus gates rose ahead. Beyond them, a city bus idled at the stop.

I don't remember the last fifty yards. Just the fever spiking, my legs giving out, students scattering as I collapsed at the gates. The bus driver's worried face. Dorian's desperate voice calling after me, already distant, already too late.

The doors closed. The bus pulled away.

The rejection started the moment I chose to flee.

Every mile I put between us, every hour I stayed away, every conscious decision not to return—that was the rejection.

My body knew what I was doing even if there was no formal ritual for it.

The bonds screamed at the separation, demanding I turn around, go back, submit to what biology insisted was inevitable.

I barely made it onto that bus. By the time Dad picked me up in Columbus, I was delirious, the marks burning like brands, my body revolting against what I was forcing it to endure.

Distance. Time. Refusal to return. That's all rejection really is: the stubborn, continuous choice to stay away from what your body insists you need.

Now I'm home in Franklin, Ohio, in the bedroom I grew up in, surrounded by remnants of who I used to be before Northwood Academy tried to break me.

I press my cheek against the cool wood of my childhood dresser.

The Little Mermaid stickers I'd put there at age seven catch the afternoon light—faded and peeling at the edges, but still innocent.

Dad refinished this dresser himself, an estate sale find he made beautiful again through patience and skill.

The marks throb in unison with my heartbeat.

Dorian's mark, the largest, burns with possessive fury.

It sits right where neck meets shoulder, the traditional Alpha's claim, and it pulses with heat that makes me dizzy.

Oakley's mark behind my ear aches differently—deeper, almost mournful, like disappointment made physical.

Corvus's mark, placed with surgical precision to be visible above any collar, itches with mathematical regularity, as if my body is trying to solve an equation with no solution.

Three marks. Three severed bonds. One choice that might actually kill me.

But it's my choice. The first real choice I've had since they decided I belonged to them.

My father's voice drifts up from downstairs, on the phone with someone from the community theater. "No, I need at least another week off. Family emergency... Yes, I understand we're in tech week... Marcus can handle the light cues, he has my notes..."

Another week off. That's at least two weeks of pay he's losing, and I know exactly how much we can't afford it.

The technical director position at Franklin Community Theater pays barely enough to cover our mortgage and bills in a good month.

But here he is, choosing me over money we desperately need.

The door opens softly, and Dad enters carrying a tray.

There's a bowl of soup—chicken and rice, homemade from scratch the way his mother taught him—and a glass of water with a bendy straw, the kind I loved as a kid.

A sleeve of saltines, a blue Gatorade, and a single daisy from the garden in a tiny vase.

"You need to eat," he says, setting the tray on my nightstand.

"I'm not hungry." The lie comes automatically. I'm beyond hunger, beyond normal human needs. My body only wants one thing, and it's three hours away at Northwood.

"I don't care." He sits on the edge of my bed, cataloging my deterioration with the same attention to detail he uses when documenting technical problems at the theater. "You're going to eat something, drink the entire glass of water, and then we're going to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Vespera." His voice carries that particular tone he uses when he's trying to be patient but is running out of reserves.

"You showed up at my door three weeks ago looking like you'd been in a war.

You've been burning with fever for days.

You scream in your sleep. And you won't tell me what happened. "

"I told you. I rejected them."

"Those boys who were..." He struggles for the right word. "Pursuing you?"

"They're not boys, Dad. They're Alphas. And they weren't pursuing me—they claimed me. During my heat. Against my will."

The words hang in the air between us, stark and ugly. His face cycles through emotions—confusion, understanding, rage—before settling on a carefully controlled calm that's somehow more frightening than anger would be.

"They forced a bond on you." Not a question.

"Three bonds. A pack bond. It's supposed to be biologically permanent."

"But you broke it?"

"I rejected it. There's a difference." I touch Dorian's mark unconsciously, immediately regretting it when electricity shoots down my spine.

"Breaking would mean it's gone. Rejection just means I'm refusing it.

The bonds are still there, trying to pull me back. My body thinks I'm dying without them."

"Are you?" The question is soft, frightened in a way I've rarely heard from him. As a Beta, these things must be hard for him to understand.

"Maybe." The honesty feels strange. "Rejection sickness from a true mate bond can be fatal. With three bonds... I don't know. There's not exactly a lot of research on this."

Dad takes my hand, his fingers rough from years of handling tools and lumber, building sets that transport audiences to other worlds. "Your mother—"

"Please don't." The words come out sharper than intended. "Not today."

He nods, but the weight of unspoken history sits heavy between us. Dad never talks about Mom since she left. But sometimes I wonder if she was omega too. If that's why understanding seems to flicker in his eyes when he looks at me now, when he sees the marks I'm trying to reject.

"I made some calls," he says, changing the subject with practiced deflection. "Marcus says the Columbus Summer Theater program still has spots. Six weeks, professional company, full immersion. Far enough away that..." He trails off.

"That they won't find me?"

"That you can heal," he corrects, though we both know what he meant. "The program starts in two weeks. Marcus owes me enough favors to get you in, plus a work-study position to cover costs."

"Dad, we can't afford—"

"We can't afford not to." He squeezes my hand. "You need to get away from here, away from whatever pull those... Alphas have on you. And you need to be on stage again. It's who you are."

He's right. Even through the fever and pain, the itch to perform burns steady—to disappear into someone else's story where biology doesn't determine destiny.

"I'll think about it," I say, which we both know means yes.

"Good. Now eat your soup."

I manage a few spoonfuls while he sits with me, telling me about the theater's production of Our Town, how the new apprentice doesn't know a fly rail from a pin rail, how the board is fighting him about replacing the ancient light board again.

Normal things. Safe things. The kind of mundane theater problems that used to be my biggest concerns.

"Mrs. Patterson asked about you," he says casually. "Wanted to know if you'd be interested in assistant directing the fall musical."

"Mrs. Patterson who told me I'd never make it in professional theater because omegas don't have the stamina?"

"That's the one." His smile is grim. "Funny how success changes people's memories."

"A full ride to Northwood's theater program counts as success?"

"It did." The past tense hangs between us.

"But what matters is you're talented, Vespera.

With or without Northwood, with or without.

.." He gestures vaguely at my neck. "This.

You're going to make it because you're good.

Not because of your designation or who claims you or any biological bullshit. Because you're good."

The certainty in his voice almost makes me believe it.

After he leaves, I lie in bed watching shadows lengthen across my ceiling.

The same ceiling I've stared at through childhood illnesses, teenage heartbreaks, college acceptance celebrations.

The glow-in-the-dark stars I'd stuck up there at age eight are still visible if I squint—a cheap astronomy kit Dad bought at a yard sale to encourage my "scientific phase" that lasted all of two weeks before I discovered theater.

He kept them up anyway. Just like he kept every drawing, every report card, every playbill from every show I've ever been in.

I touch the marks again. They're healing physically—the initial tearing pain faded to this constant ache—but the bonds themselves are still very much alive. When I close my eyes, I can feel them pulling like compass needles pointing toward Northwood. Toward the Alphas who claimed me.

Dorian's bond burns hottest. Possessive, demanding, furious that I dared to leave. I imagine him pacing his family's estate, that dramatic intensity turned inward, plotting how to get me back.

Oakley's bond aches with guilt and longing. The healer Alpha who should've known better, who probably tells himself he was trying to help, trying to save me from rejection sickness. As if claiming me against my will was somehow mercy.

Corvus's bond hums with cold calculation. The analytical one, already researching options, contingencies, legal precedents. Figuring out how to fix this problem I've created by having the audacity to choose myself.

They're probably together right now. Planning. Strategizing. Convinced that biology will win eventually, that I'll come crawling back when the sickness gets bad enough.

They don't know me at all.

The fever spikes again, and I curl into a ball, riding out the wave. My body screaming that I'm making a mistake, that I need them, that rejection will kill me.

Maybe it will.

But at least I'll die free.

The thought sustains me through the worst of it. When the fever finally breaks an hour later, I'm soaked in sweat but clearheaded enough to make a decision.

Columbus Summer Theater. Six weeks away from here, away from them, away from the constant pull of bonds I never wanted. Six weeks to prove I can survive this. That my will is stronger than biology.

That I'm more than what three Alphas decided I should be.

I reach for my phone and text Dad: I'll do the summer program. Thank you.

His response comes quickly: Proud of you, sweetheart. We'll get through this.

We will. Because the alternative—going back to Northwood, accepting the bonds, letting them win—isn't an option.

I'd rather burn.

And if I've learned anything from a lifetime in theater, it's this: the best performances come from the edge of destruction. From taking everything you are and everything you're not and transforming it into something transcendent.

They wanted to make me small. Manageable. Theirs.

Instead, I'll take this rejection, this sickness, this choice, and I'll use it.

I'll become exactly what they feared: an omega who refused to break.

The Drama Queen, unbowed and unbroken.

Let them watch from three hours away while I burn their expectations to ash and build something better from the flames.

The marks throb a warning, but I ignore them.

This is my story now. Not theirs.

Mine.