Mistakenly Marked – Chapter 31

Returning Home

“You Can Tell Me Directly.”

The villa’s great hall blazed with light.

            

A woman’s sobbing rose into it.

“Boohoo¹… Shisong… I was so scared back there. I really thought… I’d never see you again.”

Ignoring the doctor still examining her, Lu Yan twisted around and reached for the hand the woman had draped over the sofa’s armrest, her voice a low, choked thread. “I really…”

            

Mid-sentence, the woman pinched her fingertips and drew her hand up, pale silver-grey eyes drifting over at an unhurried tilt.

Lu Yan closed her mouth and let Bo Shisong do as she pleased—while quietly turning her wrist, deliberately angling one small abrasion into view.

“Shisong, this is from just now. It was terrifying…”

            

Cutting her off, Bo Shisong spoke from her recline against the sofa. “Is there anything wrong with her?”

Lu Yan faltered.

The doctor standing to one side answered:

            

“Miss Lu has a bruise across her elbow from the impact, plus abrasions two and three centimeters long on her wrist and forearm. Beyond those, no other external injuries for now.

“Naturally, if there’s any concern about concussion or the like, further examination at a hospital would be the next step.”

“Mm.” Bo Shisong lifted a hand and gave a languid wave.

            

The doctor rose and withdrew to one side.

Lu Yan’s gaze drifted back down to the hand the woman was holding.

Like someone stroking a toy, the apex Alpha’s sharply boned fingers rested over hers, one fingertip circling that small patch of broken skin, massaging it in slow, absent turns.

            

She must be aching over her wound.

She’d heard about the collision with Bo Suiqing, summoned a doctor to look her over—and spared Bo Suiqing’s condition not a single thought.

Hadn’t even picked up the phone to ask.

            

So her read had been right all along.

Lu Yan turned her head, sneaking a glance at the photograph hung on the far wall.

Her gaze traveled across the woman at Bo Shisong’s side in the frame.

            

As fiercely as she had once loved her, that was how fiercely she had come to hate her.

Bo Shisong loathed the woman who had betrayed her down to the bone—and Bo Suiqing, who wore that face, was hated along with her.

All those awards Lu Yan had fought her for, only to watch them land in Bo Suiqing’s hands—that was nothing but the whole industry deciding Bo Suiqing had the better pedigree and rushing to gild her name.

            

But now luck had turned. She had climbed her way up to Bo Shisong herself.

If Bo Shisong, after a car crash, cared only for her and not at all for Bo Suiqing—then next month’s Golden Pear Blossom Award was hers beyond all doubt!

At the thought, Lu Yan’s spine straightened of its own accord, and she pressed herself a little closer to Bo Shisong.

            

She was reaching out to hook the Alpha’s fingers when she heard Bo Shisong ask, unhurried, “I only touch Alphas. Do you know why?”

Lu Yan paused, then clutched Bo Shisong’s hand ingratingly and nuzzled her cheek into the palm. “I don’t. I’m begging Jiejie to tell me.”

Watching her volunteer herself so readily, Bo Shisong’s brow arched faintly. “Because Omegas are too fragile. And Alphas are stronger. Sturdier. More powerful.”

            

The apex Alpha—born to stand above everyone—laughed low, her voice flowing dark and resonant as a cello. “And they hold up far better to play with.”

Lu Yan’s heart gave a skip. She edged closer, hand rising to climb the woman’s shoulder—and the woman brushed it away as though by accident. “Would you like to go to the hospital for a checkup?”

“No need.” Lu Yan shook her head. “Jiejie, I’m an Alpha. Little scrapes like these are nothing.”

            

“Mm. I see.”

The doctor stepped forward and held out an examination report. “Then if the young lady will kindly sign.”

Some medical record or other. Lu Yan didn’t look closely; she signed outright.

            

She turned back to Bo Shisong. “Shisong-jiejie—”

“Who gave you leave to call me ‘Shisong’?”

Lu Yan froze. “I… I just want to feel a little closer to Jiejie.”

            

“The mark you left… it’s faded again. Give Yanyan another one, won’t you?”

Bo Shisong looked at her, lips curving into a smile.

It was a stroke of warm light splitting a glacier of ancient ice, and delight flooded Lu Yan in an instant—she was leaning forward when pain lanced through her hand.

            

The fingers that had been stroking the edge of her wound pressed down without warning onto the abrasion and ground across it. Slowly.

Lu Yan’s eyes flew wide. She wanted to hiss in pain but didn’t dare pull away; she only whimpered, “…Jie—”

“At the variety shoot this afternoon—which of her hands did you touch?”

            

Lu Yan went blank.

…What?

Several seconds passed before she finally, incredulously, worked out what the woman was asking.

            

She was asking… which of Bo Suiqing’s hands she had touched?

Before she could answer, Bo Shisong supplied it for her, smiling. “The right one.”

Lu Yan’s pupils contracted. For one instant she suddenly recalled Bo Suiqing sitting in that car not long ago, flashing her that bewitching smile.

            

Who said… Bo Suiqing took after that Omega? Seen like this, she was far more like…

In the moment her attention slipped, Bo Shisong—still gripping her hand—crooked her little finger and hooked the fruit knife lying on the fruit plate beside them.

Lu Yan never saw how Bo Shisong actually moved.

            

There was only a silver flash of the blade, then searing pain tore open her palm.

“Agh!”

Lu Yan’s scream ripped out of her.

            

Bo Shisong had already released her hand. She tipped her chin lazily toward the servants to one side. “Clean it up.”

Eyes wide, Lu Yan watched several servants approach, faces blank, and wipe away the blood dripping from her hand onto the table and the floor.

The way one wipes away a stain.

            

A cold sweat broke across Lu Yan’s back.

Not only from the pain.

But from realizing she had gotten something of vital importance completely wrong.

            

And had misread a person of vital importance just as completely.

But there was no chance to recant. The servants who had finished with the blood came forward and clamped their hands around her arms.

She was part of the cleaning too.

            

“P-President Bo! I’m sorry, I…”

Reclined against the sofa, Bo Shisong didn’t so much as glance at her. “Take her straight to the police station.”

Lu Yan’s eyes went huge. “No! Wh-why—”

            

Accepting the handkerchief a servant passed over, Bo Shisong wiped her fingers with elegant economy and lifted her gaze to Lu Yan. “Banned drugs used on an Omega. You’ve got remarkable nerve.”

“…!”

“There are a hundred ways to climb. If you want to ride my coattails², I couldn’t care less.”

            

The woman’s voice was unhurried and elegant, and with every word it drove Lu Yan deeper into despair. “But you touched the wrong person.”

“I, I… I just couldn’t accept it! The drugs… the drugs were only meant to humiliate her. I never meant to really hurt her!”

“Save those words for the police.”

            

Nearly unraveled, Lu Yan clawed at the edge of the sofa and spat out a venomous threat:

“President Bo, don’t you forget! Bo Suiqing just had her driver ram my car! The moment I reach the police station, I’ll be sure to tell them all about that too!”

“Is that so.”

            

Bo Shisong turned her head to look at her, red lips curving faintly, beautiful to the point of the demonic.

“An accident already settled by signed agreement—what would the police still need to bother with?”

Lu Yan went rigid. A few seconds later it clicked, and she whipped around to glare at the doctor who had just taken her signature.

            

She lunged for the documents in the doctor’s hands; the servants hauled her back and pinned her.

At last she understood her situation.

“No… I was wrong, President Bo! I was wrong, mmph…!”

            

Lu Yan tried to beg again. A servant covered her mouth and hauled her out, half-dragging her across the floor.

The woman’s voice frayed steadily toward despair—then, with the swing of the great hall’s doors, it vanished from the villa entirely.

The doctor stepped forward and respectfully laid the settlement documents on the table before Bo Shisong.

            

The butler murmured, “Xiao Zhang sent word of her own accord just now. The young lady is unharmed—only the car took minor damage. She’s taking it in for repairs.”

“Mm, I know. That one’s a clever child.” Her fingertip tapped against the paper. “If anything had been wrong, she wouldn’t have driven off with Suiqing.”

“Transfer the girl five hundred thousand yuan for the repairs.”

            

“Yes.”

---

The black Bentley slid into the garage.

Two figures got out and walked toward the elevators, one behind the other.

            

Xu Jialuo raised a hand and pressed the call button.

The elevator came falling down from the teens.

The numbers flickered downward, like a countdown.

            

Without a word, Xu Jialuo kept her eyes fixed on the elevator doors.

As if the person trailing behind her didn’t exist at all.

Only, when the doors opened, she stepped sideways first—shielding the unmasked woman behind her from the passengers’ line of sight.

            

A few residents stepped out. Xu Jialuo held one arm against the door, waited until Bo Suiqing had walked in, then dropped it and followed.

Standing in the corner of the elevator, Bo Suiqing kept her head lowered, her gaze resting on the hand Xu Jialuo had just withdrawn.

That unconscious yet heart-stirring courtesy of hers seemed carved into her bones.

            

“Hold the door, please!”

At the voice, a young girl came hurrying toward the elevator from outside.

Bo Suiqing ducked her head lower behind Xu Jialuo, so as not to be recognized.

            

From the corner of her eye she saw Xu Jialuo reach out and hold the door for the incoming girl as well.

Xu Jialuo’s kindness was a kindness without discrimination.

Her politeness, her goodwill—she handed them out equally to everyone.

            

Bo Suiqing’s fingertips pinched lightly at her skirt.

And even that.

As someone Xu Jialuo despises, if she hadn’t seized chance after chance to force her way in, she might never have earned even that equality.

            

The young girl who’d caught the elevator caught her breath, then turned to look at Xu Jialuo.

A mask covered her face; her features were unreadable.

But the long, fine lashes and the deep-toned yet coolly clear eyes beneath them alone were enough to make a person want a second look, and then a third.

            

She didn’t recognize who Xu Jialuo was—she was simply drawn in. The girl shuffled quietly sideways until she stood shoulder to shoulder with her. “Hi—do you live here too?”

Her voice was very sweet, and a faint orange-citrus pheromone had already crept out, testing the air.

Wearing her Barrier Patch, Xu Jialuo couldn’t smell it.

            

The hand Bo Suiqing had on her skirt clenched suddenly tight.

And there was nothing she could do.

She had no standing to do anything.

            

Besides—once she was recognized, who knew what kind of headline it would become.

And if she dragged Xu Jialuo into a headline like that, Xu Jialuo would only despise her more.

Head bowed, Bo Suiqing’s nails pressed through the fabric into the soft of her palm.

            

Slowly biting in until it stung.

Then she noticed Xu Jialuo shift her stance, blocking her in all the more thoroughly, and answer flatly, “Mm.”

Not noticing the shielding motion, the girl had all her attention on Xu Jialuo. “Then we’re neighbors! I’m on 23—what floor are you? If it’s all right…”

            

She cleared her throat. “Want to get to know each other? Be friends?”

Friends, she said—yet that orange-citrus pheromone was already coiling languidly around Xu Jialuo, a flagrant invitation.

What kind of “friends” she meant needed no spelling out.

            

Xu Jialuo didn’t answer right away.

She’d fielded plenty of advances like this one.

Most people simply retreated on their own once they realized she was a beta.

            

But the girl had spotted the Barrier Patch on her nape, so she kept going:

“I’m guessing—you’re an Alpha, right? I’m an Omega, you know. I just know we’d get along.”

Her first time ever being hit on as an Alpha.

            

Without glancing at the girl beside her, Xu Jialuo’s brow creased slightly as she worked out which phrasing of refusal would end this tedious scene fastest.

Before she could land on the most efficient answer, a hand hooked softly around her fingertip.

Testing, tentative—first it only brushed her little finger.

            

Finding that she didn’t pull away outright, it slid up along her arm where it hung at her side, then wrapped gently around her waist.

Bo Suiqing, standing half a meter behind her, stepped forward half a pace—and pressed her forehead lightly against her back.

An embrace from behind, intimate in every line of it, achingly tender.

            

Xu Jialuo’s brow gave a jump; across her waist, the lean, clean-lined muscle pulled suddenly taut.

The girl beside them froze, swallowing every follow-up line she’d had ready—

“Uh… sorry! I didn’t realize you two were… bye, then!”

            

The doors opened. The girl laughed in embarrassment and hurried out of the elevator.

The doors slid shut again.

Xu Jialuo said, “You can let go now.”

            

Bo Suiqing faltered, her reaction lagging by several seconds.

Then she heard Xu Jialuo go on: “There’s no one here now. No one’s going to recognize you.”

The moment the words landed, Xu Jialuo felt the arms around her waist loosen at once, the person behind her withdrawing half a step again.

            

To avoid being recognized, this woman truly stopped at nothing.

Could push herself that far.

The arms were gone, yet her waist still seemed to hold the ghost of that soft warmth.

            

It climbed up along her spine until even her cheeks wanted to flush.

Frowning, Xu Jialuo tugged at the hem of her track jacket, peeling the fabric away from her skin.

Trying to shake off that inexplicable heat.

            

To Bo Suiqing’s eyes, it looked like she was brushing off some filth that had gotten onto her clothes.

Bo Suiqing retreated another step, back into the corner of the elevator farthest from Xu Jialuo’s irritation.

Sensing the retreat, Xu Jialuo stopped.

            

She withdrew her hand, let out a slow breath, and laughed once to herself.

Of course.

The moment this woman was done using her, she couldn’t get eight hundred meters away fast enough.

            

The elevator reached their floor. The instant the doors opened, Xu Jialuo strode straight out without a backward glance.

Bo Suiqing bit her lip and hurried after her in quick little steps.

She followed Xu Jialuo into the apartment.

            

Standing in the entryway, she started to move farther in—and Xu Jialuo blocked her way.

“Out with it. What do you want me to do.”

Bo Suiqing looked up at her, startled.

            

The living room lights were off; only the faint glow of the entryway lamp, switched on automatically with the door, lit the space.

It fell across the woman’s face like exquisite, beautiful porcelain the color of snow.

Xu Jialuo’s lashes stirred, and that sentence rang suddenly through her mind—

            

—”Because I want to see you.”

…

How pretty it had sounded.

            

In truth, it was nothing but the pull of pheromones.

Xu Jialuo asked, “Does pheromone soothing really need to be this frequent?”

“…”

            

Bo Suiqing didn’t answer.

For a moment she didn’t know how to.

Say it didn’t, and Xu Jialuo would show her the door on the spot.

            

Say it did, and the lying would just have to go on.

But tonight.

The image of that scar she’d glimpsed earlier rose up, and Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes.

            

At least for one brief night, she didn’t want to lie to Xu Jialuo.

The young miss kept her head down, and across that face so customarily proud and aloof spread a faint shadow of hesitation.

To Xu Jialuo, it read as a silent admission—caught out, with no rebuttal to offer.

            

There it was.

That silver-eyed Omega no one could read, forever calculating her next deception, so certain she could toy with and control everything.

She’d thought she’d marked her—thought it had been force—had agonized over how to make amends, only to be told it was a temporary mark, and that the other woman had wanted it.

            

Had been told to keep up this absurd arrangement, to come soothe her in the lounge, to come collect her at the crash site.

Had even dressed it up as wanting to see her.

Every excuse under the sun, so that each step she took felt like a leash in the other woman’s hand.

            

And she never knew where the next step would be led.

Maybe there was no real dependence in it, no real need for her soothing.

Just sport. Just toying with her.

            

Xu Jialuo’s long lashes lowered as she studied the silent woman before her.

Was Bo Suiqing enjoying this—doing it to her like this?

Was she laughing inwardly at how obedient she was?

            

Xu Jialuo hated this feeling of being steered through the unknown.

Especially when the one holding the reins had despised her for years.

She closed her eyes, then said, “Then let’s be quick about it. You leave when it’s done.”

            

Bo Suiqing froze.

For a breath she couldn’t parse what Xu Jialuo meant.

…Quick about what?

            

There was no time to think; all Bo Suiqing caught was the word at the end. Leave.

Xu Jialuo was dipping her head toward her, and she didn’t react, her mind fixed on one thing only—

She didn’t want to leave—

            

“Mm!”

The beautiful pupils contracted sharply. Bo Suiqing’s eyes flew wide, her whole body shivering.

Xu Jialuo’s kiss had landed without the slightest warning against the side of her neck—and pressed swiftly onward toward the gland at her nape.

            

Warm lips closed over the fragile, sensitive gland, and Bo Suiqing’s head tipped back in a startled gasp—checked at the chin by Xu Jialuo’s hand.

Her legs trembling, Bo Suiqing’s body went soft and slid downward, nearly slipping out of control, before Xu Jialuo caught her about the waist and lifted her to sit on the entryway counter.

With support beneath her, Bo Suiqing steadied for a second. Before she could ask why, long fingers closed around the back of her head and pressed it down against a shoulder.

            

The kiss covered the gland once more.

“…Mm…”

She couldn’t produce a sound at all. Bo Suiqing tried for several seconds and managed only the thinnest whimper.

            

No one had ever been able to render an apex Omega this fragile.

Even an apex Alpha would struggle to do it.

Only because…

            

it was Xu Jialuo.

She didn’t even need to release her pheromones.

That alone was enough to rout her completely.

            

But…

why…

Bo Suiqing sat on the counter, feet hanging limp and strengthless, the tips of her toes forced taut by the overstimulation.

            

Her lashes went wet in an instant.

An Omega who has been marked—even by a temporary mark—can faintly sense the marking Alpha’s emotions during any intimate contact with the gland, so long as the mark hasn’t yet faded.

And this time, it was nothing like the kisses steeped in soothing before.

            

The movements were still slow, not the least bit rough—but threaded through the Alpha’s mood was unmistakable irritation, a businesslike, ice-cold efficiency, each kiss stamped stiffly onto her nape.

Bo Suiqing leaned dazedly against Xu Jialuo’s shoulder. This close, it was half an embrace.

Yet she was cold through her whole body.

            

Right now… was Xu Jialuo doing this to torment her on purpose?

…Was she using her Alpha’s standing to suppress her—to punish the Omega she was?

The unknowable guess left the Omega under her touch unable even to release pheromones; she only quivered, trying to curl in on herself.

            

But to keep the angle, Xu Jialuo’s long leg slid between her knees, an arm circling her back, hand locking at her head.

Fixated entirely on efficiency, she never registered how intimate the position was—how invasive.

So that Bo Suiqing had nowhere left to hide, and could only be opened.

            

Her hand clutched at Xu Jialuo’s elbow. Bo Suiqing tried to twist away and found no strength; all she could do in the end was grip tight the wrinkled fabric of that track jacket.

Face buried against Xu Jialuo’s shoulder, shaking—while tears rolled down unchecked.

Xu Jialuo felt the wetness against her cheek.

            

Her movements stalled.

She was, by her own account, administering so-called soothing—yet the woman seemed to be growing only more distressed.

…What was it now? What else was she unsatisfied with?

            

Then she remembered she’d never peeled off the Barrier Patch.

This woman liked her pheromones.

So the dissatisfaction had to be the absence of them.

            

Brow knotted, Xu Jialuo reached back and tore the Barrier Patch from her nape.

With the patch gone, the gland could once again release and register pheromones freely.

But in the instant it came off, the first thing Xu Jialuo sensed was not the pheromones of the Bo Suiqing before her.

            

A strange, foreign orange-citrus scent flooded her mind from every side.

“…Kgh!”

Pheromones with no bond behind them—utterly, completely unfamiliar.

            

The instant she smelled it, there was nothing left but a choking, wretched sickness.

The gland at her nape stabbed with pain. Xu Jialuo stumbled back half a step; in her panic she managed only to steady Bo Suiqing, settling her properly on the counter—

and then, with nothing left to catch herself, dropped abruptly to her knees.

            

It had all happened too fast; Bo Suiqing needed a full second to react, scrambling down off the counter. “Xu Jialuo!”

She grabbed at her and failed. She dropped into a crouch at once, hands gripping Xu Jialuo’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

Xu Jialuo’s face had gone white. She pressed a hand to her nape, her voice scraping up out of her throat—

            

“…Pher…omones…”

Bo Suiqing blanked, then understood.

Xu Jialuo had told her: after differentiation, her gland couldn’t yet process an overload of pheromones.

            

Because in the elevator, that stranger of a neighbor Omega had left her pheromones clinging to Xu Jialuo.

Xu Jialuo had warned her in advance—and she’d been so sunk in her own thoughts she’d never once registered it.

Bo Suiqing knelt on the floor, arms wrapping Xu Jialuo’s shoulders and back. “I’m sorry…”

            

She had no idea why Bo Suiqing was apologizing.

Head lowered, Xu Jialuo half suspected she’d misheard.

She could feel Bo Suiqing reaching around her, the movements almost flustered.

            

Flustered—or perfunctory?

Xu Jialuo couldn’t tell. On instinct, she reached out and circled her arms around Bo Suiqing’s waist and back.

The gland at her nape burned, laced through with pain.

            

With total clarity, Xu Jialuo felt it: she needed pheromones.

She needed Bo Suiqing’s pheromones.

And for a moment, she didn’t ask.

            

…

Was Bo Suiqing just waiting for her to ask—waiting for her to beg?

From the moment she’d volunteered to be marked, had she been waiting for this?

            

Xu Jialuo closed her eyes, and the young miss’s look of condescension from all those years ago seemed to surface before them again.

If she lifted her head right now, would she find that same expression on Bo Suiqing’s face?

Xu Jialuo let her arms fall.

            

But before they could drop and strike the floor, Bo Suiqing caught them in time.

In the same breath, Snow-Chilled Cherry pheromones poured out.

She remembered Xu Jialuo’s compulsive hand-wiping and the rest of her mysophobia; Bo Suiqing’s first thought had been to get Xu Jialuo up off the floor before releasing anything.

            

But seeing her suffer like this, there was no more room for that.

The apex Omega’s pheromones, inch by inch, drove out the orange-citrus hanging in the air and buried it.

Xu Jialuo’s breathing gradually steadied.

            

She turned to look, then made every effort to brace Xu Jialuo up onto her feet. “Over to the sofa. Rest a while.”

“…”

The supporting posture was a dead ringer for the one in that photograph.

            

Head turned aside, Xu Jialuo let Bo Suiqing walk her toward the sofa, and in the unlit dark she looked down at her.

Lashes long and thick and curled, veiling those beautiful eyes of silver-white, so that the feeling at their depths couldn’t be read.

In the darkness, Bo Suiqing couldn’t quite see what was underfoot.

            

She caught her foot on the stool beside the sofa and pitched forward.

Xu Jialuo’s hand shot out and caught her, pulling her back in with a twist of her body—and on the momentum, they went down onto the sofa together.

Xu Jialuo’s home was large, but with so little in it, the largeness felt almost desolate.

            

So the sofa was a big one too; on nights she wrote songs late, she’d simply stretch out on it and sleep.

But with two people lying on it now, it was still a little crowded.

Afraid of tumbling off, Bo Suiqing instinctively curled toward Xu Jialuo.

            

Only when they’d settled did she realize she was lying almost entirely on top of her.

She flailed for something to push up on—and either her palm brushed, through the clothes, softness rising and falling like cloud, or it landed on a plane of abdominal muscle snapping instantly taut.

Bo Suiqing went rigid, not daring to move again.

            

The next instant, Xu Jialuo’s brow furrowed and a hand pressed her waist, flipping up and over her.

The position reversed—and with it, who held control.

Hair like poured black silk spilled down, and in the night it sharpened the cool elegance of Xu Jialuo’s features, deepening them, honing them.

            

Mist-dark eyes looked down, pinning the woman beneath them.

…

Bo Suiqing—had she done it on purpose?

            

Wanting to see her lose control, or wanting to see her wretched?

Either way, Xu Jialuo sensed dimly that Bo Suiqing had succeeded.

The gland stung by the foreign pheromones had finally found solace in the familiar ones.

            

And still it wasn’t enough.

She needed more.

That sweet, cool cherry taste, to scour the orange-citrus out entirely.

            

A voice sounded in Xu Jialuo’s mind—unfamiliar, the voice of an Alpha’s instinct driven by pheromones.

—This alone. Far from enough.

She would have more.

            

From the Omega beneath her.

In the darkness, a pair of golden eyes kindled faintly.

Bo Suiqing’s eyes widened in astonishment.

            

Last time, in the lounge, she’d only known that Lu Yan had passed out under the crushing weight of Xu Jialuo’s pheromones; she’d never seen the change in the color of her eyes.

This was the first time she understood it so plainly.

Xu Jialuo was an Alpha. An apex Alpha.

            

Xu Jialuo’s hand rose to Bo Suiqing’s neck, the crook of thumb and forefinger settling with a certain practiced ease under her jaw, turning her face aside.

The move was sudden; Bo Suiqing flinched and instinctively caught Xu Jialuo’s wrist.

And met those golden eyes.

            

In the dark, they were the only light burning.

A beauty Bo Suiqing had never seen.

Like a brilliant star hung in night’s curtain; like a beast coiled to strike—ablaze with an Alpha’s deep-seated need to control, and with instinct running hot enough to nearly tear loose of its leash.

            

“…”

Xu Jialuo…

was going to…

            

Dimly understanding what would come next, Bo Suiqing slowly released her hand.

The last obstacle was gone.

The woman beneath her didn’t resist—didn’t so much as turn away.

            

And that fed the final snapping of the thread of Xu Jialuo’s reason.

The fingers at her jaw abruptly tightened. Bo Suiqing’s lashes trembled as she turned her head in compliance, baring the gland on her pale, slender nape.

The amber-gold pupils contracted sharply.

            

Then she bent down all at once, scorching breath spilling over Bo Suiqing’s throat.

Bo Suiqing fought to keep her breathing even, fingers clenched, eyes closed.

She was about to be marked by Xu Jialuo again.

            

She should be glad.

But…

Thinking of the Alpha’s irritation she’d sensed so short a while ago, the budding joy washed clean away.

            

It was only the pheromones driving her.

If Xu Jialuo were fully lucid…

would she still be willing?

            

Impossible.

And an Alpha in this state, facing an Omega she held no feeling for, would not be gentle in the slightest.

Her nose stung faintly. Bo Suiqing breathed slowly, bearing down the fear rising by instinct under that formless Alpha pressure.

            

She was trembling.

And still she didn’t struggle. Not in the least.

If it hurt in a moment,

            

then it was no more than she deserved.

But when the sharp points of teeth settled against her gland, the tears came anyway—physiological, beyond her hold—and slid silently down.

In the darkness, everything suddenly seemed to hit a pause.

            

Only the fingertip resting against her cheek rubbed gently, as if confirming the wetness there.

Seconds later, the hand clamped on her jaw withdrew without warning and reached toward the table at the sofa’s side.

Bo Suiqing opened her eyes and watched, uncomprehending, as Xu Jialuo felt around the tabletop.

            

She found the water glass set there before they’d gone out.

Her fingers tightened around it. Xu Jialuo raised it inverted behind her own neck and turned her wrist.

Ice-cold water poured down her nape.

            

Most of the glass emptied out—down the back of Xu Jialuo’s neck, then dripping onto Bo Suiqing’s chest.

A sheet of cold.

The exact opposite of the heat the Alpha had been radiating.

            

Clatter.

The emptied glass dropped to the floor.

Bo Suiqing stared upward, feeling that pressure her instincts feared ebbing slowly away.

            

The gold drained from her pupils. Xu Jialuo’s hand came back, trembling fingertips finding her cheek—

but with no force in them now; they only held a tissue, pressing it to her tear-soaked face.

Stroke by stroke, they wiped Bo Suiqing’s face clean of tears.

            

Then she lowered her head and buried it, drained of all strength, into the curve of her neck.

And went still.

An Alpha on the very edge of losing control.

            

And she had let her go.

…Because of what?

Because she despised her so much… so much that even like this, she couldn’t bring herself to do it?

            

Bo Suiqing’s eyes widened in disbelief, and she heard the low rasp of Xu Jialuo’s voice:

“Why… didn’t you resist?”

“…”

            

It sounded less like tenderness than like an interrogation.

Bo Suiqing answered. “I told you… I like the way your pheromones smell.”

She closed her eyes, and—whether or not Xu Jialuo would think the less of her for it—repeated, numb, what she’d once said. “I’m willing to be marked by you.”

            

“…”

Xu Jialuo said nothing more.

Bo Suiqing opened her eyes, and the light in them dimmed by degrees.

            

No Alpha in this world turns away an apex Omega offered up on a plate.

But Xu Jialuo didn’t want her.

The sting in her nose sharpened; her eyes went hot and wet again.

            

Then she heard Xu Jialuo ask, “Have you always… been like this?”

Head braced against the sofa, Xu Jialuo could feel that the woman beneath her had stopped trembling.

But even while trembling, she hadn’t once tried to push her away.

            

Why. Why that degree of compliance.

Compliant enough to make one wonder whether it came from practice.

As if whatever she did, it lay within the other woman’s control—whatever she did, the other woman could absorb it.

            

Xu Jialuo’s mind flashed to the parking lot earlier, the driver’s and the assistant’s moves locking together in perfect, wordless coordination.

She asked on: “To other people—do you say the same?”

The same coaxing, the same compliance. The same refusal to resist even in fear?

            

The voice was too quiet to carry the thread of ache and pity in it that even the speaker herself hadn’t noticed.

Bo Suiqing froze.

Only after a second or two did she work out what Xu Jialuo had asked. “No!”

            

Her voice was uncharacteristically sharp.

Was Xu Jialuo refusing to touch her because of her mysophobia—thinking her unclean, marked by other Alphas?

“There’s been no one else…”

            

The words broke out of Bo Suiqing in haste, before any gloss could catch them: “I’ve only ever had you!”

The words fell, and both of them went still.

—I’ve only ever had you.

            

Spelled out in full, it only meant she’d been marked by Xu Jialuo alone.

But said that loosely, the meaning widened.

As if something like true feeling had been poured into it.

            

Impossible.

Xu Jialuo’s brow creased, and she cut the tangled thought off clean.

At the same moment, Bo Suiqing spoke, steering elsewhere. “Xu Jialuo… why are you angry?”

            

“…?”

“You were crying—is that because you thought I was angry?”

Calling to mind Bo Suiqing’s trembling, her tears, Xu Jialuo asked, “…Are you afraid of me?”

            

“…”

Bo Suiqing was quiet for a few seconds, then chose the truth. “Not afraid. It’s just… I’m affected by your moods.”

In reality, not every Omega is affected by the Alpha who marked her.

            

Least of all an apex Omega whose own pheromones were this powerful.

Only the more one cared about the other, the more pronounced it became.

“I could feel it… you were unhappy.” Bo Suiqing’s voice dropped low.

            

On any ordinary day, there were words Bo Suiqing could never have brought herself to ask so plainly.

But right now.

On the same narrow sofa, through several layers of clothing, she might as well have been held in Xu Jialuo’s arms.

            

A state so close to intimacy that the nearness of body seemed to conjure an illusion of nearness of heart.

“Xu Jialuo, doing… this kind of thing with me,” Bo Suiqing asked, “does it disgust you?”

Xu Jialuo was taken aback.

            

It had never once occurred to her that Bo Suiqing might think this way.

That proud, lofty young miss, born above everyone else.

How could she ask something so stripped of confidence.

            

“…”

The surprise held her silent too long.

It was only stillness, yet to Bo Suiqing it slowly felt like suffocation.

            

The fingers gripping her skirt loosened and rose, meaning to push Xu Jialuo away.

But before the motion could begin, she heard Xu Jialuo say, “…No.”

Bo Suiqing’s breath caught.

            

“I’m just unhappy that you keep lying to me.”

Xu Jialuo pushed herself up and met Bo Suiqing’s eyes.

In the darkness, on the Omega’s porcelain-pale face, eyes and the tip of her nose were flushed red.

            

In those wide, lovely eyes of pale silver glass, there faintly fell a single shadow.

It was her shadow.

The person before her was the Omega she had marked.

            

If Bo Suiqing hadn’t lied—then also, the Omega marked by her alone.

The instant the thought formed, the gland at her nape flared hot all over again.

Bo Suiqing dimly saw Xu Jialuo’s brow twitch—and then she turned her face away, refusing to look at her any longer.

            

Leaving her nothing but a cold, expressionless profile.

…

Said she wasn’t disgusted—yet wouldn’t spare her a few more seconds of looking.

            

Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes and said nothing more.

The apartment sank into stillness.

Until Xu Jialuo spoke again. “The mark I put on you—how long until it fades?”

            

Bo Suiqing couldn’t help biting the inside of her lower lip.

So that was it.

Xu Jialuo wanted to know when she could stop soothing her.

            

Stop seeing her this often.

Xu Jialuo’s pheromones were far too unstable; if not for the pheromones released each time she’d soothed her today, the temporary mark on her body would have faded in barely over a day.

But no.

            

That answer, Bo Suiqing couldn’t say.

Bo Suiqing said, “You’re an apex Alpha. Your temporary mark lasts longer than an ordinary Alpha’s. For it to fade… about a week.”

Xu Jialuo didn’t answer right away.

            

Repelled by how long that was, no doubt.

Bo Suiqing sat quietly, watching Xu Jialuo brace a hand on the sofa back and rise, putting more distance between them.

Then she went on speaking, all the same:

            

“If there’s a next time, and you still want my soothing.”

That ever-pleasing voice sounded low and clear through the living room, trailing a wearied, marrow-softening warmth at its end—

“I’d rather you stop finding excuses. You can tell me directly—you want me to help you.”

            

Bo Suiqing stared at her for a good few seconds before she was sure of what she’d heard.

Quietly: “If I… say it directly, you’ll come?”

“…”

            

Truly a young miss who hid nothing of her intentions, pushing her luck³ at every single opening.

Xu Jialuo closed her eyes and said, level, “If I have the time.”

“…”

            

The woman below her went silent.

Still not satisfied?

Xu Jialuo frowned and looked back—before she could make out Bo Suiqing’s face, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and dragged her down.

            

Caught off guard, Xu Jialuo toppled backward; before she could react, Bo Suiqing lowered her head, and down-soft hair nuzzled into the hollow of her shoulder.

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