Chapter 10
Caged By Choice
~SAGE~
The bond feels like a second heartbeat.
That's the first coherent thought I have before consciousness fully claims me—this steady, rhythmic pulse that exists somewhere in the center of my chest but isn't quite mine.
It's softer than my own heartbeat. More chaotic.
Beating in patterns that don't follow any logic I understand, skipping and stuttering in ways that feel distinctly other.
Her.
Seraphine.
I can feel her.
Not just as a memory of time we shared, not just as the lingering scent of cotton candy that's saturated every inch of this room—but as a presence.
A constant, low-level awareness that hums beneath my skin like a current of electricity, telling me exactly where she is and what she's feeling even when I can't see her.
Right now, she's feeling... content.
Calm, almost.
A warm, satisfied sensation that floods through the bond and settles in my own chest like borrowed sunshine.
When other Alphas talked about bonding with an Omega, they made it sound like some glorious mastermind had been unlocked.
Like being stuck in a maze for years and finally realizing the path needed to be taken to be free.
They waxed poetic about completion, about wholeness, about finding their other half, and finally becoming the person they were meant to be.
I thought it was bullshit.
Romantic nonsense designed to make bonding seem less like a biological imperative and more like a cosmic destiny.
But now...
Now I'm lying here, feeling her contentment bleed through into my own emotions, and I'm starting to understand what they meant.
It's not that I'm complete.
It's that I'm accompanied.
For the first time in my entire fucking life, I'm not alone inside my own head.
The realization is staggering.
Overwhelming.
So I do what I always do when emotions get too big—I focus on the physical.
And that's when I notice the handcuffs.
Again.
Metal bites into my wrists, the familiar weight of restraint pressing against bone and tendon as I try to move my arms. They're stretched above my head, secured to the headboard with a mechanism that feels...different.
Not my usual cuffs.
Not the kind I can pop open with a twist and a prayer.
I flex experimentally, testing the tension, and frown when nothing gives.
"What the..."
I crane my neck to look up at the restraints, and my frown deepens.
These aren't standard issue.
The mechanism is complex—multiple interlocking components that would require either a specific key or a very particular sequence of movements to disengage. Someone who knows about restraints designed these. Someone who understands escape artists.
Someone who wanted to make sure I couldn't just slip free.
Her.
The thought makes me laugh—a short, breathless sound that echoes in the quiet room.
She actually outplayed me.
The grand escape artist, famous for slipping any lock, defeating any bondage, vanishing from any cage they tried to put me in—
And a five-foot-three Omega with pink hair and a sadistic streak managed to trap me in handcuffs I can't immediately escape.
I should be annoyed.
Should be planning my exit, calculating the torque needed to break the mechanism, and mapping out the weak points in the metal.
So why am I grinning like an idiot.
The girl who writes letters in blood and dances in violence found a way to cage me. It's exactly the kind of chaotic, brilliant, absolutely deranged move I should have expected from my bonded Omega.
My bonded Omega.
The thought hits different now that I'm awake enough to fully process it.
This isn’t a dream.
The bond isn't something I imagined in the haze of the best sex I've ever had.
It's real.
Permanent.
Forever.
I wait for the panic to come.
The regret.
The cold, creeping realization that I've just done something monumentally stupid—tied myself permanently to a girl I've known face-to-face for less than twenty-four hours, a girl my pack doesn't know exists, a girl who might be exactly the kind of liability that gets us all killed.
But the panic doesn't come.
The regret stays absent.
All I feel is...satisfaction.
A bone-deep certainty that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be—handcuffed to a bed in townhome number thirteen, bonded to a beautiful disaster who probably has plans to destroy me in the best possible ways.
The shower turns off.
The sound registers distantly—water cutting out, the soft squeak of feet on tile, movement in the bathroom just beyond the bedroom door. I track her through the bond, feeling the shift in her emotional state as she transitions from the warm comfort of the shower to the cooler air of the bathroom.
A spike of anxiety.
Brief, quickly suppressed.
She's nervous about something.
About me being here? About what we did? About facing the consequences of a bond neither of us planned for?
I can't tell.
The emotions come through clearly, but their causes remain a mystery—snapshots of feeling without context, colors without shapes.
I'm still figuring out how this works.
How we work.
The bathroom door opens.
And there she is.
Naked.
Completely, gloriously, devastatingly naked—walking into the bedroom with the casual confidence of someone who owns every inch of space she occupies.
Water droplets still cling to her skin, tracing paths down her shoulders, her breasts, the flat plane of her stomach with its network of scars that I spent half the night mapping with my tongue.
Her pink hair hangs in wet tangles around her face.
Her mismatched eyes find mine immediately—blue and green bright with something that might be amusement, might be satisfaction, might be the bond making her as aware of me as I am of her.
I have to lick my lips.
Can't help it.
The hunger that rises in me is immediate and visceral—a want so intense it borders on need, my cock stirring against the soft fabric of...
Wait.
I look down at myself, confusion momentarily overriding the lust.
I'm wearing sweatpants.
Comfortable, grey sweatpants that definitely weren't on me when I fell asleep. The bed has been made around me—crisp sheets, properly tucked corners, pillows arranged in a way that suggests deliberate care—with me positioned on top like some kind of decorative centerpiece.
How the fuck did she manage this?
I was unconscious. Knotted inside her, then deflating, then drifting off with her body still wrapped around mine like she never intended to let go.
And somehow, between then and now, she:
Got us both cleaned up.
Dressed me in borrowed clothes.
Made the bed.
With me still handcuffed to it.
The logistics alone are mind-boggling.
She giggles at my expression—that high, bright sound I'm already learning to crave.
"You can't be looking at me like you want a feast," she says, padding toward the closet. "I have evening recital. Which I have no clue if it's legit or not, thanks to all the new rules, but I have three days to practice for the grand audition with Martinez."
I watch her move—can't look away, really—tracking the flex of muscle in her calves, the sway of her hips, the way her shoulders roll as she reaches for clothes.
"Martinez?" I ask, voice rougher than I intend.
"Violet Martinez." She pulls out what looks like a school uniform—pleated skirt, button-up shirt, some kind of blazer.
"Former student of Hard Knot Academy. Current chair of the International Alliance of Contemporary Dance Excellence.
Only person in the entire industry who might be willing to take a chance on a packless Omega with a reputation. "
She says it matter-of-factly.
Like it's just information, not the desperate lifeline that sets off her emotions.
This audition matters to her.
Really matters.
The hope attached to it is almost painful—a sharp, fragile thing that she's clearly trying not to examine too closely in case it shatters.
I file the information away for later.
"What do you mean, legit or not?"
She steps into underwear—simple black cotton that shouldn't be as distracting as it is—before reaching for a bra.
"New rules." Her voice is deliberately light. "Packless Omegas are being restricted from all kinds of activities. Postal services. Performance spaces. Probably breathing, eventually, if they can figure out a way to monetize oxygen deprivation."
The bitterness underneath the joke is sharp.
I feel it echo through the bond—anger and hurt and the exhaustion of someone who's been fighting uphill battles so long they've forgotten what flat ground feels like.
I watch her dress.
Not in a predatory way—okay, maybe a little predatory—but more because I'm fascinated by the ritual of it. The care she takes with each piece. The deliberate movements, the counting I can see her doing under her breath as she buttons her shirt.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
She does everything in fours.
Even numbers.
The OCD patterns I noticed last night are even more obvious in the morning light. The way she adjusts each button exactly twice. The way she smooths the fabric four times before moving to the next section. The way her toe taps against the floor in sets of four while she's thinking.
It's not weakness.
It's armor.
The rituals keep the chaos contained, keep her functional, keep her from spiraling into the dark places her brain clearly wants to drag her.
I understand completely.
I have my own version—the compulsive need to map exits, to test restraints, to know I can always, always get out if I need to.
Two broken people with matching coping mechanisms.
Maybe that's why we fit.
She finishes with the shirt and reaches for the tie, looping it around her collar with practiced ease. Her movements are efficient but not rushed. Methodical. Like getting dressed is its own kind of performance, requiring attention and precision.