The walk back to omega housing felt longer than usual.

The morning had turned into afternoon, and the streets were busier now. Pack members moved through the territory with purpose. People going places. People with destinations and plans and futures that made sense.

Lilith moved through them like a ghost.

By the time she reached her apartment, the sun was starting to set. She’d been awake for over twenty-four hours. Her body was moving on fumes. Her mind was scattered. Every muscle ached with exhaustion.

She entered her small room and closed the door behind her.

The apartment was exactly as she’d left it...cold, small, depressing. The mattress on the floor. The single lamp. The window overlooking the dumpsters. This was her life now. This was what she’d been reduced to.

Lilith sat on the mattress and felt the weight of everything crash down on her.

Four to six weeks.

Four to six weeks to save her mother’s life.

Four to six weeks before her entire world collapsed.

She pulled out her notebook and did the math again, even though she already knew the answer.

Monthly income: six hundred dollars (if she worked every available shift).

Monthly expenses: two hundred seventy-five dollars (rent, utilities, food).

Available funds after basic expenses: three hundred twenty-five dollars.

Monthly cost of mother’s care: four thousand dollars. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Shortfall: thirty-six hundred seventy-five dollars.

Every single month.

For the next four to six weeks, she had to figure out how to pull three thousand dollars a month out of nowhere. There was no job in Shadowmere that paid enough. There was no way to earn that kind of money legally.

Which meant she had to find another way.

The thought terrified her.

And excited her.

Lilith closed her notebook and lay back on the mattress.

She was so tired. So completely, utterly exhausted. Her body was screaming for sleep. Her mind was foggy. She couldn’t keep her eyes open even if she wanted to.

She told herself she would only sleep for an hour. Just an hour to recharge, and then she would wake up and figure out next steps.

But the moment her eyes closed, they were there.

The dream took her before she could fully process it.

She was on her back, and Lucian was above her. His gold eyes were glowing, his wolf fully visible in his expression. He was moving inside her with brutal intensity, and she was gasping, her hands gripping his shoulders, her body responding to every movement.

"You feel that?" he growled. "You feel how you’re made for this? Made for us?"

Nicholas was beside her, his hand on her throat, controlling her breathing. Not choking her, just holding her, reminding her that he had control. Sebastian was kissing her neck, his teeth grazing her skin, his hands roaming over her body.

The sensations were overwhelming. The intensity was all-consuming.

But underneath it all was something else. Something that felt like desperation. Like they were reaching for her across the distance, trying to pull her back to them.

Like they couldn’t survive without her.

The thought made her come so hard she woke gasping....

Lilith’s eyes snapped open.

Her body was trembling. Her sheets were soaked. The dream was already fading, but the physical aftermath remained. The arousal. The wetness. The ache.

She sat up, gasping for breath, her mind spinning.

This couldn’t keep happening. This wasn’t sustainable. She couldn’t function like this. She couldn’t work during the day while being consumed by them at night. Her body couldn’t take it. Her mind couldn’t handle the contradiction of it.

She wanted to scream.

Instead, she got out of bed and moved mechanically through her nighttime routine. Fresh clothes. Cold water on her face. Anything to ground herself in reality.

But as she sat back on the mattress, staring at nothing, a realization crystallized inside her.

She couldn’t keep living like this.

Something had to change. Something fundamental had to shift, because the current trajectory was unsustainable. She was running out of time with her mother. She was running out of money. She was running out of sanity.

And the brothers....whatever was happening with them, whatever connection existed between them...wasn’t going away.

It was getting stronger.

Lilith pulled out her small notebook and opened to a fresh page.

She needed options. Real options. Not the impossible math of her omega wages, but actual possibilities for how to survive the next four to six weeks.

Option one: Find additional work. More shifts, better pay. But she’d already explored that. There weren’t enough hours in the day.

Option two: Ask for help from other omegas. Borrow money? But from who? And how would she ever pay it back?

Option three: Go back to the Blackwoods.

The thought appeared fully formed in her mind, and she immediately tried to push it away.

But it wouldn’t go.

They’d released her from the contract. The agreement was over. There was no legal obligation for her to return. But what if she went back anyway? What if she asked them for money in exchange for....

She stopped that thought.

Because she didn’t want to finish it. Didn’t want to explore what that exchange might look like.

Lilith closed her notebook and lay back on the mattress.

The night stretched ahead of her....long and empty and terrifying.

And as sleep began to pull her under again, she knew what was waiting. The brothers. The dreams. The constant invasion of her subconscious by three men who’d marked her in ways that transcended the contract.

She stopped fighting it.

And let herself slip into the darkness.

***

Lucian’s eyes closed and the dream took him immediately.

He was inside her. God, he was always inside her in these dreams. The sensation was overwhelming....the heat of her, the tightness of her pussy, the way her body clenched around him like she was trying to pull him deeper. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her nails digging into his shoulders, and she was gasping his name.

"Lucian. Oh God, Lucian."

But it wasn’t just the physical sensation. There was something else flowing through the connection between them. An emotion. A feeling that transcended the dream. Desperation. Fear. A kind of frantic need that matched his own.

She was suffering.