Elias barely made it to his chambers before his knees threatened to buckle.
His hands were shaking.
He hated it.
Hated that Caidren could still make him feel this way. Hated that, despite everything, he wanted.
His body still hummed from the Alpha's touch, the ghost of warm fingers wrapped around his wrist, the deep timbre of his voice curling around his thoughts like a snare.
He dragged in a breath, pressing his palms against the cool stone of his doorframe, willing himself to calm down.
It doesn't mean anything, he told himself. It's just the aftereffects. Just—
His fingers twitched.
He was lying to himself again.
Elias exhaled sharply and pushed off the door, shaking his head as if that could rid him of the way Caidren's scent still clung to his senses. He needed to clear his mind. He needed—
A sound.
Soft. Faint. But unmistakable.
His head snapped toward the window.
The room was dark, only the moonlight filtering through the stone lattice. He hadn't lit the candles yet, hadn't even moved past the threshold—
But someone was here.
He turned just as a shadow moved.
The attack came swift and silent. A gleam of steel in the moonlight. A blade aimed straight for his throat.
Elias reacted on instinct.
His body moved before his mind could catch up, twisting to the side, dodging just as the dagger skimmed past his shoulder. He caught his attacker's wrist, yanking them forward, using their own momentum against them.
A sharp grunt. A misstep.
Elias drove his elbow into their ribs, forcing them to stagger. But they were fast—recovering quickly, swiping at him again.
Another dodge. Another sharp parry.
This wasn't a mindless assassin. This was someone skilled. Someone who knew how to kill.
And if Elias had been the weak, fragile Omega everyone believed him to be—
He'd be dead already.
His heart pounded, not from fear, but from something darker. Something sharp and dangerous.
For the first time in days, his body didn't betray him.
It didn't want Caidren.
It wanted blood.
The assassin lunged again. Elias stepped into their space, twisting their wrist until the blade clattered to the ground. A sharp kick sent them stumbling backward, and before they could regain their footing, he was on them—pinning them against the cold stone floor, his knee digging into their chest.
The moonlight caught their face, and Elias froze.
It was one of Caidren's men.
A soldier sworn to the Alpha himself.
His breath came sharp and uneven as realization settled over him like ice.
Another attack. Another attempt.
How many times now? How many silent blades in the night, all meant to end him?
His fingers tightened around the assassin's throat, his body still thrumming with the need to end this threat—
Then a voice.
Low. Lethal.
"Elias."
His head snapped up.
Caidren stood in the doorway.
And he was watching him with something dark in his gaze.
Not anger. Not shock.
Something deeper.
Something like understanding.
Elias barely realized that his grip had loosened, that the assassin was still gasping beneath him.
Caidren took a slow step forward. Then another.
And then, in a voice too calm, too sharp, he said, "Let him go."
Elias's breath hitched.
Because in that moment—
With the moonlight casting sharp angles across Caidren's face, with the weight of his command curling around him like iron chains—
Elias knew.
Knew that Caidren had seen him.
Not the fragile, breakable Omega.
Not the weakling everyone assumed him to be.
He had seen the truth.
And Elias wasn't sure if he was more terrified—
Or more thrilled.