POV: Dante
I leave her on the terrace until her breathing stabilizes.
Her scent takes longer. The cold air lessens it a little, but it's still there: hot, sharp, with that new nuance I know all too well.
Pre-heat.
When I walk her back to the elevator, I keep my distance. I don't touch her any more than necessary. She looks straight ahead. So do I. My body wants something else. My head is in charge.
I leave her on the thirty-first floor with a simple order:
"Go home. No staying late this week."
She nods, still tense, and collects her things.
I don't tell her that her scent has stuck to my suit.
In my office, I close the door and lean against the desk for a second.
I've smelled many Omegas in my life. In open wars, in negotiations, at parties where half the people present wanted to test their power over someone else. Also in clean deals.
Aurora's scent is unlike any of those scenarios. It smells like something that shouldn't be here, in this tower, at this point in the project.
I open the internal medical system. It's not the doctored report she saw. It's the real version, with curves and numbers.
Her levels have already risen since the first test. And that was just a few days ago.
"Weeks," I told her.
I look at the graph.
At the rate she's going, the correct word is another: days.
I press the intercom.
"Bring me Aurora Vega's latest hormone reports," I say to Dr. Herrera. "The complete ones."
"They're already in the system, Mr. Noir," she replies. "But I'll resend them just in case."
The email arrives within a minute.
I open it. I confirm what I already know: Aurora's body is picking up speed. They pushed her with Seraphim, with stress, with the change of environment. Now, any trigger will do. A smell. A long night. A bad encounter.
An Elías Valcourt in the wrong place.
I close the file.
Sebastián enters without knocking. He knows he can.
"How is she?" he asks.
"Burning up," I reply. "I took her up to the terrace. She stabilized, but it's already started."
He sits down across from me.
"So the countdown is real," he says. "How long do you give her?"
"A quiet week, two at most," I reply. "Less, if something pushes her."
"Something like Valcourt," he adds.
I nod.
"Any movement from them today?" I ask.
"Yes," he says, opening his tablet. An invitation arrived from the foundation. They want Aurora to participate in a "young talent meeting" this weekend. Five speakers, a hotel, all expenses paid.
Of course.
"They forwarded a copy to human resources and your official email," he adds. "Right now, it's a polite invitation. No one can say it's not 'for her professional development.'"
I check my inbox. There's the email. Signed by one of Valcourt's assistants, cordial tone, nice words.
"Miss Vega has shown extraordinary potential..."
The word 'potential' has lost all innocence for me.
"She's refusing," I say. "Busy schedule. Needed at the tower. Whatever."
"That will raise questions," he warns. "Questions that may reach Directors who don't yet know she's an Omega."
"I'd rather have questions than see her locked up for a weekend in a hotel where they're in charge," I reply.
Sebastian is silent for a moment.
"You know this has a possible ending," he finally says. "An unmarked Omega in a tower full of clans is booty. Either you register her under your name, or someone else will try to do it over your head.
I know.
It's the part I've been avoiding putting into words for days.
"I'm not going to force her," I reply.
"No one said that," he answers. "But if you want her to have a real choice, she has to understand the offer. Otherwise, any nice promise from Valcourt will sound the same as yours."
He rests his elbows on his knees.
"Talk to her about registration," he adds. "What it entails, what it protects, and what it binds. Let her choose. If she says no, you'll have to accept it. If she says yes, at least it will be under a name that doesn't plan to sell her."
I look at the city through the window. Nova Lyra shines, oblivious to all this.
"Aurora finds it hard to trust even the elevator light," I say. "Yesterday she signed an emergency form and already felt like I was stealing something from her. Now I have to tell her that the only way to be safe here is to tie herself more closely to me.
"Maybe that's exactly why she signed," he replies. In this tower, trust is not a luxury. It's a filter. You showed her something of what lies behind. Others will show her edited versions.
I return to the hotel email. I think of Aurora with her scent like that, surrounded by overly white smiles, far from my tower, my cameras, my rules.
The image is enough.
"Draft the reply," I say. On behalf of Management, we appreciate the invitation, but Aurora is essential to the completion of the current phase of Seraphim. She is not available.
"And when they ask why you're so interested in one analyst?" he asks.
"I'll tell them the truth they can understand," I reply. That there have already been too many unsupervised decisions in the project. That I want the person who is sorting out the mess close to me.
Sebastian nods.
"And Aurora," he adds. "When will you explain to her that she's not just a 'valuable analyst'?"
"Soon," I reply. "Before biology takes over."
He looks at me for another second.
"Don't wait too long," he says. "If her first heat catches her without information and without a choice, she'll hate anyone who's around. Including you."
He leaves.
I'm left alone.
I think about the terrace a moment ago.
How she was breathing. How she was gripping the railing. The slight tremor in her fingers when the wind blew her hair up and my fingers brushed her neck.
The part of me that wants to protect her and the part that wants to bite her are too close. That combination is dangerous. For her. For me. For everyone watching from the outside.
I open a blank document.
I write:
"Aurora,
tomorrow after your shift, we'll talk about the next step.
There are things about who you are, and what this building expects of you, that I can no longer keep to myself.
D."
I don't send it.
Not yet.
I save the draft.
I have to think carefully about what words to use. How to say "record," "clan," "mark" without sounding like a sentence. How to offer her a deal that truly protects her without lying about the price.
I look at my reflection in the glass.
I am the Director of this tower, heir to a name that carries weight, and a member of a clan that understands blood better than any laboratory. But on this issue, part of me feels like the man who was standing on her street last night, looking at her window and knowing he had crossed a line.
The countdown is running on two clocks.
On Aurora's body, which grows warmer every day.
And on the patience of the other clans, who are not going to stand by and watch me protect an Omega without asking what I plan to do with her.
The next time I call her into my office, it will no longer be just as her boss.
It will be as the man who, for the first time, is going to say out loud the offer that everyone else is dying to make her.