The Saturday morning sun was a blinding, silver coin suspended in a cloudless sky, baking the concrete and manicured lawns of the estate. By pool, Dorrent sat reclined on a sleek, charcoal-gray lounger, dressed only in black swimming trunks. His broad, muscular chest was bare, his skin glistening under a light layer of sweat. On the glass table beside him sat a crystal tumbler of iced black coffee, untouched. He wasn’t relaxing. He couldn’t.

His mind was a toxic loop of his father’s final, icy warnings from the previous evening. Guron had been explicit, his voice carrying the absolute weight of the family patriarch: "If I hear so much as a whisper that you have laid a hand on her, if she complains of a single bruise or an aggressive word, the investment deal with Hodin Oil is a closed case. I will pull the Grefo signature, and I will watch your precious Gammar Technology expansion crumble into bankruptcy before the market opens on Monday."

Dorrent’s jaw clenched so hard a sharp pain shot up his temple. He needed that merger. The Hodin Oil infrastructure was the gateway to deploying his new tech across the southern sectors; to lose it over a peasant girl from the slums was unthinkable. He had to ensure her safety. He had to keep her alive, unbothered, and protected, even if every fiber of his S-tier being screamed to snap her neck.

Movement near the perimeter wall caught his eye.

Dorrent didn’t move his head, his silver-rimmed sunglasses hiding the sharp, predatory focus of his gaze. Jannah had emerged from the shadows of the estate. She was dressed in a pair of faded, oversized flannel pajamas—clothes that were clearly meant for someone twice her size. The fabric draped over her like a heavy shroud, completely swallowing her silhouette, hiding the pale, slender curves that had nearly driven him to madness the night before.

She was walking slowly, her head bowed as her dark eyes scanned the grass at the base of the stone wall. She looked small, almost pathetic, a wild animal lost in a palace of glass. Suddenly, she stopped, dropped to her knees, and began digging with her bare fingers into the earth beneath a sprawling rose bush.

When she pulled her hand back, she was clutching a small, jagged-leafed weed—a patch of wild Dusk-nettle.

Dorrent’s lip curled into a bitter, silent smirk behind his glasses. Filthy weed, he thought, a dark wave of satisfaction washing over him. She thinks she can boil that trash and force it down my throat. She thinks her little ghetto remedies will wake up my blood. Let her dig in the dirt like the rat she is. It won’t get to me. Nothing she does will ever touch me again.

Jannah stood up, brushing the dirt from her oversized pants. She turned around, intending to head back to her quarters, when her gaze accidentally locked onto the pool deck.

She froze. She clearly hadn’t expected him to be there, resting in the open sun, watching her every move like a hawk on a branch. The shock on her face was instantaneous. Her pupils dilated, her chest heaving beneath the baggy flannel. Driven purely by the raw, defensive instincts of a girl who had barely survived his grip hours prior, she didn’t think. She didn’t look where she was going. She just turned to sprint back toward the safety of the corridor.

Her bare, dirt-slicked foot struck the wet, polished travertine tile at the edge of the pool deck.

She lost her footing completely. Her arms windmilled in the air, the wild weed flying from her fingers as she let out a sharp, terrified shriek that broke the morning silence. A split second later, she plunged backward into the deep end of the pool with a massive, echoing splash.

The water swallowed her whole, the surface churning into a chaotic web of white foam and bubbles.

Dorrent didn’t move. He didn’t even lift his head from the lounger. He sat perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the rippling blue water as the foam slowly began to settle. The silence returned to the courtyard, heavy and suffocating.

She’ll swim out, Dorrent told himself, his voice internal, cold and detached. She’s from the docks of 3rd Street. Everyone from the lower sectors knows how to tread water. She’s just trying to cause a scene. She’ll emerge any second, dripping and looking more ridiculous than she already does.

Five seconds passed. Then ten. Then fifteen.

The surface of the water remained unbroken. Deep beneath the blue, a dark, baggy shadow was twisting violently. Jannah’s head finally broke the surface, but she wasn’t swimming. Her eyes were wide with a blind, primal terror, her mouth gasping for air only to swallow a throatful of chlorinated water.

She couldn’t swim. The heavy, water-logged flannel pajamas were acting like an anchor, wrapping around her slender legs and dragging her down into the deep end.

"Help—" she choked out, her voice cut short as she sank back beneath the surface, her small hands clawing frantically at the water, fighting a losing battle against the weight of her clothes. She was drowning. She was thrashing, her lungs burning, her body writhing in a desperate, pathetic struggle for survival.

Dorrent watched every second of it. A dark, dangerous thought bloomed in his mind. Let her drown. Let the water finish what I couldn’t. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t push her. My father cannot blame me for an accident born of her own stupidity. If she dies here, the secret dies with her, and I am free. He leaned back further into the lounger, his heart beating with a cold, steady rhythm as he watched her movements grow slower, her body beginning to go limp beneath the blue. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Dorrent!"

A thunderous roar shattered his calculations. Guron Grefo had just stepped out onto the upper balcony, his eyes flaring with an ancient, furious power as he witnessed the scene below. His voice carried the crushing weight of a dominant Alpha command. "Save her! Dive in and get the girl out right now, or I swear to the goddess I will ruin you before the sun sets!"

The sheer force of his father’s aura slammed into Dorrent’s nervous system, leaving him no choice. He spat a curse, threw his sunglasses onto the glass table, and lunged off the lounger.

He dove into the pool with a clean, powerful arc, his large body cutting through the water like a torpedo. Within two strokes, he reached the deep end where Jannah’s limp, flannel-clad form was slowly drifting toward the bottom. He grabbed her by the waist, his powerful legs kicking as he hoisted her toward the surface.

They broke the water together. Jannah was violently coughing, wheezing and spitting up water, her body trembling with convulsive, freezing aftershocks.

Dorrent hauled her toward the shallow steps, huddling her tightly into his arms to keep her from sliding back under. He carried her like a child, her soaked, heavy body pressed firmly against his bare, broad chest. The freezing water had turned the baggy flannel pajama top completely translucent, sealing the fabric tightly against her skin like a second layer of epidermis.

As she writhed in his grip, gasping for air and clinging to his shoulders for dear life, Dorrent’s breath suddenly hitched.

The thin, wet flannel revealed everything. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. The sudden, extreme shock of the cold pool water had caused her firm breasts to harden instantly at the nipples . With every desperate, ragged breath she took, her hard, pert nipples poked directly against the bare, heated skin of his chest, rubbing against his pectoral muscles with every movement of her writhing torso.

The contact was electric, a sudden, burning jolt of raw friction that sent a wave of heat straight to his body. His heart spiked, his S-tier instincts flaring at the intense, naked proximity of her flesh against his.

He stopped on the second step of the pool, his arms tightening around her with a force that was almost bruising. He looked down at her flushed, wet face, his eyes dark with a sudden, volatile mixture of rage, humiliation, and a dangerous, unbidden desire.

"Stop moving," Dorrent growled, his voice a low, jagged rasp that vibrated directly against her skin. He leaned his head down, his lips inches from her ear as his grip locked her body into place. "And don’t you dare rub your breasts against my chest again."