Shouldn't mean anything.
I've heard plenty of people beg, plead, confess their deepest fears in the moments before I ended them. Vulnerability is a weapon, and I learned long ago not to be moved by it.
But something about the way she said it—so simple, sotired, like she'd given up pretending to be anything other than what she was?—
It stuck.
My hand reaches out before I can stop it.
Fingers finding her chin.
Lifting, gently.
Her head tilts with the motion, following the pressure, but her eyes don't open. Her breathing doesn't change. She's truly, deeply asleep—exhausted beyond the ability to maintain any kind of vigilance.
Trusting.
Stupid.
I could kill her right now.
The thought surfaces with cold precision—the tactical assessment I've been trained to make in every situation. She's unconscious, weaponless, completely at my mercy. One hand around her throat, pressure in the right places, and the Eastman bloodline would finally be extinct.
My father would be pleased.
The mission would be complete.
Everything could go back to the way it was supposed to be.
Except my father ordered my death too.
And Sage bonded us all to her.
And she just offered to help me destroy the man who raised me, who trained me, who apparently decided I was more useful dead than alive.
Alliance, she said.
Short term.
Then we're enemies again.
The terms are... acceptable.
More than acceptable, actually. She's not asking for anything permanent. Not demanding my loyalty or my protection or any of the things Omegas typically want from Alphas. She's just offering a temporary truce—a partnership of convenience, where we both get what we need and then go back to trying to kill each other.
It's transactional.
I understand transactional.
I release her chin, letting her head settle back against the chair.
She's still asleep.
Still vulnerable.
Still trusting me not to hurt her, even though we both know I probably should.
Stupid, I think again.
