Chapter 10 #2
"The importance of performing arts," she says, catching my gaze in the mirror, "is that it's the only thing that makes me feel human. Dancing is... it's the one space where all the noise in my head goes quiet. Where I can just exist in my body without my brain trying to destroy me."
The vulnerability in the admission makes my chest tight.
She's not just talking about a hobby.
She's talking about survival.
"And they might take that away?" I ask.
She finishes tying the tie, adjusting it precisely before turning to face me. The school uniform transforms her somehow—makes her look younger, more innocent, even though I know exactly how dangerous she is beneath the pleated skirt and pressed blazer.
"It might disappear," she confirms. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes. "No pack, no activities. That's the new reality for Omegas in the Ruthless sector."
The injustice of it burns through me.
She's brilliant.
Talented.
The kind of performer who could light up stages across the world if anyone gave her the chance.
And they're going to take it from her because she doesn't have a pack? Because she's survived this nightmare alone instead of finding Alphas to claim her?
"What if we're your pack?"
The words come out before I can think better of them.
She freezes.
For a moment—just one crystalline moment—her expression softens. The walls she keeps so carefully maintained crack just slightly, revealing something vulnerable and hopeful underneath.
Then she shakes her head.
"That's just the reality of an Omega in the Ruthless sector of Hard Knot Academy.
" She picks up her blades—those beautiful dual daggers I remember from last night—and slides them into a mini backpack with practiced ease.
"I doubt your pack is easy prey or accepting of foreign things like a crazed Omega. "
She shrugs the backpack on, adjusting the straps until the weapons sit perfectly between her shoulder blades.
"But hey." Her smile is sharper now, more defensive. "If they think they can put up with me, be their guest."
Through the bond, I feel the resignation underneath the bravado.
She doesn't believe it.
Doesn't think anyone could actually want her enough to fight for her, to include her, to make her part of something bigger than herself.
She's been alone too long.
Rejected too many times.
The hope she felt last night—when we bonded, when I made promises about running away together—is already being smothered by the practical certainty that nothing good ever lasts.
I want to argue.
Want to tell her that my pack isn't like other packs, that we're all broken in our own ways, that we'd probably welcome a beautiful disaster who writes letters in blood and kills without remorse.
But I can't make promises for Kai, Jett, and Blaze.
Can't guarantee how they'll react when they find out what I've done.
What we've done.
So instead, I focus on the immediate problem.
"Are you going to unlock me?"
She giggles—that manic, delighted sound that shouldn't be as attractive as it is.
"You can get out of anything, yes?" She turns to look at me, eyes glittering with mischief. "The great escape artist. The man who's never met a lock he couldn't pick."
I tug at the cuffs experimentally.
They don't budge.
"These are different," I admit, and the admission costs me something. "What did you do to them?"
Her grin is pure sadistic delight.
"Special features." She moves toward the door, ballet-light steps that barely make a sound. "Custom designed. Took me months to get the mechanism right. Consider it... a challenge."
She pauses at the threshold, looking back over her shoulder.
"I left the window open if you need assistance. But no shoes in the house."
The rule is so incongruous, so perfectly her, that I can't help but laugh.
She bonded with me.
Handcuffed me to her bed.
And she's worried about shoes on her floors.
"Seraphine—"
"Thanks for a good time, Wilder."
The door closes behind her before I can respond.
I hear her footsteps retreating down the hall, then the front door opening and closing, then... silence.
She's gone.
Left me here, caged and claimed and thoroughly outmaneuvered.
Through the bond, I feel her emotions shifting as she moves away from the townhome—anxiety creeping in as she heads toward campus, determination settling over her like armor, the constant low-level counting that keeps her centered.
She's going to be okay.
For now.
I let myself lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, processing everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours.
I came to this academy on a mission.
Find the Eastman heir.
Eliminate the threat.
Return to the pack and pretend this nightmare never happened.
Instead, I found her.
My pen pal.
My cotton candy girl.
My now bonded Omega.
And somewhere in the chaos of letters and rain and the best sex of my life, the mission stopped mattering.
She's the only thing that matters now.
My phone starts ringing.
The sound cuts through the silence—harsh, insistent, demanding attention. I can't see where it is, but I recognize the ringtone.
Jett — the pack member most likely to notice when something's wrong, to track me down, to demand explanations I'm not ready to give.
"Auto-command," I say, activating the voice control I installed for exactly this kind of situation. "Speaker."
The call connects.
"You have five seconds to explain why you're in some random badluck townhouse," Jett's voice fills the room, flat and controlled in the way that means he's barely containing his irritation, "and why it feels like we're all attached to something with this emotional bullshit."
Fuck.
He can feel it.
Of course he can feel it—the pack bond means they're all connected to me, and now that I'm connected to Seraphine, they're connected to her too.
They've been feeling her emotions all morning.
Her anxiety.
Her hope.
Her resigned determination.
Without any context for what any of it means.
I let out a long breath.
"Well," I say, keeping my voice deliberately casual, "I bonded with an Omega. So that explains the emotional rollercoaster bullshit."
Silence.
For five full seconds, Jett doesn't respond.
I count them.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Then: "You what?"
"Bonded. With an Omega." I tug at the cuffs again, more out of habit than hope. "And as for the townhouse thing, I had the best one-night stand ever and am currently locked in handcuffs I actually can't get out of. So, I may need you to intrude."
Another pause.
I can practically hear Jett processing—that sharp, analytical mind cataloguing variables, calculating risks, mapping out the implications of what I've just told him.
"You're serious."
"Completely."
"You bonded with an Omega you just met."
"Technically, I've known her for five years." I shift on the bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. "She's my pen pal. The one I've been writing to. S.E."
The silence that follows is loaded with questions I know Jett is too disciplined to ask over an unsecured line.
Then the window slides open.
No warning.
No sound.
Just the sudden rush of morning air and then Jett is there—crouched on the windowsill in all black, somehow having scaled the exterior of the townhome without making a single noise that would alert me to his approach.
Aerialist assassin.
Silent as death.
And currently staring at me with an expression that's equal parts disbelief and reluctant amusement.
"Never thought the day would come," he says slowly, swinging his legs inside and dropping to the floor with predatory grace, "where an Omega outsmarts the grand escape artist of all the land."
I roll my eyes. "Just unlock me already."
"No."
He doesn't move toward the bed.
Instead, his head tilts—that bird-like motion he does when he's processing sensory information—and his nostrils flare.
I watch his expression shift.
Something flickers across his face—interest, surprise, and underneath it, the unmistakable spark of want that I felt when I first caught her scent outside the post office.
"Why the fuck," Jett says slowly, "does it smell like the best cotton candy I'd ever want?"
I smirk.
Can't help it.
"That," I say, letting satisfaction color my voice, "is the scent of our Omega."
Jett's head rotates.
Full owl movement—nearly one-eighty degrees, his body staying perfectly still while his neck does something that would be anatomically impossible for anyone who hasn't spent years training their joints to dislocate on command.
It's eerie as fuck.
And completely typical for him.
"You bonded with an Omega you just met," he says again, like repeating it will make it make more sense.
When I don't respond—because what's there to say?—he clarifies:
"We're bonded to an Omega none of us have met."
"You're not surprised by that."
Jett sighs—a soft exhale that carries more resignation than annoyance.
"No," he admits. "I'm surprised you're still alive.
" His storm-grey eyes scan the room, taking in the details I'm sure he's already catalogued—the personal touches, the security measures, the evidence of someone who's been surviving alone for a very long time.
"So I guess we'd better run for our lives before Kai shows up shooting this shit down in fury. "
The mention of Kai makes my stomach clench.
Kai.
Our pack leader.
The man who's going to absolutely lose his shit when he finds out I've bonded us all to an Omega without permission, discussion, or any consideration for pack politics or cartel obligations.
"Right," I say, suddenly very aware of how badly this could go. "Kai. Forgot about our fearsome leader."
Jett moves toward the bed, pulling something from his jacket—a small device that looks like a lockpick but with modifications I don't recognize.
"The sex better have been worth it, my friend," he says, fitting the device into the mechanism of the handcuffs. "Because when Kai finds out what you've done..."
He doesn't finish the sentence.
He doesn't need to.
I hear the click of the cuffs being unlocked—Jett's specialized tool bypassing the mechanism Seraphine designed—and feel the pressure release from my wrists.
I sit up, rubbing circulation back into my hands, and let my smirk widen into something genuine.
"So fucking worth it, brother," I say, meaning every word. "But this cat and mouse hunt is going to ignite a new thrill in this academy life."