"That's what he gets for being so picky," Claude muttered, sharp enough to cut. The other omega's arms were folded, his expression hard. "Didn't he realize he's carrying your child? How could he—"
He froze when Adriel's hand tightened on the doorknob, his shoulders coiled like a predator, his face shadowed with a dangerous, barely leashed expression.
James stepped in, voice edged with venom. "And yet you still care, Uncle, even though he clearly doesn't value the life he's carrying. He doesn't care about the child—or about you—"
Adriel spun, eyes burning dark, his pheromones spiking sharp and dangerous in the sterile corridor. For a heartbeat, he looked less like the polished heir everyone knew and more like an Alpha on the brink of snapping.
Inside, he was splintering. The image of Eren's sketch — that ouroboros, love devouring itself — cut through him like acid. And with it, James's ghost, always there, always between them.
Did Eren collapse because he refused to eat unless I made him? Or is he punishing me in silence? Pretending the child responds only to me, when in truth…
The thought twisted into something uglier. Or worse—does he wish for this child to vanish because deep down, it should have been his?
Adriel's chest heaved, breath jagged as the storm of jealousy gnawed at him. His Alpha instincts screamed to burst into the room, to wake Eren, to scent him, mark him, cage him where no ghost of another could touch. But his rational mind hissed restraint.
He gripped the doorknob harder, forcing his hand to steady. If he stepped inside now, he didn't know if his hands would touch Eren with tenderness—or with rage.
For a heartbeat, he stood frozen, the doctor's words shackling him like chains. An alpha cannot stand on pride while his omega withers away.
His jaw tightened. He shoved the door open.
The room was dim, hushed except for the steady rhythm of the monitor. Eren lay in the hospital bed, pale against the white sheets, his hand limp on the blanket. An IV line trailed from his arm, feeding him what Adriel had failed to give.
Adriel stepped inside slowly, his shoes silent against the floor. For an instant, the sight of his omega so fragile cut through everything—anger, suspicion, pride. His chest ached. He moved to the bedside, staring down at Eren's face. His lips were parted slightly, breaths shallow but steady. Those same lips had defied him with fire, kissed him with reckless boldness, as if daring him to love him despite everything. Now they looked breakable. Too breakable to touch.
His hand hovered above Eren's, trembling. Every Alpha instinct screamed at him to clasp it, to lace their fingers together, to flood the room with his scent and soothe his omega. To lean down and mark him, seal away every trace of doubt, of James, of anyone who had come before.
But another thought twisted sharp inside him. The sketch. That ouroboros. James's ghost, still inked in Eren's hands. Even lying here—weak, starving—had he been thinking of Adriel? Or of someone else?
The pheromones pulsing from Eren's body were faint, fragile, diluted by exhaustion. They should have comforted Adriel. Instead, the weakness of them cut him deeper, reminding him of the doctor's warning: unbonded, his body was vulnerable. Carrying their child without the stabilizing anchor of a bond was burning him down from the inside.
Adriel swallowed hard, his throat raw. His hand curled into a fist instead of touching him, his Alpha instincts warring with his fear.
He leaned down slightly, his voice breaking into a growl even as it trembled with anguish:
"Why do you keep doing this to me, Eren?"
The words fell between them like a confession and an accusation all at once. Adriel stayed there, caught between the desperate urge to gather him into his arms and the furious suspicion that no matter what he gave, Eren might never truly be his.
"Adriel."
The soft murmur dragged him from the haze of exhaustion. His head had been resting against the edge of the hospital bed, his hand still clasped tightly around Eren's. He hadn't meant to fall asleep there, but after days of silence, after keeping his distance like a coward, it was the only way he could bear to stay close.
Eren blinked, disoriented, then saw him—her Alpha, head bowed beside her, fingers wrapped desperately around his own. A week had passed without seeing him. No calls. No scent to anchor him. No comfort. Just the crushing loneliness that had ended with his collapse.
"Adriel," Eren whispered again, lifting his free hand toward his Alpha's hair. But he froze when Adriel's eyes snapped open and locked on his. For a heartbeat, the fragile air between them vibrated with pheromones—Eren's weak, diluted by exhaustion, Adriel's tense and sharp like steel.
Then Adriel straightened, withdrawing his hand as if burned. His scent spiked with frustration, filling the room with the restless tang of an Alpha barely holding back.
"What were you thinking?" His voice cracked with anger and fear. "Starving yourself like that? Do you want to destroy yourself—and the child? Do you want—"
He broke off, chest heaving, pheromones pulsing in jagged waves. But the fury faltered when he caught the shimmer of tears in Eren's eyes.
"You're crying?" His voice softened, though his words were still rough. His scent wavered, unsteady, betraying him more than his tone did. "You don't want me to scold you, is that it?"
Even as he said it, the conviction drained out of him. When had it become unbearable to see Eren broken? When had Eren's tears become his own undoing?
Eren's lip trembled. "I didn't want to cry. But—Adriel, I don't understand. Why won't you look at me? Why won't you talk to me? You've been avoiding me, and I don't even know why."
"I wasn't avoiding you," Adriel muttered, but his pheromones betrayed him—taut with jealousy, edged with possession, pulsing with everything he couldn't bring himself to confess.