"No," Arion said. "You are not."
The answer did not come with pity.
That was what made it unbearable.
If Arion had been cruel in an obvious way, Andrea could have survived it. Cruelty could be turned outward. It could be made into a story. He could have wrapped it in outrage, could have displayed the bruises on his throat as evidence that the Crown Prince of Alamina had become a beast for the sake of a feral omega from Palatine.
But Arion did not sound cruel.
He sounded certain.
Andrea hated that more.
He knelt on the carpet with one hand pressed to his throat, each breath dragging through pain. His skin throbbed where Arion's fingers had been. The room still smelled like him, cold and violent and dominant enough that Andrea's body trembled even as his mind tried to claw its way back toward dignity.
No.
No, no, no.
He was not Dean.
