Max Enigma Vincent
The walls of the Vincent estate had always felt thick. Impenetrable. Designed to keep danger out.
Tonight, Max felt like they were built to trap him in.
The heavy silence of the mansion pressed against his ribs as he lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling — the same one he'd grown up under, the same one that had never once made him feel small.
Until now.
Noah.
His mate.
Their mate.
He'd barely said a word in the car ride home. Silas had fumed in silence. Sam had closed himself off completely. Elias had barked a cold, final "Go to bed" the moment they stepped through the door.
But Max hadn't moved for over an hour now. His room was dark, but his mind was on fire.
He could feel it. That slow thrum in his veins, like a second heartbeat — soft, insistent. Calling him to Noah.
The bond wasn't loud. It was steady. Warm. Too warm.
Max sat up suddenly, tossing the covers aside, pacing the cold marble floor.
Max (thinking):
"This doesn't make sense."
Noah was younger. A supreme omega. Royalty. Powerful in his own way — too powerful.
And Sam had known — that was what stung the most.
He had looked at Max, day after day, and kept that truth buried behind those unreadable eyes of his.
Max (thinking):
"He could've told me. He should've."
Max ran a hand through his hair, dragging his fingers through the knots of frustration.
It wasn't just the betrayal.
It was the need.
His body responded to Noah's name like it had been wired for it.
When Noah had stood on that stage and said,
> "These are my mates,"
Max's legs had almost given out.
And it wasn't just desire. It was something older. Deeper. A wolf-level certainty that Noah belonged to him. That Max would kill for him. Die for him.
And that wasn't something Max was ready to accept.
Not when it also meant sharing Noah.
With Sam. With Silas.
And… with Lucien Miller, the 23-year-old dominant alpha doctor who had barely blinked when Noah claimed him.
Max (thinking):
"I don't share. I never have."
But maybe he didn't have a choice anymore.
Maybe none of them did.
---
Max sat down at the edge of the bed, staring out the tall window.
He could see the dark trees lining the outer walls of the estate. Beyond them — the Anderson world. The Miller world. Noah's world.
And somehow, it was now his too.
He whispered into the quiet:
Max:
"…Why does it feel like I've already lost?"
---