Chapter 5 THE TRUTH TASTES LIKE MY BEST FRIEND'S TONGUE

I couldn't move.

Damian's knot was locked deep, pulsing another lazy spurt of cum into me every time my walls fluttered in panic. Chloe's hand was still on my bare thigh, her manicured nails tracing lazy circles an inch from where her father's cock stretched me open. The credits rolled on the screen, some cheesy pop song playing while my entire life cracked apart.

I waited for the screaming. For the tears. For Chloe to grab the wine bottle and smash it over her father's head.

Instead she smiled.

Not the bubbly, innocent smile I'd known since freshman year. This one was slow, dark, knowing. Like she'd been waiting years to take the mask off.

"Sel," she whispered, voice syrupy, "you're shaking. Breathe, baby."

I couldn't. My lungs wouldn't work. The only thing anchoring me to earth was Damian's arm banded across my chest and the thick knot keeping me impaled on his lap.

Chloe shifted closer, tucking her legs beneath her, head still resting on my shoulder like we were just two besties watching a movie. Except her fingers were sliding higher, brushing the slick dripping down my inner thigh, smearing it across my skin like she was painting me.

"I think it's time you knew the whole story," she said softly. "Daddy, untie her mouth. She's not going to scream. Are you, Sel?"

Damian's hand left my lips. I sucked in air like I'd been drowning.

"Chloe..." My voice cracked. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I never meant..."

"Shh." She pressed one finger to my mouth. "None of that. I'm not mad. I'm proud."

Proud.

The word hit me like a slap.

She sat up straighter, eyes flicking between me and the man still buried inside me. The man whose cum was leaking out around his knot and coating Chloe's fingers now.

"Let me tell you how this really started," she said, voice low, almost dreamy. "You deserve the truth."

Damian's hand stroked my stomach under the blanket, soothing circles, like he was calming a spooked animal. His knot gave another throb, and I whimpered.

Chloe noticed. Of course she did.

"Remember freshman year?" she began. "When I begged you to come home with me for fall break because my mom had just died and I didn't want to be alone with Dad?"

I nodded, numb.

"That wasn't the whole truth."

She leaned in, lips brushing my ear.

"I lied. Mom didn't die in a car accident. She overdosed in a hotel room with her alpha lover three states away. Dad found out she'd been cheating for years. He lost it. Not loud-lost-it. Quiet-lost-it. The scary kind."

Damian's hand stilled on my stomach.

Chloe kept going.

"He locked himself in his office for a week. Didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Just drank and stared at pictures of her. I was terrified he was going to put a gun in his mouth. So I did the only thing I could think of."

She smiled again, sharper this time.

"I offered him a new toy."

My stomach dropped.

"Me?" I whispered.

Chloe laughed softly. "God, no. I was seventeen. Even Daddy has limits." She glanced back at him, affectionate, teasing. "Don't you, Daddy?"

He grunted, the sound almost amused.

"I started researching omegas," she continued. "The perfect kind. Young. Untouched. Sweet enough to calm him down, submissive enough to take whatever he needed to give. I made a list. And then I spent two years becoming best friends with number one."

I felt like I was going to be sick.

"You... groomed me?"

"Don't say it like that," she soothed, cupping my cheek. "I loved you the second I saw you in psych lecture. Those big eyes, that soft voice. I knew you'd be perfect for him. For us."

Us.

The word hung in the air like smoke.

"I watched you fight your heats with suppressants," she went on. "Watched you date those pathetic beta boys who couldn't even make you wet. Every time you cried on my shoulder about feeling empty, I wanted to tell you the truth: you were empty because you needed an alpha to ruin you. My alpha."

Damian's hand slid lower, cupping where we were joined, pressing on my lower belly so I felt his knot even deeper. I choked on a moan.

Chloe's eyes glittered.

"Last year, when you turned twenty-one, I told Daddy you were ready. He didn't believe me at first. Said you were too innocent. Too good. But I showed him your Instagram. The bikini pics.

The way you looked at him when you thought no one noticed. He started... planning."

Planning.

I remembered every interaction suddenly in horrifying clarity.

The way he'd linger in doorways. The way his eyes tracked me when I bent over to pick something up. The way Chloe always found excuses to leave us alone for five minutes, ten minutes, twenty.

"I stopped your suppressants," Chloe whispered. "Crushed them into your coffee every morning for the last month. That's why your heat hit so hard. That's why you couldn't fight him."

I stared at her, tears streaming down my face.

"Why?" I croaked.

She looked genuinely surprised.

"Because I love you," she said simply. "And I love him. And this family was broken, Sel. You fixed us. Look at him."

She reached back, cupped her father's jaw. He turned into her touch like a wolf nuzzling its pup.

"He hasn't had a drink in eight days," she said. "Hasn't disappeared into his office for hours. He smiles now. Because of you."

Damian's voice rumbled against my spine. "She's not wrong, baby."

Chloe leaned forward and kissed me.

Not a friendly peck. A real kiss. Tongue sliding against mine, tasting like wine and secrets and something darker. When she pulled back, her lips were swollen.

"I used to watch you sleep," she confessed. "In our dorm. I'd touch myself imagining this exact moment. You crying on Daddy's cock while I told you the truth."

Her hand slid under the blanket, fingers joining her father's where he pressed against my belly.

"I'm not going to lose you," she said fiercely. "And I'm not letting you feel guilty. This was always the plan. You were always meant to be ours."

Ours.

The word should have terrified me more than it did.

But my body, traitorous, ruined thing that it was, clenched around Damian's knot at the thought.

Chloe felt it. Smiled.

"Good girl," she praised, echoing her father. "Now here's the new rule: no more hiding. No more pretending. You sleep in the master bed from tonight on. Between us. Where you belong."

She stood, stretched, and padded toward the door.

"I'm going to take a shower," she announced. "You two finish up. Daddy, try not to knot her again until I get back. I want to watch the next one."

She paused in the doorway, looked back.

"Oh, and Sel?"

I couldn't speak.

"I wasn't lying about the wine. I really did bring your favorite. We're celebrating tonight."

She blew a kiss and disappeared.

The silence was deafening.

Damian's knot finally deflated enough for him to shift inside me. He didn't pull out. Just turned my head gently and kissed me, slow, filthy, claiming.

"You still with me, little girl?" he murmured against my lips.

I should have said no.

I should have fought.

Instead I whispered, "Yes, Daddy."

He smiled against my mouth.

"That's my good girl."

His phone buzzed on the couch beside us.

A new text.

From an unknown number.

One line.

Congratulations, Alpha Voss. The breeding program welcomes its newest donor pair.

Damian's entire body went rigid.

I stared at the screen, the words blurring through fresh tears.

Breeding program.

Donor pair.

He swore under his breath, vicious, panicked.

For the first time since I'd met him, Damian Voss looked afraid.

He looked down at me, eyes wild.

"Selena," he said, voice raw. "There's something I didn't tell you either."

The knot that had just started to soften swelled again, harder, faster, like his body was trying to keep me anchored while the world fell apart.

"Whatever Chloe thinks this is," he rasped, "it's worse. So much fucking worse."

He crushed me to his chest, knot locking us together as footsteps sounded upstairs, Chloe singing in the shower, oblivious.

And the text glowed between us like a death sentence.