Chapter 305

Daphne

The club music pounds through my skull, bass vibrating in my chest like a second heartbeat. I press deeper into the shadows, watching from the VIP balcony as the scene unfolds below.

This is it. The night that, in the original plot, triggers the harem’s progression toward their "happily ever after."

Our dear main character ends up having a threesome with both CEOs tonight. A "misunderstanding" that somehow leads to true love. Some lowlife tried to drug Elliot to trigger his heat—standard predatory behavior in this world—while some social-climbing Omegas were doing the same thing to the CEOs.

Lots of rapist mentality in this universe. I shudder at the thought.

Well. Anyway. Sleeping together like that apparently broke down whatever mental barriers the CEOs had about sharing an Omega.

Not gonna let that happen.

I watch from the sidelines as it unfolds. The two CEOs—Elijah Jacobs and Charles Grey—are at a corner table with some investor they’re both vying for. Smiles, handshakes, the careful dance of corporate competition masked as camaraderie. And there’s Elliot, positioned nearby as eye candy.

I can see the moment it happens. A waiter approaches their table, offers champagne. Elliot accepts a glass. The CEOs do the same. And I watch as a man across the room;some low-level creep with connections to the underground—smiles and slips away.

Here we go.

I settle deeper into the shadows, ready to intervene at the perfect moment.

Something’s wrong.

My head spins.

I blink, trying to focus, but the room tilts. The music warps, stretching and compressing in ways that don’t make sense. My skin is hot. Too hot. And there’s a scent, sweet, floral, Omega I’ve come to recognize wrapping around me like fog.

What—

*

I struggle to open my eyes properly. When did I close them? When did I leave the balcony? I’m somewhere else now. A room. Dim lighting. A bed.

My shirt is unbuttoned.

Panic cuts through the fog, sharp and cold. I look around wildly, trying to piece together what happened.

The environment is unfamiliar looks like a private room, club adjacent, the kind of place designed for "discretion."

What’s going on?

I feel so dizzy. So hot. So horny in a way that has nothing to do with want and everything to do with biology hijacking my system.

What I wouldn’t give to have Vivienne here. Her touch. Her scent. Her presence to ground me.

Then I feel it.

A tongue. On my fucking genitalia.

That’s enough to blast through the fog like ice water.

I don’t think. I just kick.

The person goes flying, hitting the floor with a satisfying thud. I stumble to my feet, vision swimming, and force my eyes to focus on the culprit.

The person who just touching me without consent—

Blonde hair. Big green eyes. Soft, pretty features.

Elliot.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" The shout costs me. I stumble, catching myself on the wall, fumbling with my pants.

"CEO Han, relax. It’s me." He says it like that’s good news. Like his identity changes anything.

"No. What are you doing?" I step back, putting distance between us.

"I saw you weren’t okay. Someone slipped something into your drink. I brought you here to help." He takes a step toward me.

I take another step back. "Well. Thank you. You can leave now."

My teeth are gritted, my body screaming for things I don’t want, my control fraying at the edges. I hate this. Hate feeling out of control. Hate how my body responds to things my mind rejects.

"Let me help you." His voice is small. His lips tremble in a way that’s probably meant to be attractive. Vulnerable. Appealing. "You won’t calm down on your own. I can help you."

"No."

He doesn’t listen.

His pheromones intensify, flooding the small room. He starts undressing, and I watch with a kind of horrified detachment. He looks like a malnourished teenager. All sharp angles and soft edges in the wrong places. Is this what Alphas find attractive in this world?

My body reacts to his pheromones.

It’s one of the worst experiences of my life.

"It’s okay." He’s closer now, hand on my chest. "I don’t mind. I want to help you."

Oh you don’t mind? Well I fucking mind.

"No." I push his hand away. "I’m not even interested in male Omegas. I’m only attracted to female Omegas. So stop this right now."

"But you need an Omega right now." He rises on his toes, pressing his lips to my neck.

I push him away.

Disgust churns in my stomach at everything,at him, at myself, at this fucking biology that’s trying to override every boundary I have.

"No. Unless you cut off your fucking dick and grow some boobs, I won’t touch you. And even if you did that, I have someone I love."

I try to walk past him.

He doesn’t have ears, apparently. Doesn’t have boundaries. Doesn’t have sense.

He pushes me onto the bed. Straddles me.

My hand closes around his throat.

[HOST!!!!!!]

The System’s voice is deafening. I blink, and everything has changed. Red error signals flood my vision. The world around us is cracked—literally cracked, like a mirror shattered by a stone. Fissures run through the walls, the floor, the air itself.

My hand is tight around his throat. Too tight. His face is purple, his eyes bulging, his hands scrabbling uselessly at my grip.

[Host, you cannot kill the main character!]

The errors grow louder. The cracks spread.

[We cannot handle the backlash of killing the main character of a mid-tier world!]

I look at him. This pathetic, boundary-less, rapist piece of shit who thought he could help himself to my body because biology said he could.

I want to kill him.

I want to squeeze until I feel his vertebrae crumble.

I want to—

Vivienne.

Her face flashes in my mind. Her smile. Her laugh. The way she looked at me in the garden, in the hedges, in my bed.

If I kill him, I might not survive the backlash. And if I don’t survive—

I’ll never see her again.