Chapter Ten
Sunlight. That’s the first thing I register.
A sharp, unforgiving blade of it slicing across an unfamiliar ceiling.
My head is full of cotton and broken glass.
I’m half on, half off a bed, one leg dangling in space, my cheek pressed into a pillow that smells wrong.
It’s not the usual sweetness of whatever omega I usually end up with.
It’s clean, cold. Like winter air and ink.
Fuck.
I try to push myself up, and a chorus of agony answers. My shoulder screams, a sharp, stinging protest. My back feels like I went ten rounds with a cement mixer. And when I try to shift my hips, to sit up properly, a deep, throbbing ache blooms low in my spine, radiating directly to my asshole.
The air is thick and suffocating. Something primal and heavy.
Pheromones. Mine, the aggressive spice of rum and musk, are clinging to the sheets, smelling sharp and desperate.
But they’re tangled up with another scent, that infuriatingly clean, cold smell of winter.
The two are woven together, a cloying miasma of alpha-on-alpha. The room stinks of sex.
My stomach lurches.
There’s a weight in the bed beside me. A solid wall of heat pressed against my back. A slow, even rhythm of breathing that isn’t mine. My own breath catches in my throat, a ragged, panicked thing.
Don’t turn. Don’t look. If I don’t look, it’s not real.
But I have to. I force my head to turn, my neck protesting with a stiff crack. My eyes, gritty and sore, struggle to focus on the figure beside me.
And then I see the unmistakable form of Kang Donghwa.
He’s sprawled on his stomach, face turned toward me, mouth slightly parted in sleep.
His black hair is a disaster on the pillow.
One long, leanly muscled arm is thrown over my waist, holding me in place like I’m some kind of fucking teddy bear.
He’s naked. Covers tossed half over his back, but I see the line of one lean thigh and a sharp hipbone.
Horror, cold and absolute, floods my system.
It all comes crashing back. Not in a gentle wave, but like a fucking pallet of bricks. The party. Heesung draped all over him. The red haze of my anger. Dragging him into the empty room.
“I could even have you.”
The memory of my own stupid, arrogant words makes me want to vomit.
I kissed him first. The initial surge of my own dominance, trying to force him into submission, and then the shocking, instantaneous flip. Donghwa’s tongue, not resisting, but invading, taking control. The clash of teeth. The dizzying, head-spinning scent of two alphas locked in a dominance war.
The wrestling. The crash of a lamp. Being flattened face-first onto the mattress, the inescapable weight of him settling over my thighs.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
The glint in his eyes as he wet his fingers in his own mouth. The humiliating, unwanted pleasure as he prepped me. The agonizing burn of him pushing inside, stretching me, filling me until my vision went spotty.
And then the knot.
My own voice screaming, begging him to pull out. The feeling of being split open, the terror mixing with a sick, traitorous pleasure. The sharp, searing pain in my shoulder as his teeth sank in.
I look at him, this bastard sleeping peacefully beside me, and I see it all. I see myself, Oh Sihwan, the king of this campus, pinned and taken by a freshman. By another Alpha. I was knotted. Bitten.
The thought is so vile, so fundamentally wrong, it feels like acid crawling up my throat. A silent scream builds inside my chest, a pressure cooker of shame and rage. I have to get out of here. Now.
I hold my breath, my lungs burning with the effort, and carefully lift Donghwa’s arm off my waist. It’s heavy, dense with that lean muscle that I hate so much, and warm.
Disgustingly warm. I pinch his wrist between my thumb and forefinger, treating it like a dead rat, and inch away until I can roll off the mattress.
My feet hit the floor, and I immediately regret being born.
A sharp, tearing pain shoots up my backside, so intense I have to grab the edge of the nightstand to keep from crumbling. My knees buckle. Motherfucker. It feels like I’ve been impaled on a fence post. I grit my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut until stars explode behind my eyelids.
I’m an Alpha. I’m Oh Sihwan. I bench press twice my body weight. I do not get taken apart like a cheap folding chair.
But the evidence is everywhere. My boxers are under the desk. My jeans are in a heap near the door. My shirt—God, my favorite limited edition release—is draped over the lampshade of the lamp we knocked over.
I move like a geriatric man, shuffling across the carpet.
Every step sends a fresh wave of misery through my hips.
I snatch up my boxers, my face burning as I see the dried, crusty evidence of last night staining the fabric.
I can’t put those on. I’d rather go commando than slide into that humiliation.
I kick them under the bed. Let Donghwa find them and choke on them.
I wrestle into my jeans, a process that requires a level of gymnastics my battered body isn't ready for. Zipping them up puts pressure on my stomach that makes me nauseous. I grab my shirt, sniffing it. It smells like him. Like cold air and ginseng and that infuriatingly smug alpha pheromone. I gag, but I pull it on anyway. It’s better than being naked in the enemy’s camp.
I risk one last look at the bed. Donghwa hasn't moved. He’s sleeping the sleep of the satisfied, face buried in the pillow, back rising and falling in a slow, mocking rhythm under the covers.
The worst part isn't the pain. It isn't even the fact that he knotted me, stretching me until I thought I’d split in two.
The worst part is the memory flashing in my brain like a strobe light. The way I keened when he hit that spot inside me. The way my hips bucked back against him, begging for it. I didn't just take it. I wanted it. For hours, I let another Alpha own me, and I liked it.
I feel sick. Physically, violently sick.
I grab my shoes and don't even bother tying them until I’m out in the hallway. The apartment is silent, thank whatever gods are listening. I limp to the front door, wincing as the friction of denim against my raw skin reminds me of every thrust.
I slip out into the corridor, the heavy click of the lock behind me sounding like a gunshot.
I don't wait for the elevator. I take the stairs, clinging to the railing, fleeing the scene of the crime like the building is on fire. My dignity is back in that room, shredded on the floor next to my discarded boxers, and I have a terrible feeling I’m never getting it back.
I look like a fugitive. Or worse, an art major during finals week.
I’m wearing a hoodie. A gray, oversized, shapeless sack of cotton that I wouldn't be caught dead in under normal circumstances. Usually, I’m in a fitted tee that highlights the hours I spend doing incline bench presses, or at least a varsity jacket that screams "I run this place.
" Today, I look like I’m trying to smuggle a ham out of a grocery store.
But I have no choice. Because underneath the thick fabric, right where my neck meets my shoulder, is a bruise the size of a tangerine. And right in the center of that bruise are teeth marks. Deep, broken-skin punctures that throb every time my heart beats.
A bite mark. On me. On an Alpha.
I stand outside the lecture hall door, checking my reflection in the glass panel. My hair is a mess because I couldn't lift my arm high enough to style it properly. My eyes have dark circles that no amount of cold water could fix. I look wrecked.
I check the time on my phone. Ten minutes late.
Perfect. Everyone should be settled, eyes front, listening to Professor Choi drone on about color theory.
If I’m lucky, I can slip into the back row, dissolve into the shadows, and pretend the last forty-eight hours were a fever dream induced by bad shellfish.
I take a deep breath—mistake, my ribs ache—and push the door open.
The air inside hits me instantly. It’s the usual stale mix of coffee, dry erase markers, and low-level anxiety. But cutting through it all, sharp and distinct, is him.
Cold winter air. Ink. Ginseng.
My stomach does a traitorous, sickening flip.
It’s not the nausea of disgust, though I tell myself it is.
It’s a lurch of recognition. My skin prickles under the hoodie, goosebumps racing down my arms. It’s like my body knows that scent now, recognizes it as the thing that wrecked me, and instead of recoiling, my pulse jumps.
Get a grip, Sihwan.
I keep my head down, hood pulled up, and shuffle toward the nearest empty seat in the back.
Every step sends a jolt of misery up my spine.
My ass feels like I spent the weekend riding a horse bareback over a rocky mountain.
I have to walk with a weird, stiff-legged gait that I pray just looks like a sports injury.
Yeah, pulled a hamstring. intense training.
Definitely not getting railed by a freshman.
I slide into the chair, wincing as my denim-clad rear hits the hard plastic. I bite my tongue to keep from whimpering.
I feel instantly the weight of a gaze.
I don't want to look. I really, really don't. But it’s like gravity. Against my will, my eyes dart toward the middle row.
Kang Donghwa is there. Of course he is. And he looks infuriatingly perfect.
He’s wearing a black turtleneck that makes his neck look long and elegant, his dark hair falling effortlessly over his forehead.
He looks rested. He looks calm. He looks like he didn't spend Saturday night rearranging my internal organs.
He’s not looking at the professor. He’s turned in his seat, his chin resting on his hand, looking directly at me.
Our eyes lock for a fraction of a second.