No Way Back - Chapter 4

I turned around—and froze.

Lin Chongzhi stood beside He Yining. His lips were pressed into a bloodless line, his jaw rigid. His eyes were so dark they were frightening, like the frozen surface of a bottomless pool.

He said nothing.

“I only came to let you know,” He Yining said. “Mr. Lin’s assistant tells me you aren’t feeling well. Chen can take your place in the meeting.”

“Go home early.” His smile turned pointed. “Let your Omega take good care of you.”

My entire body went stiff. I didn’t know whether to nod.

“…All right. Thank you, Mr. He.”

Instinctively, I glanced at Lin Chongzhi.

He turned away. There was no trace of a smile in his eyes, only a dark, smoldering gloom. He didn’t look at me again.

Late that night, I turned the air conditioner as low as it would go. The entire bedroom felt like a freezer, yet sweat still soaked me as I lay buried in the middle of my soft bed.

I had one corner of the blanket trapped between my legs, rubbing helplessly against it. The temperature couldn’t go any lower. Nothing I tried made a difference.

The doctor had made it clear: if I planned to get through secondary differentiation on suppressants alone, I could forget it. Fooling my body once would only make the next heat worse.

Either I endured it slowly under the calming influence of an Enigma’s pheromones, or I let an Enigma complete the mark.

At the thought, a tingling rush spread through my lower abdomen.

That organ had once been completely undeveloped.

A complete mark…

It wasn’t as though Lin Chongzhi had never tried. It simply hadn’t been possible then.

Now, everything was different.

I bit my lip, my mind in chaos.

But I couldn’t very well go begging my ex to sleep with me after our breakup. What would that make me?

My phone suddenly lit up.

He Yining: “Shen Yi, you won’t be responsible for this project for the time being.”

I stared at the message.

I had overseen the project from the very beginning. It was no exaggeration to call it my life’s work.

Why? Because he’d seen Lin Chongzhi trying to bite me?

I swore in frustration and was about to toss my phone aside when I noticed He Yining had posted a new update.

“To a successful partnership with Mr. Lin.”

The attached photograph had been taken at the dinner after the meeting. Lin Chongzhi was plainly the real subject of He Yining’s picture.

I pursed my lips. The wound I’d bitten there that afternoon gave a faint sting.

It was fine. Good, even. Spending more time around an Omega would be good for him.

My finger paused. Before I knew it, I had opened the photograph and enlarged it until Lin Chongzhi was the only person left on the screen.

At some point, he had put on a bite guard, making him look even more forbiddingly restrained. The latest-model pheromone suppressor band encircled his wrist, turned all the way up. His frigid composure looked utterly out of place amid the warm bustle around him.

Was he in rut?

I counted the days. He shouldn’t have been.

Only belatedly did I realize that what had happened with me must have triggered it.

Lin Chongzhi’s expression in the photograph was glacial, a sure sign that he was in a foul mood. He probably had no idea I was the one who had provoked his rut.

And nothing disgusted him more than being ruled by an Alpha’s instincts, like some base creature that could think of nothing but reproduction.

Like me… in heat.

I couldn’t let him learn that I had become an Omega.

Checking the time, I guessed their dinner would continue for a while longer. After a moment’s hesitation, I injected another suppressant and slipped out into the night.

Lin Chongzhi and I had both moved out after our breakup. I had never returned to the apartment we’d shared.

He had said I could still live there. Naturally, I refused.

Yet here I was, sneaking back inside.

The passcode hadn’t changed, and the door opened without a problem. I prayed he had left some clothes or personal belongings behind.

I needed his pheromones. I needed them so badly I was losing my mind.

Thank God. He hadn’t touched a thing. Everything was exactly as we’d left it on the day we broke up. Even one of my jackets was still there, draped over the sofa.

I opened Lin Chongzhi’s wardrobe, and the familiar, faint scent of tobacco enveloped me.

Without a second thought, I opened the suitcase I’d brought and began stuffing it full.

His clothes smelled so good. They made me remember the way he’d looked that afternoon.

His pheromones had never held this kind of attraction for me before. Every breath drove home the fact that I had changed.

I was worse than an ordinary Omega.

I had become an Omega made for Lin Chongzhi alone—affected only by him and saved only by him.

Unable to resist, I picked up a shirt he had worn close to his skin and buried my face in it, inhaling deeply.

It smelled so good. It smelled like Lin Chongzhi, like he was here with his arms around me.

And if I moved lower…

I was so lost in it that I didn’t hear the door open.