"I’ll do it. I’ll shave you neat and clean."

The words fell from Dorrent’s lips like heavy, frozen drops of iron, echoing in the moonlit silence of the grand bedroom. The sheer finality in his voice seemed to alter the very chemistry of the air, thickening it until it was hard to breathe.

The moment the declaration left his mouth, a sudden, violent tremor rippled through Jannah’s small frame. She caught herself almost instantly, digging her fingernails into the fabric of the charcoal silk sheets, desperately trying to lock her muscles into place to hide her panic. But to an S-tier alpha whose senses were trained to detect the slightest shift in a prey’s heartbeat, the gesture was as loud as a gunshot. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Dorrent noticed. A sharp, dark glint of satisfaction flared in his eyes as he watched the sudden, pale terror wash over her features.

Jannah’s mind was a chaotic storm of regret and rising dread. She had never, in her nineteen years of life, had anyone touch her womanly junction. It was a sacred, untouched boundary. Even the six alphas from the lower district who had previously tried to claim her—the ones who had met such drastic, catastrophic ends under the weight of her family’s bloodline blight—had never reached that intimate depth. Their bonds had shattered long before they could ever truly possess her.

She had only thrown this reckless challenge at Dorrent because she was entirely convinced of his absolute loathing for her. She had known, with absolute certainty, that his deep-seated disgust for the "filth" of the slums would make him recoil and back down. Even the threat of texting Joanne had been a massive, elaborate bluff. Deep down, bound by the ancient, unyielding code of the herbalists who preceded her, Jannah had her own strict rules: she would never, under any circumstance, reveal a patient’s true condition to an outsider.

But now, her own trap had snapped shut on her wrists.

She looked up at Dorrent as he stood over the bed, his white silk shirt slightly unbuttoned, his massive, imposing silhouette blocking out the pale moonlight. Despite the burning hatred she harbored for him—the bone-deep animosity for the monster who had ruthlessly taken her parents’ lives—she found herself wishing, with a sick sense of despair, that he looked less handsome. She wished he didn’t radiate such a suffocating, intoxicating heat. He was her absolute enemy, the architect of her lifelong grief, yet her traitorous omega biology was already responding to his terrifying closeness. She knew, with a crushing sense of certainty, that she wouldn’t be able to bear the raw, electric shock of his physical touch without breaking.

What made him change his mind so fast? she wondered frantically, her eyes wide as she stared at the cruel, calculating smirk playing on his lips.

Dorrent could see right through her defiance. He could see the frantic, rapid pulse fluttering at the base of her throat, the way her long, slender legs twitched beneath the sheets as she fought the urge to pull away and run. The realization that she was completely out of her depth—that the fierce, sharp-tongued extortionist was actually a terrified, untouched girl—ignited a dark, thrilling excitement in his chest. For a split second, the heavy fog of his disgust evaporated. He forgot that she was from the filthy slums; he forgot the bitter scent of her common herbs. All he saw was an arrogant little adversary who needed to be thoroughly conquered and dismantled from the inside out.

He leaned down, his massive frame descending over her like a heavy curtain, completely trapping her against the headboard. The cool, clean scent of his expensive soap mingled with the sudden, sharp spike of her terrified, sweet pheromones.

Without a single word of warning, Dorrent guided his large, smooth hand between her thighs.

Jannah gasped, her eyes widening to their absolute limits as the tips of his fingers made contact with her bare skin. His hands were incredibly soft—the hands of a man who ruled empires from glass towers, entirely unlike the rough, calloused hands of the laborers she had known in 3rd Street. It was a softness that felt far more threatening than any weapon.

Slowly, deliberately, he began to trace his fingers deeper, moving upward along the sensitive, inner line of her thigh. Jannah clamped her teeth together so hard her jaw ached, using every ounce of her remaining willpower to hold back the sound that was rising in her throat. The sheer friction of his skin against hers felt like liquid fire, sending intense, jagged jolts of raw sensation straight to her core. Her body was heating up at a terrifying speed, her womanly junction growing slick and heavy under the phantom weight of his looming presence.

Dorrent’s smirk widened as he felt the intense, burning heat radiating from her skin. He used the back of his hand to gently but firmly part her legs further, widening her stance on the dark silk sheets, exposing her fully to his gaze.

The torment was absolute. Jannah’s breath came in ragged, silent hitches, her hands clutching the mattress until her knuckles turned a deathly white. When the edge of his thumb brushed against the hyper-sensitive, hidden part of her inner thigh, the barrier broke.

A soft, helpless sigh escaped her lips.

The sound shattered the spell. Realizing she was on the absolute brink of losing control, of surrendering to the very man who had ruined her life, a sudden, desperate surge of survival instinct flooded her veins.

Before his fingers could slide an inch higher, Jannah violently bolted backward, dragging her legs up and scrambling away from his reach until her back hit the opposite corner of the massive bed. She frantically pulled the edges of her tiny shorts down, her chest heaving as she glared at him through a sheen of humiliated, furious tears.

"I’m already shaved," Jannah gasped out, her voice trembling but laced with a final, desperate shield of defiance. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, her body slightly shaking she could barely balance on the cold floor. She threw a look of pure, unadulterated venom over her shoulder at his stunned, frozen form. "You were late."

Without waiting for his response, without looking back at the dark, dangerous storm brewing in his eyes, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind her.