POV: Rian
The master bedroom was a cage of glass and shadow.
I stood by the door, hugging my arms around my chest. The silk pajamas Varrick's staff had forced me into felt too light, too slippery. They offered no protection against the chill radiating from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Outside, a storm was battering Veridia. Rain lashed against the glass in violent sheets, blurring the city lights into streaks of neon bleeding down the pane. Thunder rattled the frame of the building, a low growl that vibrated in the floorboards.
I flinched at the sound.
I was waiting.
It was 1:00 AM. Kael had escorted me here ten minutes ago, locking the door from the outside with a heavy, mechanical thud.
I looked at the bed. It was massive—a king-sized island of charcoal gray sheets and black pillows. It looked less like a place to sleep and more like a sacrificial altar.
He's going to take it tonight, I thought, bile rising in my throat. The debt. The payment. This is it.
I had spent my life running from Alphas. I knew what they were. They were creatures of appetite. And Varrick? Varrick was a starving wolf who had finally cornered a rabbit.
The lock clicked.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I backed up until my shoulder blades hit the cool plaster of the wall.
Varrick walked in.
He didn't look like the composed, terrifying Kingpin who had presided over the strategy meeting earlier that day. He looked wrecked.
His suit jacket was gone. His tie was undone, hanging loosely around his neck like a noose. The top three buttons of his dress shirt were torn open, revealing the sheen of sweat on his collarbones.
But it was his face that scared me.
His skin was gray, drawn tight over his cheekbones. Dark, purple bruises shadowed his eyes. He blinked slowly, sluggishly, as if the air itself was thick syrup he had to push through.
He didn't look at me. He walked straight to the wet bar in the corner, his movements jagged and uncoordinated.
He grabbed a crystal decanter. His hand shook—a violent tremor that rattled the glass against the rim of the tumbler as he poured. Amber liquid splashed over his hand and onto the mahogany counter.
He didn't wipe it up. He downed the whiskey in one swallow, his throat working convulsively. He poured another. And another.
"Varrick?" I whispered.
He froze.
He turned slowly, pivoting on his heel. When his eyes landed on me, I stopped breathing.
There was no recognition in them. Just static. They were blown wide, the pupils swallowing the irises. He looked feral. He looked like a man who was hallucinating.
"Stop hovering," he rasped. His voice sounded like it had been dragged over gravel. "You're loud. You're so loud."
"I... I didn't say anything," I stammered, pressing harder against the wall.
"Not your mouth," Varrick snarled, slamming the glass down. It shattered. "Your heart. It's beating like a drum. Boom. Boom. Boom."
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, groaning—a sound of pure, animalistic agony.
"Make it stop."
I realized then that he wasn't drunk. He was unraveling.
I had heard about this—Alphas who went too long without sleep entering a state of psychosis. Their senses dialed up to eleven until a pin drop sounded like a gunshot. It was dangerous. A sleep-deprived Alpha couldn't control their strength or their temper.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked, keeping my voice level, though my knees were shaking. "If you want... if you want to use me, just get it over with. Please."
Varrick dropped his hands. He looked at me, blinking as if trying to bring me into focus.
He laughed. It was a dry, broken sound.
"Use you?" he muttered, stumbling toward me.
I braced myself. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the grab, the tear of fabric, the pain.
But it didn't come.
Varrick stopped inches from me. I felt his heat—he was burning up, a furnace of exhausted energy.
"I don't want to fuck you, Rian," he whispered, his breath hitting my face, smelling of expensive scotch and despair. "I want to turn my brain off."
He reached out, his hand wrapping around my wrist. His grip was iron, bruising in its intensity.
He dragged me toward the bed.
"Get in."
"What?" I dug my heels into the carpet. "No. Varrick, I—"
"I said get in!" he roared.
The shout was so loud I flinched violently. Varrick didn't wait. He shoved me onto the mattress. I bounced on the memory-foam, scrambling backward, trying to get to the other side, to put distance between us.
Varrick didn't follow me. He collapsed onto the bed face-first.
He didn't undress. He didn't get under the covers. He just sprawled out on top of the duvet, his arm thrown over his eyes, his breathing ragged and uneven.
"Lie down," he commanded, his voice muffled by the pillow.
I hesitated. I was sitting pressed against the headboard, knees to my chest.
"Lie down, Rian. Or I shackle you to the frame."
I lay down. I stayed on top of the covers, stiff as a board, as far away from him as the bed allowed.
Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. The only sound was the rain and Varrick's breathing—which wasn't slowing down. It was jagged. Hitching.
Minutes passed.
"It's not working," Varrick whispered into the dark. There was a crack in his voice. A note of panic. "Why isn't it working? You're here. It should be working."
He rolled over, sitting up abruptly. He looked wild.
"You're holding back," he accused, staring down at me.
"I'm not doing anything!" I cried, terrified he was going to snap.
"You are," he growled. He crawled across the bed, looming over me. "You're walled off. You're scared. Your scent is sour with fear. It's making it worse."
He grabbed my shoulders, pinning me to the mattress. His weight was crushing.
"Let it go," he ordered, his face inches from mine. "Drop the shields. Release the scent. Now."
"I can't just turn it on!" I shouted back, panic rising. "You're terrifying me! How am I supposed to calm down when you're looking at me like you want to kill me?"
Varrick froze.
The words seemed to penetrate the fog of his exhaustion. He looked at his hands gripping my shoulders. He looked at my face, pale and trembling.
He let go.
He collapsed sideways, falling onto the pillow next to my head. He curled into himself, bringing his knees up, wrapping his arms around his head as if trying to physically hold his skull together.
"I haven't slept in six months," he confessed. The words were a broken whisper. "The pills don't work. The whiskey doesn't work. The silence is too loud. If I don't sleep tonight, Rian... I'm going to break. And if I break, I'm going to hurt someone."
He sounded small.
The monster of Veridia, the man who snapped wrists and executed traitors, sounded like a child afraid of the dark.
I lay there, staring at his back.
I hated him. I hated that he had bought me. I hated that he owned my sister's life.
But I knew what sleep deprivation did to a person. And I knew that if he snapped, I would be the first casualty.
I took a shaky breath. I closed my eyes.
Picture the rain, I told myself. Picture Maya safe in the hospital. Picture the ocean.
I forced my muscles to unclench, one by one. I slowed my breathing. I stopped fighting the biology that made me an Omega. I lowered the internal walls I had built to survive the streets.
And I let my scent go.
It drifted into the air between us. Vanilla. Not the synthetic kind, but the deep, warm smell of baking spices. Mixed with the fresh, clean scent of rain on pavement.
It was soft. It was soothing. It was a lullaby in chemical form.
Varrick went still.
A long, shuddering sigh escaped him. His entire body seemed to deflate. The tension wire that had been holding him together snapped—not violently, but with relief.
He shifted.
Blindly, instinctively, he reached out.
His heavy arm draped over my waist. He pulled me backward until my back was pressed against his chest. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, right over the gland, inhaling greedily.
"There," he slurred, his voice thick and heavy. "There it is."
He didn't bite. He didn't grope. He just held on, anchoring himself to me.
Within seconds, his breathing changed. The jagged gasps smoothed out into a deep, rhythmic cadence. His hand, which had been clenched in a fist on my stomach, relaxed, his fingers splaying flat.
The monster was asleep.
I lay there in the dark, trapped under the weight of his arm, listening to the thunder rattle the windows.
I was wide awake.
My heart was still racing, but the fear was slowly morphing into something else. Confusion.
I turned my head slightly, looking at the sleeping Alpha. His face was smoothed of lines. He looked younger. Human.
I realized then the terrifying truth of my position.
I was a prisoner, yes. But I was also the only thing standing between Varrick and madness. I was his medication. I was his sanity.
He needed me.
And for a thief who had spent his whole life with nothing... knowing that the most powerful man in the city couldn't survive without me?
That felt like a weapon.
I closed my eyes, letting the scent of burnt cedar and vanilla wrap around us, and for the first time, I didn't feel like a victim. I felt like a necessity.